Michelle Forbes (Maryann) Sam Trammell (Sam Merlotte): Credit HBO, inc.
I admire Michelle Forbes for several reasons but none more so than her willingness to be candid about how she thinks and feels--despite criticism for making "bad" career choices. An early example of this was when she was cast as Ensign Ro Laren on the television show Star Trek: The Next Generation. Ensign Ro, a Bajoran, was well-liked by Star Trek: TNG fans who were dumbfounded when just as her role on the show was expanding Forbes feared being typecast and she bolted, leaving the Star Trek universe behind.
Michelle Forbes as Ensign Ro on Star Trek:The Next Generation
It didn't stop me from enjoying the times that I found her on the small screen. The role I enjoyed her in most (though admittedly, I've not seen quite a bit of her TV work--she's done a lot of it) was as Admiral Cain of the Pegasus on Battlestar Galactica in the telefilm "Razor" (Michelle was the razor!). She should have gotten an award for that performance which included both the film and a multi-episode arc but alas (to my knowledge), she did not.
Now comes True Blood and by every account I've seen she's a fan favourite. Now too comes an in-depth interview by TVGuide.com and kudos to them because they did an excellent job of getting the kind of details that fans of the show clamour for.
But Michelle being who she is went ahead and stated her feelings in the interview about "book-ies"--those of us that have read Charlaine Harris' Sookie Stackhouse series which the show is based on, and some of us who expect the series to be true to the books. I would think "book-ies," who love the show but hate that it doesn't reproduce the books line-for-line are in the minority.
Just the same, Michelle using the term 'book-ies" sounds sort of like they are a little cult (kind of like Trekkies) though within context it sounds like she meant no derision. Still, but I feel a backlash coming. "Where does she get off blah, blah. Who does she think she is!? And so on.
I say let it go. Michelle plays wicked strong women who we love to watch. Offstage, she sounds like a strong woman, firm in her opinions and able to articulate them quite intelligently. For lack of better terminology you have to take the whole package. I don't think there was anything wrong with what she said to to TVGuide which was:
TVGuide.com: Were you a fan of Charlaine Harris' Sookie Stackhouse novels?
"I'd never even heard of them. I bought them, read the first one and then put them down because we are telling our own story. For the "book-ies" out there, everyone has to remember that it's an adaptation, not a translation."
I really enjoyed reading the interview and felt I came away more enlightened about the show. A couple of my favourite quotes are below (be sure to click through to read the article in full).
How Forbes sums up True Blood:
"You have this landscape for social commentary, for questioning injustice, compassion and our pack-mentality thinking allegorically."
About Maryann being rather Zen in her outlook on life:
"She's happy; she's happier than all of us. It pisses me off actually."
About what she like the most about inhabiting Maryann as a character: ...
"... it has been liberating playing Maryann. There is a sense of contentment that was, to be honest, initially horrifying and frightening to me. She's not afraid of anything, and not in that clichéd way, she's truly just OK. She's not afraid. She can eat what she likes, she can have sex with whom she likes, she can play with whom she likes. She can dress in beautiful clothes. She has everything at her fingertips. There's nothing she doesn't need."
And quite amusingingly, she describes exactly how her wardrobe helps her channel Maryann:
"She is that Ibiza party girl. She's the girl who never left the party, but it hasn't hurt her. Those people are usually quite tragic, but she's not. She doesn't give one blink as to what people think of her. She's free of all those constraints."
And one SPOILER about just what Maryann is:
Q: So Maryann is a hybrid of some sort?
Forbes: 'Yes. With these characters, you can do as much research as you want, but you're not going to find out that vampires sometimes wear tracksuits and flip-flops.'
Source: TVGuide.com
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