Author: Austin Siegemund-Broka

Courtesy HBO

Karolina Wydra from “True Blood”

[Warning: this story contains spoilers from Sunday’s episode of True Blood, “Almost Home.”]

It wasn’t going to end well for Violet (Karolina Wydra) after she took hostages to get revenge on Jason (Ryan Kwanten) in last week’s True Blood episode.

But the actress is happy with her character’s death in Sunday’s episode, the shooting by a recently returned Hoyt (Jim Parrack) that ended her two-season run on the show, she tells The Hollywood Reporter.

“I think she gets honored with that. They honor Violet with a nice death,” Wydra says. “It’s definitely a painful death for her. She’s been around for 800 years.”

The sex-torture sanctum where she threatens Jessica (Deborah Ann Woll), Adilyn (Bailey Noble) and Wade (Noah Matthews) with unambiguously named devices (the “breast-ripper”) was designed using her own research on medieval torture instruments. She and writer Kate Barnow traded photos and information, and the result was one of her favorite of Violet’s scenes. “They were like, ‘Wait till you see it.’ I could only see photos. Then when I saw it I was like, ‘Ok this is amazing,'” she says. “It’s so dark, it’s so terrible to say, but they’re great.”

Violet is the episode’s villain and has been “aggressive” for two seasons, Wydra says, but there’s more to the character.

“I think there’s a reason for everything she does. She comes off as very fiery and intense, but I think that intensity comes from her strong belief systems,” she says. “She protects Sookie [Anna Paquin] and Jason. She’s very protective—even with Jessica, somebody hurts her, and Violet’s like, ‘You don’t do this to my tribe.'”

The actress tells THR about why fans might dislike Violet and why she had to die.

Violet has been an aggressive, vengeful character this season. Where did you find sympathy in her?

Violet is not evil—I think the whole thing with this season is Violet is trying to fit into Jason’s world, and she’s so wrong in that world. You see her make such mistakes even though she’s trying to be helpful. Like when Alcide (Joe Manganiello) dies and she tells Sookie she’s lost hundreds of boyfriends, it’s so wrong what’s coming out of her mouth, but she’s trying. She’s trying to fit into this world. You see it when you finally see her house there in episode eight, her speech about where she comes from, and you realize she’s been with the most powerful men in history, and now she’s with a regular dude. She’s trying something different, she’s trying to walk away from what she knows, but she’s too worldly and been around for too long. When he’s asking about having kids, it’s like, to her, “When there’s war we fight.” It doesn’t fit into that world for her.

One of her most surprising moments this season is letting Jason comfort Jessica upstairs in episode five. Is that her protectiveness?

She sees the heartbroken Jessica, and that’s the thing about Violet, she gets it. Infidelity is a no-no in her book. [James (Nathan Parsons)] betrayed her, she knows that Jessica and Jason have this bond and [Jessica] would appreciate Jason being there, so at the moment Violet’s like “Go, she’s experiencing this terrible feeling.” Violet is understanding of things—”Yeah, go help her out, be where you need to be.” She doesn’t have time for bullshit, but at that moment she can see how devastated Jessica is. She’s very much there to do what needs to be done. That backfires on her. That’s such a deep betrayal, what Jessica does to her.

How did you react to finding out you would be killed?

I found out pretty soon when we started filming. Bucky [showrunner Brian Buckner] told me that Violet is going to meet her true death, and it was like with anything, first you’re like, “Oh my god, this is going to happen.” But at the same time I totally understood because I don’t think Violet and Jason were a couple that could stay together forever. I think they both realized she’s something different than what Jason wants, and she thinks Jason can be the man that she needs and he’s not that. They’re very drawn to each other but there’s a big conflict between them. So, it makes sense. Jason can’t get rid of Violet. You don’t get rid of Violet. You don’t break up with Violet. I don’t think she wouldn’t just walk away. She has to die.

How would you describe their relationship?

The relationship with Violet and Jason cracks me up. I found it really funny. Like with the ring [Andy (Chris Bauer) gives Holly (Lauren Bowles) in episode five], she’s like, “I don’t need any ring.” but deep down inside she’s dying for a ring. I think in [episode] three, what happens in that speech they give to each other, when I talked to Brian about it, it’s almost that at the end if we weren’t interrupted, it would have been like, “Oh shit, we are so wrong for each other,” but we get interrupted and we’ve got to go fight. Alcide dies and there’s a party, and there are these moments where for Jason and Violet, she would want [a proposal], but at the same time, things are not right for them. And of course, there’s some jealousy. She’s trying to cover it up, but she responds to it.

What got you into character?

I do visual collages that help me maintain the deep core of what’s going on with her, and I [visualized] an animal for her. She’s a black panther—the way they move, their eyes, and how they take their time with stuff. They’re very protective of their families, their little ones, and they’re nocturnal. The collages have to do with images of inspiration of who she would have been in the past, actresses that bring out her sexuality. There are many different things, images that I see that are like, that’s so Violet. Sophia Loren—her sexuality is very luscious, and with a lot of the makeup I’d ask for a cat-eye eyeliner—or a panther would be on there, and old Catholic symbolism. I had Anna Magnani. If you ever watch her work, when she got passionate, she was very passionate. She had a lot of intensity when she performed. It’s fun to do that, [the collages] are very inspiring.

There’s been some fan backlash against Violet. Why do you think that is?

It’s hard to get behind someone when you don’t know their background. When somebody comes in in a powerful manner, you’re going to be like, “I’m sorry, who are you? Excuse me?” When she first comes in with Jason, she just claims him and tells him how it’s going to go down, and she’s very aggressive. She’s not anybody’s friend. It’s hard at first to understand that, to go behind that and get to know someone, know their reasons. [Fans] might have not really known who she is, why she’s there, what’s her reasoning. She’s just claiming somebody.

And then she tortures Jason—not exactly tortures, but as a woman, I found [their relationship] to be such a powerful thing. If you see Jason, he’s such a womanizer. Women fall for Jason easily, and so does Violet. She’s completely taken with him, but I think she knows the kind of man he is. She’s been around for so many years, and she’s like, “You’re going to have to earn it, you’re going to have to work really hard to get a taste of me in that way.” It’s a powerful thing for a woman to be like, “Go down on me for six months,”—I mean, what woman wouldn’t want that. “Please me for six months while I do nothing.” It goes to show Violet has really strong belief systems. If she wants you, you’ll have her, but you have to earn her. You have to take your time. And when it’s the right moment, you’ll have her.

Email: Austin.Siegemund-Broka@THR.com
Twitter: @Asiegemundbroka

HBO

Carrie Preston in “True Blood”

[Warning: this story contains spoilers for Sunday’s episode of True Blood, “One Last Time.”]

It’s Arlene (Carrie Preston) who had this True Blood episode’s vampire-blood sex-dream, but the outcome was much different than that of Jason’s (Ryan Kwanten) memorable fantasy of Eric (Alexander Skarsgard) earlier this season.

“It’s a dream, but it shakes her up a little bit,” Preston tells The Hollywood Reporter. In a reprise of the dream, later in the episode, Keith (Riley Smith) comes to visit her at Bellefleur’s—but instead of having sex, the vampire and the Hep V-positive Arlene share a dance.

Their relationship will deepen in the HBO drama’s final episodes, the actress says. It defies Arlene’s previous discomfort with vampires, completing a series-long character arc Preston feels is one of the show’s strongest. “It was a great build. It builds up over the seasons, as opposed to breaking down or kind of fizzling out—it was the opposite,” she tells THR. “I feel like I had a great climb, and where it ended up was perfect.”

The actress chats with THR about Arlene and Keith, sex scene advice and playing her character drunk.

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Arlene doesn’t have the greatest luck with romance. Is she concerned about starting something with Keith?

I think that’s part of what she’s feeling when he shows up at the bar after she talks with Sam. She hasn’t ever been able to have a relationship that worked out. She thought that Terry was it, and he was just too damaged and too hurt and gave in to his own pain—we all have the potential to give in to our own pain if it gets too great.

But at the same time, Arlene is a survivor. She’s certainly someone who people now turn to for advice for how to get through these tough times, because she’s living to tell. I think she becomes someone to look up to, an example of someone who can overcome even the greatest of obstacles.

Where is their relationship headed this season?

She’s so relieved that there’s somebody there for her, that just wants to be there. It’s really the start of their relationship. You feel a sense of real relief from Arlene that she’s got somebody to lean on. I think you’re going to get the sense in this episode that this relationship is definitely has roots, and that those roots are only going to get deeper.

Will her time as a prisoner in Fangtasia affect them?

Not in any obvious way—it’s more in a PTSD kind of way. I think all of the characters are really shaken up and feeling displaced and looking for a touchstone, looking for comfort from others. In a way, it’s very much about relationships in the end.

Q&A ‘True Blood’s Nelsan Ellis on Series Finale and Favorite Lafayette Moments

You shot this sex scene with an actor with whom you’d hardly ever worked. How was filming?

Luckily Riley had never done anything quite like that either, so we were in it together. He is a really sweet, open, wonderful person and actor, and so we immediately connected and got along. That was very helpful—and Simon Jayes, who directed the episode, was a camera operator for the entire series, and this was his first time directing. So he was just as eager as we were to get it right, and Craig Chester is our newest writer, so you have a lot of first-time in this situation. We were all very careful to work out all the details ahead of time, to talk about it and in essence choreograph it so everyone was completely comfortable. That’s pretty much par for the course for True Blood, but it definitely helped to have the director be someone that has been literally photographing me since day one of the show.

When you sort of break it down like a dance, then you don’t think about anything being awkward or strange. You treat it as part of your job, and it’s certainly something that all of my costars have been doing for seven years. I drew my strength from them, and everybody always has stories and tips about how to get through it. I won’t discuss those details, but—it was another day in the True Blood office.

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What are your favorite Arlene moments?

I’m pretty partial to drunk Arlene. Even from day one—in the pilot she’s in the back of the bar, saying something like “It’s that vampire.” Then you jump ahead to when she sees Bill [Stephen Moyer] walking in daylight, that line “Y’all, I’m wasted,” and then in just episode five when she sees Keith and says, “I have to go make tinkle because I am a human.” She’s pretty funny, I’m partial to Arlene drunk. I do this thing where I spin around and around in place, and then they say “Action” and I’m having a hard time standing.

How has her character changed over seven seasons?

She’s much more open-minded. At the beginning of the series, she was representative of that narrow-minded part of our culture, not very tolerant toward things that are different. Throughout the seasons, she’s become much more tolerant of people and of supernaturals that are not like her, and that is a huge, huge thing. It takes a lot to change a person’s mind, and her mind has been completely changed. I really think she’s got one of the strongest arcs on the series. She has really grown more than a lot of the characters—to have her at the beginning be so terrified of vampires and at the end actually starting a relationship with one, that’s a remarkable thing.

Email: Austin.Siegemund-Broka@THR.com

Twitter: @Asiegemundbroka

FX Networks

“The Bridge”

[Warning: This story contains spoilers for the Wednesday, July 16, episode of The Bridge, “Ghost of a Flea.”]

Diane Kruger’s El Paso detective Sonya Cross has an unlikely new romantic interest in The Bridge’s second season — and it doesn’t end well, Kruger warns.

PHOTOS Emmys: On the Set of ‘The Bridge’ During the FX Series’ Bank Shoot

In Wednesday’s episode, Lieutenant Hank Wade (Ted Levine) interferes in Sonya’s relationship with Jack Dobbs (Nathan Phillips), the brother of the brain-damaged man who killed her sister. With Jim Dobbs (Brad William Henke) comatose and dying, Sonya begins her liaison with Jack because she wants to maintain a connection with his brother, Kruger said in an interview with reporters.

“She’s never really been able to move on, and she’s been searching for answers out of Jim Dobbs for the past 15 years,” the actress said. “When he is about to die, meeting his brother has this strange fascination for her, [him] being someone whom she shares history with.”

Their family ties aren’t all that draws her to him, she continued. “He doesn’t judge her, doesn’t think she’s odd and weird,” she said. “There’s a little rebellion toward Ted as well, who obviously thinks this is not a good idea. I think there’s this need of wanting to have a relationship, to not let go of that history, and then she opens herself up and gets burned.”

The season will strain her father-daughter relationship with Hank, Kruger said, who is keeping secret that he was responsible for Jim Dobbs’ brain injury. “As that relationship gets tested, I think she comes out of it a much stronger, independent woman, and she’s starting to realize things are not so black-and-white,” Kruger said.

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The same tension will come between Sonya and her former partner Marco Ruiz (Demian Bichir), who’s still reeling from the death of his son and the collapse of his marriage. In Wednesday’s episode, Marco goes across the border to work with Sonya due to the influence of cartel leader Fausto Galvan (Ramon Franco), to whom he is indebted, but he and Sonya are heading toward a confrontation. “There’s a big fallout over whether she believes he’s taken too many steps into the darkness, into that gray zone,” Kruger said. 

The Bridge’s second season premiered July 9 to a low 1.5 million viewers the night of, down from the 3.04 million who watched the night of the first season’s premiere. The FX drama from Elwood Reid and Meredith Stiehm is now under Reid as its only showrunner, with Stiehm having returned to Homeland as a writer and executive producer. “His vision is darker, for sure, but also more complex,” Kruger said.

This season is its first departure from the Swedish-Danish series Bron (in Danish, Broen), from which it was adapted, and it will not trace a single serial killer storyline like the previous season. It will instead interconnect the characters’ personal lives and American involvement with Mexican drug cartels at the border, Kruger said. 

But it will pit Sonya against its “very [Quentin] Tarantino-esque” new villain, Eleanor Nacht (Franka Potente), who killed a teenager in Wednesday’s episode but whose intentions are unclear. “When our characters finally meet, I think Eleanor is so odd and so different that on some level, Sonya’s fascinated by that,” Kruger said. “Those two women will dance around each other.”

“It gets pretty dark for Sonya,” the actress warned. “It’s a great season of personal maturity.”

The Bridge airs Wednesdays at 10 p.m. on FX.

Email: Austin.Siegemund-Broka@THR.com
Twitter: @asiegemundbroka