Cast Update: Kristin Bauer & Ryan Kwanten reunite, Stephen Moyer turns CIA, Sam Trammell is the new VP
It’s time for another update on the True Blood cast and creative team. Take a look at where you can find your faves on the big and small screens.
Alan Ball
Alan is filming a new project, a movie titled Uncle Frank. Some scenes were filmed on location in Wilmington, NC, in April but little is known about the movie’s plot.
Kristin Bauer van Straten
Kristin has another fairy tale-related project in the works. The former Maleficent on Once Upon a Time is joining the second season of the anthology series Sacred Lies: The Singing Bones on Facebook Watch. She’ll reunite with her True Blood co-star, Ryan Kwanten, who also joins the cast this season in the series created by True Blood writer Raelle Tucker. This season’s storyline draws inspiration from a story collected from the Brothers Grimm, The Singing Bone, as well as real-life murder cases.
She is also filming the horror thriller Paradise Cove this summer with Mena Suvari and Todd Grinnell. The movie follows a contractor and his wife (Grinnell, Suvari) who head to Malibu to flip the husband’s late mother’s beach house. Things go astray when the couple is terrorized by the deranged homeless woman (Bauer van Straten) living underneath the house.
Brian Buckner
Brian will team up with his True Blood colleague Angela Robinson to adapt the new literary thriller Lock Every Door for Paramount Television. Just released on July 2, the novel follows Jules Larsen’s new job as an apartment sitter at the Bartholomew, one of Manhattan’s oldest, most elite and secretive buildings in the Upper West Side. When a fellow apartment sitter goes missing, Jules begins to dig into the Bartholomew’s mysterious history, discovering sordid secrets hidden within its walls and that her fate may already be doomed like those that came before her.
Anna Camp
This spring Anna filmed Desperados, a comedy film for Netflix about a woman (Nasim Pedrad) who falls for the perfect guy, but when he doesn’t return a call she sends him a ranting email. When she learns the man has been stuck in a Mexican hospital with numerous injuries, she grabs her friends for a crazy trip south of the border to delete the email from his computer. Desperados is filming on location in Mexico. No release date has been announced yet.
James Frain
In addition to playing Sarek on Star Trek: Discovery, James (aka Franklin Mott) appeared with Ginnifer Goodwin in The Twilight Zone episode “Point of Origin” on CBS All Access in May.
Ryan Kwanten
Ryan filmed the new movie Loveland in Hong Kong this spring before production moved to Australia. Described as “romantic sci-fi”, Loveland “unites two lonely souls, Jack, a hardened assassin, and April, a nightclub singer. Together, they search for what it once was to be human, until it confronts them, revealing the true mystery of their existence.” Ryan plays Jack and Jillian Nguyen plays April. Loveland is written and directed by Ivan Sen.
Ryan Kwanten on location for Loveland, a romantic sci-fi film currently in production.
Ryan is also joining the cast of Sacred Lies: The Singing Bones, the second season of the anthology series on Facebook Watch. He’ll reunite with his True Blood co-star, Kristin Bauer, who also joins the cast this season in the series created by True Blood writer Raelle Tucker. This season’s storyline draws inspiration from a story collected from the Brothers Grimm, The Singing Bone, as well as real-life murder cases.
Joe Manganiello
Joe made a couple of guest star turns on TV recently. He appears on One Day At a Time, season 3 episode 12, as the leader of an AA group. This aligns with his openness about his own journey to sobriety. Joe also guest starred on The Big Bang Theory, season 12 episode 16 as part of a celebrity Dungeons & Dragons game. Also on brand!
William Shatner, Wil Wheaton, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Kevin Smith, Mayim Bialik, Kaley Cuoco, Joe Manganiello, and Melissa Rauch in The Big Bang Theory.
He also has a couple of big screen projects coming soon. He’s co-starring in Jay and Silent Bob Reboot, currently filming. He also has the film Shoplifters of the World wrapped and seeking distribution. Based on an urban legend, Shoplifters of the World is set over the course of one night in the lives of four friends in Denver, who are reeling from the news of the split up of iconic British band The Smiths. The local radio station is hijacked by an impassioned Smiths fan with a gun, who makes the DJ (Joe Manganiello) play nothing but Smiths tracks for the entire night.
Stephen Moyer
Stephen will co-star with Kari Matchett (Covert Affairs) in the Canadian spy drama Fortunate Son. Deadline reports the series is set in the late 1960s. Matchett’s character, Ruby, helps smuggle Vietnam War deserters and draft evaders across the Canadian border. Moyer co-stars as Vern Lang, a CIA agent.
Denis O’Hare
Denis is currently recurring in season 2 of HBO’s Big Little Lies as the lawyer representing Celeste (Nicole Kidman), widow of fellow True Blood vampire Alexander Skarsgard’s award-winningly awful Perry, in a custody battle with her mother-in-law.
IFC Films will release The Day Shall Come theatrically and on-demand on September 27. The film follows Moses Al Shabaz (Marchánt Davis), a political activist who runs a mission in the Miami projects with his wife Venus (Danielle Brooks). In addition to Davis and Brooks, the movie stars Anna Kendrick, Jim Gaffigan, and our own Denis O’Hare.
Anna Paquin
Anna’s indie film Tell It to the Bees hit theaters and VOD on May 3. Set in the 1950s, Tell It to the Bees follows Dr. Jean Markham (Anna Paquin) who returns to her hometown to take over her late father’s medical practice. When a school-yard scuffle lands Charlie (Gregor Selkirk) in her surgery, she invites him to visit the hives in her garden and tell his secrets to the bees, as she once did. The new friendship between the boy and the beekeeper brings his mother Lydia (Holliday Grainger) into Jean’s world. In the sanctuary of the doctor’s house the two women find themselves dram to one another in a way that Jean recognizes and fears, and Lydia could never have expected. But, in 1950’s small-town Britain, their new secret can’t say hidden forever.
We’ll next see Anna in the fifth and final season of The Affair on Showtime which premieres August 26. Anna joins the cast as adult Joanie as the story jumps ahead in time.
Carrie Preston
Carrie is currently starring in season 3 of Claws on TNT.
Fiona Shaw
The erstwhile Marnie Stonebrook is currently reprising her role as the head of the Russia section of MI6, Carolyn Martens, on Killing Eve on BBC America and AMC.
Alexander Skarsgard
Alex is currently appearing in season 2 of HBO’s Big Little Lies as Perry White, the character for which he won multiple awards after season 1 aired. Since [SPOILER ALERT] his character was killed at the end of season 1, Alex is part of a flashback storyline as Celeste fights to retain custody of their children with the help of her lawyer, played by True Blood alum/fellow vampire Denis O’Hare.
Godzilla vs. King Kong wrapped filming in Australia in April.
And in professional milestone news, Alex has been invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences. He also received the IMDb STARmeter award at the Tribeca Film Festival after his movie The Kill Team premiered. Check out the gallery of photos here.
Sam Trammell
Continuing a string of projects, Sam recently joined the cast of Homeland for the show’s final season. According to THR, the role is key to a season-long arc, although Sam will be a recurring guest star. He plays Vice President Benjamin Hayes, a political survivor with an aptitude for optics who crosses the aisle to serve alongside the series’ new president, played by Beau Bridges. Bridges’ character believes tapping Hayes is an innocuous choice, one that could help heal the partisan divide, but the politico proves to be more dangerous than anticipated. The final season of Homeland is expected to air on Showtime later this year.
Rutina Wesley
Rutina made a surprise appearance on The Walking Dead, season 9 episode 14, as Jocelyn, a character from Michonne’s past. Currently Rutina is back in the new season of the critically acclaimed Queen Sugar on OWN.
Rutina Wesley as Jocelyn on The Walking Dead / AMC
