46 Fun Facts About True Blood

In True Blood, which metal leaves vampires weak enough to be overpowered and held?

Silver: in the pilot two thugs use it to pin Bill down so they can drain his blood to sell, and Sookie's rescue of him brings the two together.

What supernatural ability does waitress Sookie Stackhouse have?

Sookie's telepathy lets her hear human thoughts, which is why she is drawn to vampire Bill Compton, whose mind she cannot read.

In True Blood, vampires who went public two years before the story begins are said to have come out of what?

The coffin: the phrase is a play on 'coming out of the closet', one of the ways the show frames its vampires' fight for acceptance as a civil-rights struggle.

True Blood is based on The Southern Vampire Mysteries, a 13-book series by which author?

Charlaine Harris: a writer of conventional mysteries, she invented Sookie to shake up her own style, and a contract for ten books eventually stretched to thirteen.

HBO sold a real bottled 'Tru Blood' soft drink to promote True Blood; what flavour was it?

Blood orange: the fizzy drink was made by a company that specialises in turning fictional brands into real products, and was branded to look like the synthetic blood on screen.

True Blood's creator, Alan Ball, had earlier won an Oscar for writing which film?

American Beauty: Alan Ball wrote it after years on the sitcoms Grace Under Fire and Cybill and two film scripts that were never made, and it won him Best Original Screenplay.

In True Blood's backstory, scientists from which country developed the synthetic blood Tru Blood?

Japan: once the bottled blood meant vampires no longer needed to feed on people, they revealed themselves to the world and began campaigning for equal rights.

In True Blood, what is vampire blood called when humans take it as a narcotic?

V: Jason gets hooked on it in season one, and he and his girlfriend Amy end up kidnapping a vampire named Eddie to keep themselves supplied.

What is the name of the bar where Sookie waits tables?

Merlotte's Bar and Grill belongs to Sam Merlotte, a shapeshifter who keeps an eye on Sookie in the form of a dog.

True Blood's vampire sheriff Eric was what in human life a thousand years ago?

Viking warrior: the ancient vampire Godric turned Eric to save his life, which is why Eric drops everything in season two to search for his missing maker.

What is the name of the vampire bar Eric owns?

Fangtasia: Eric's bar in Shreveport is where Sookie first meets him in season one, when she goes there hunting for anything that might clear her brother of murder.

Who plays Sookie Stackhouse?

Anna Paquin: an Oscar winner at eleven for The Piano, she took her first TV series role as Sookie and met her future husband at the screen test.

The actress who plays Sookie in True Blood married which co-star in Malibu in August 2010?

Stephen Moyer plays Bill, and the two began dating while the pilot was being filmed in 2007, so the show's central romance was a real one almost from the first day.

The actor who plays Eric Northman is the son of which Swedish screen veteran?

Stellan Skarsgård: his eldest son Alexander was a child star in Sweden who quit acting at thirteen because he disliked the fame, and came back to it only as an adult.

Which actor played the short-order cook and medium Lafayette Reynolds?

Nelsan Ellis: the novels kill Lafayette off at the start of the second book, but the show kept him alive and he stayed for all seven seasons.

Which Law & Order: SVU star joined True Blood's fifth season as Roman, head of the Vampire Authority?

Christopher Meloni had just walked away from twelve seasons as Detective Stabler, and described his five-centuries-old vampire leader as 'a big old baby' underneath.

Which song plays over True Blood's opening titles?

"Bad Things" by Jace Everett had sunk without charting when it came out in 2005; after the show picked it as its theme, it charted in Britain and climbed to No. 2 in Norway.

True Blood's season-one killer, Rene Lenier, turns out to really be a man named what?

Rene Lenier was really Drew Marshall, who had murdered his own sister Cindy, faked a Cajun accent, got engaged to Arlene and killed women who slept with vampires.

In True Blood's first season, Bill must turn which teenager into a vampire as punishment for killing one?

Jessica Hamby: Bill had staked a fellow vampire to save Sookie, and the tribunal's sentence was that he create a new vampire to replace the one he destroyed.

True Blood's season-two villain Maryann Forrester is what kind of creature?

A maenad: Maryann, played by Michelle Forbes, is an immortal follower of Dionysus from ancient Greece who puts the whole town under her spell and into wild revels.

Godric, the ancient vampire sheriff whose disappearance drives True Blood's second season, rules an area in which state?

Texas: Godric's area takes in Dallas, where the search party learns he was never kidnapped at all but gave himself up to the anti-vampire church of his own free will.

Joe Manganiello's Alcide Herveaux, who joins True Blood in season three, belongs to which supernatural species?

Werewolves: Eric sends Alcide to guard Sookie while she hunts for Bill, who has been kidnapped by a pack of them hooked on vampire blood.

In True Blood, Russell Edgington, played by Denis O'Hare, holds what title?

Vampire King of Mississippi: Russell kills a news anchor on live television in season three, wrecking the vampires' campaign to be accepted by humans.

What is revealed about Sookie's ancestry in season three?

She is part faerie: Bill breaks the news in season three, and it explains why vampires prize her blood, which lets them walk in daylight for a short while.

In True Blood's third season, Jason gets tangled up with which werepanther clan from Hotshot?

The Norrises: Jason falls for Crystal Norris, and the next season her clan locks him up and tries to turn him into a werepanther so he can father its children.

In True Blood's fourth season, Sookie returns from a trip to another realm to find how much time has passed?

A year: in her absence Bill has become King of Louisiana, her brother has sold her house, and Eric turns out to be the mystery buyer.

Who leads the coven of witches that torments True Blood's vampires in season four?

Marnie: the coven leader, played by Fiona Shaw, is possessed by Antonia, a witch burned at the stake in Spain centuries earlier, and casts the spell that wipes Eric's memory.

Which character is shot in True Blood's season-four finale cliffhanger?

Tara: she pushes Sookie out of the way of Debbie Pelt's shotgun and takes the blast herself, so season five opens with Pam turning her into a vampire to save her.

In True Blood's fifth season, the Vampire Authority arrests Bill and Eric for killing whom?

Nan Flanagan: the vampires' television spokeswoman had quit her post and tried to recruit the pair for a coup, and Bill killed her when she threatened Sookie.

What did fans nickname Bill after his blood-soaked rebirth at the end of True Blood's fifth season?

Billith: he drains a vial of blood from Lilith, the vampires' progenitor, dissolves into a pool of blood and rises from it as a far more powerful vampire in her image.

Who is Nora, introduced in True Blood's fifth season?

Nora Gainesborough is Eric's vampire sister, also made by Godric, and an Authority chancellor who secretly belongs to the fundamentalist Sanguinista movement.

Which vampire killed Sookie and Jason's parents, as they learn in True Blood's fifth season?

Warlow, played by Rob Kazinsky in season six, claims he killed Sookie's parents because they were about to kill her to keep her from him, and her father's ghost bears him out.

In True Blood's sixth season, which Louisiana official campaigns to wipe out vampires and locks them in a camp?

Governor Truman Burrell of Louisiana campaigns to exterminate vampires in season six and imprisons them in a research camp where Tru Blood is secretly laced with Hepatitis V.

At the end of True Blood's sixth season, what new job does shapeshifter Sam take in town?

Sam becomes mayor after a six-month time jump, and promptly proposes that every human pair off with a vampire in exchange for protection from infected ones.

What do Eric and Pam name the Hep-V treatment they sell in True Blood's series finale?

New Blood: Eric and Pam build a billion-dollar company on it, telling the world they synthesised the cure from a sample of Sarah Newlin's blood.

How does True Blood's series finale resolve Bill's storyline?

Sookie stakes him at his own request: dying of Hep-V, Bill refuses the cure because he believes she can only have a normal life once he is gone.

True Blood's final scene shows a pregnant Sookie at what kind of gathering?

The final scene jumps years ahead to a Thanksgiving dinner at Sookie's house, where she is pregnant and seated beside a man the show never identifies.

Which couple gets married in True Blood's series finale?

Jessica and Hoyt marry in the finale, even though Hoyt had earlier asked her to wipe every memory of her from his mind before he left for Alaska.

True Blood's second-season premiere drew HBO's biggest audience since the finale of which series?

The Sopranos: the pilot had opened to a modest 1.44 million viewers, but 3.7 million watched the second season begin, HBO's best figure since Tony Soprano signed off.

Which Primetime Emmy did True Blood win in 2009?

Outstanding Casting for a Drama Series: the casting team had peopled the show's Louisiana with a New Zealand-raised lead, an English leading man and a Swedish vampire sheriff.

Which anti-vampire church, led by the Reverend Steve Newlin, recruits Sookie's brother Jason in True Blood?

Fellowship of the Sun: Newlin's church plans 'meet the sun' ceremonies, in which a captured vampire is tied to a cross and left to burn at daybreak.

What became of the True Blood reboot announced in December 2020?

HBO shelved it in 2023; chief Casey Bloys said the scripts never produced anything that 'felt like it got there'.

Which future Westworld star played Sophie-Anne Leclerq, True Blood's vampire queen?

Evan Rachel Wood signed on for just two episodes as the centuries-old queen but kept returning across three seasons, long before she played Dolores in Westworld.

In True Blood's first season, which relative does Sookie come home to find murdered?

Her grandmother: Adele 'Gran' Stackhouse had raised Sookie since her parents died, and after the funeral Sookie sits alone eating the last pie Gran baked.

Which HBO series had Alan Ball made before True Blood, leading to his development deal with the network?

Six Feet Under: when his funeral-home drama ended in 2005, Alan Ball signed an exclusive deal with HBO, and True Blood was the first project to come out of it.

In True Blood, what is a vampire doing to a human when it 'glamours' them?

Hypnotising them: a glamoured human will obey or forget, as when Bill, pulled over while driving Sookie home, simply tells the police officer to let them go.