'True Blood' Season 3: Alan Ball on Joe Manganiello as werewolf Alcide Herveaux

'True Blood' Season 3: Alan Ball on Joe Manganiello as werewolf Alcide Herveaux



If you're one of those "True Blood" fans who thinks he knows who snatched vampire Bill Compton, think again.

"For people who read the book, they'll be surprised who kidnapped Bill," series creator Alan Ball tells Zap2It about the HBO series, which returns for its third season on Sunday June 13. "We definitely have used the plot from the book as a starting point, but we have done a lot differently as well. There's a lot of new stuff happening, a lot more about vampire politics and the introduction of werewolves into our world. And there's stuff going on in Bon Temps as well.

Without giving too much away, everybody's got their hands full, and everybody is being extremely tested by the circumstances of their lives."

It's not the first time Ball and his team have deviated from the best-selling Sookie Stackhouse mysteries by Charlaine Harris, which inspired the hit HBO show. Lafayette Reynolds, the cook at Merlotte's Bar, died at the end of Harris' first book yet he remains a popular mainstay of the TV series, played by Nelsan Ellis.

More controversially, a fairly minor and unnamed supernatural creature in book two became Maryann Forrester (Michelle Forbes) in the second season of "True Blood." That was largely by design, Ball explains.

"Part of our challenge is that the books are basically Sookie's (Anna Paquin) story, and they're not anyone else's story outside of how they interact with Sookie," he says. "We're always looking for a way to create stories for the other characters and at the same time unify everything that keeps all the characters involved with each other as much as we can.

"Our cast just continues to expand, so it's a challenge finding a way to serve everybody. But I think that's part of the appeal of the show, that there are so many characters with so many different stories, so there's something for everybody."

Among season three's major new cast member is Joe Manganiello as heroic werewolf, Alcide Herveaux. Ball says he immediately saw the actor's potential when he came in to read for a smaller role on the show, but it didn't hurt that the Internet had been buzzing for months with fans clamoring for Manganiello to get the part.

"Alcide was hard to cast, and interestingly enough, there was a lot of fan in interest in Joe," Ball says. "There were a lot of people on his message boards on IMDB saying this guy should play Alcide. It's always difficult to find somebody who is going to fit into the world of the show, because the show is kind of crazy and over the top, but the acting is really grounded. We have a cast of really, really good actors, so you can't just bring someone in who is pretty or charismatic and they'll be able to hold their own. We lucked out with Joe, because he's trained and also physically appropriate for the role. Joe just brought the whole package."

Manganiello, a "True Blood" fan himself, is overwhelmed by the support he has received even before he has appeared on the show, and he's confident the show's viewers will find season three the best one yet.

"People's minds are going to go crazy, especially when we start really picking up some steam in the middle of the season," he tells Zap2It. "It starts out wild and it just gets crazier, and it answers questions that people have always pondered, but in answering those questions all these other questions get thrown out. It's awesome."