Carrie Preston: "You know what? I've always been interested in, and I mean even when I was a kid, like when I was in seventh grade I started my own theatre company in the backyard with all the neighborhood kids. So I guess I just always had this need to or this kind of passion for creating the whole thing and not just the one part. I directed in college and then I sort of put it on the back-burner for a long time, and then about five years ago one of my classmates from Juilliard, James Vasquez, he wrote a script called 29th and Gay, a film script, and he asked me if I wanted to help him get it made. We tried to raise money but no one would give us money because we didn’t have a track record, so we just did it ourselves. Which was really naïve, but at the same time it was like, well, there was no reason we thought in our minds that we couldn't. Everyone kept saying, 'You can't do this,' and we were like, 'Yes, we can.' And so we did it and we sold it. Then we made a short film and that did a bunch of festivals, and then James wrote Ready? Ok! which is our latest film. He wrote and directed it and he wrote it for me and for my husband Michael [Emerson] and my brother John. So I star in that one and executive produced it."
And that one’s just coming out on DVD, right?
Carrie Preston: "Yes, it just came out last week so we’re very excited about that."
Is it being able to control more of where your career is going and what you're working on that led you to producing?
Carrie Preston: "Oh absolutely. Absolutely, yes. I mean with 29th and Gay that came at a time when I wasn’t doing a lot of acting work. It was just like a godsend because although I didn’t act in it - I directed it - it was just like something I had to put all of my creative energies into, so that I'm not sitting around waiting for the phone to ring, you know? It was very empowering, and so I started doing that more. I would direct plays here and there and just kind of try to have my own projects going so that I'm not dependent on other people to tell me how my life is supposed to go."
So then you formed Daisy 3 Pictures. How are you choosing your producing projects?
Carrie Preston: "Well, so far, two of them were written by James, my producing partner. And then it’s just kind of organic. I mean he's developing my script right now, I'm developing a script that I'm writing with a friend and then another friend of mine wrote a script that actually I directed it as a stage piece and we've adapted it for the screen. And so we're going to try to get that done. It’s all like within my little circle of friends, really. There's so many talented people that are around me that it’s just like, 'Let’s just do something. Why do we need to wait?'"
But do you ever sleep?
Carrie Preston: [Laughing] "That's so funny - my husband would ask that. Yes, of course. Like right now I'm working on True Blood but I don’t work that much, so I have a lot of downtime. I mean, I work maybe a couple of days per episode. But I'm still every day at the computer, on the phone, like trying to get things going. But no, I do take a lot of time down too."
And with True Blood, because your character’s not in every scene, it should allow you all that extra time.
Carrie Preston: "Yes, it works out well, especially since Michael shoots [Lost] in Hawaii most of the time."
Do you get to go with him?
Carrie Preston: "I do. I go and visit him as much as I can. He's on hiatus now and we still have some more to shoot. So, you know, he's going to hang out with me while I'm shooting. It’s working out pretty well."
Does that mean we’ll see him as a vampire or something in an episode of True Blood?
Carrie Preston: "I hope so."
That would be very cool.
Carrie Preston: "Yes, exactly. I know that they’ve been talking about it because Alan’s a big fan of Michael's - Alan Ball - so I know that they were sort of talking about trying to find something for Michael. But I don’t know if it’ll be this season or what."
Well I hope there's going to be lots of seasons of that show.
Carrie Preston: "I hope so, I hope so. I hope it doesn't get too expensive for HBO to keep it going."
Don’t they have the money?
Carrie Preston: [Laughing] "You would think so. I mean Deadwood got to be too expensive and they let that go and Carnivale. You know, it’s sort of like we're all kind of nervous that the show’s going to get too expensive and they’re just going to go, 'We’d rather just stick with In Treatment because it’s cheaper.'"
I was addicted to Carnivale. I was so mad when they took that off.
Carrie Preston: "Me too, I loved it. And Deadwood I loved."
They always do that though. They take off the ones that I fall in love with and I vowing I'm never watching anything on TV again, and then you get hooked.
Carrie Preston: "And then you get hooked. But True Blood seems to have a pretty big fan base."
We wouldn’t want to give away any spoilers from the second season of True Blood, but you are not done filming that yet, right?
Carrie Preston: "No, we’re just up to number seven. We’re shooting number seven right now of twelve."
When I was talking to Alexander Skarsgard at the Independent Spirit Awards he said they changed some of the sets this year. Did they change anything about Merlotte's?
Carrie Preston: "No, Merlotte's is good, old Merlotte's. I love it in there. It’s an amazing set. You really do feel like you're in a bar."
Did you read Charlaine Harris' books before you got the role of Arlene?
Carrie Preston: "When I got the part I read them, yes."
Page 3: On True Blood Season 2
