So just how does “True Blood’s” Stephen Moyer spend Halloween? Sometimes, he takes his work home with him...
“For the first year of the show, because the show wasn't massive at the time, I just thought that it'd be funny to dress up and do that,” Moyer tells PopcornBiz of dressing up as his "True Blood" alter ego Bill Compton for a round of parties in Los Angeles. “You do get people going, 'That's good – you look just like the guy!' You go, 'Oh, thanks.' So I did do that – I wouldn't do it now, but it was funny at the time.”
Despite being surrounded by vampires, werewolves, shape-shifters, fairies and other supernatural beings on a regular basis while filming the show, Moyer says he and wife Anna Paquin still get excited around Oct. 31.
“One of my favorite things every year post-Halloween is that we get sent pictures [from HBO] of all the Bills and Sookies that go to Halloween parties around the country,” says Moyer. “I've seen hundreds and hundreds of them. It's very funny. Of course the ultimate sort of I suppose compliment is that Ed Helms played Bill in an episode of 'The Office.'”
Moyer, who last year dressed as Playboy publisher Hugh Hefner, says he’ll be hitting a favorite Halloween party – but without his wife. “There's a good friend of ours called Michael Dougherty, who wrote 'X-Men 2' and is a great filmmaker in his own right – he did a film called 'Trick 'R Treat' with Anna. He's a very clever boy, and he has this amazing Halloween party where everyone dresses up. We're not going to be together this year because my company and myself are producing a film that Anna is working in right this second down in Florida. So I will be going with my daughter. She will by my scene partner this year, as she always is at Halloween.”
The actor next has his own non-“True Blood” role ahead, in the spy thriller “The Double” opposite Richard Gere and Topher Grace. “It has a lot of homage to a certain style of filmmaking from the '70's and espionage thrillers John Le Carre and everything from the '39 Steps' to 'Spy Games,' or my favorite, 'Three Days of the Condor,' that kind of thing,” the actor says. “And there's a lot in common with this and a film called 'No Way Out,’ one of Kevin Costner's early movies. It's a fantastic film, and in fact they showed, Michael showed 'No Way Out' to the crew the night before we started shooting because he wanted to give everyone an idea of the color that he was trying to paint with.”
Until then, if he ever decides to go trick or treating in character as Bill again, Moyer wonders about the response he’ll get. “Maybe they'll say something like, 'Oh, you look like Ed Helms from "The Office."'
