True Blood's Kristin Bauer van Straten on Season 3: 'There's a Lot of Good Eye Candy'

True Blood's Kristin Bauer van Straten on Season 3: "There's a Lot of Good Eye Candy"



Fangbangers, rejoice! True Blood is back and it's sexier than ever. Along with an onslaught of new characters, fan-favorite vampire lieutenant Pam (Kristin Bauer van Straten) will be stepping into the spotlight, as Bauer has been promoted to be a series regular. TVGuide.com caught up with Bauer — who also told us about her charitable work to secure the world's whale population — to get the lowdown on Pam's promotion, Eric and Sookie's relationship and the ever-present threat of death during Season 3.

TVGuide.com: Congrats on becoming a series regular. How does it feel?
Kristin Bauer van Straten: It's so good, wonderful on many levels. I feel like I've been invited to the greatest party on Earth.

TVGuide.com: So we'll see a lot more of Pam this season?
Bauer van Straten: Yes, we do. We also learn a lot more about her. I'm surprised to find that she has a sensitive side. It's all about identity this year and peeling the onion, finding out the deeper layers of these characters. For every character, we see their integrity and also their vulnerability and sexuality. Everything is pushed a little further, but really deeper.

TVGuide.com: Speaking of sexuality, it has never been completely clear what Pam's sexuality is. Will that delved into this season?
Bauer van Straten: It will become more clear. We definitely find out that she's at least bisexual. There's more than a hint on that one. [Laughs]

TVGuide.com: This season is so much more supernatural, but you've already been immersed in that playing a vampire.
Bauer van Straten: Yes. My world is more about my relationship with Eric [Alexander Skarsgård] and the politics of the vampire world. You get to see Pam's astoundingly deep relationship with Eric and where her integrity and loyalty lies. She's still sarcastic, she's still wearing amazing clothing, but also we see the person behind the vampire.

TVGuide.com: How will Pam feel about Eric being distracted by Sookie (Anna Paquin) this season?
Bauer van Straten: We are dealing with that. Pam is such a great lieutenant because she wants to keep Eric's eye in the game, but her main focus is to always have him around. She'd give her life for this guy. We'll discover her purpose in Eric's life.

TVGuide.com: With so many new characters this season, do you feel like their stories take away from the main characters?
Bauer van Straten: [Executive producer] Alan Ball and the team are balancing it so beautifully because the interaction with all these new characters gives opportunity to show the mettle of each character that we know already. How everybody is dealing with these things coming in actually gives us all the opportunity to show more sides of our characters, and that's what's definitely happened for Pam.

TVGuide.com: Will the werewolves be threatening the vampire territory at all?
Bauer van Straten: We have only seen the vampires dealing with humans, and clearly the fun there has been the vampires wanting to be accepted, but we know the vampires can kick the human's a--es, but now we have this other supernatural thing that has a history with vampires and that adds a whole new level of complication and danger. Also: It's sexy.

TVGuide.com: Yes, the promos for the third season have been pretty sexy.
Bauer van Straten: [Laughs] The actors they've hired are very sexy. There's a lot of good eye candy for everyone now. It's astounding. I look around at the table reads and think, "This is a good-looking room!"

TVGuide.com: Alan Ball told me that someone dies this season that "we'll be happy to see go." Do you agree with that?
Bauer van Straten: Yeah, I agree. Also, every single big happening this season sets a domino effect that is really interesting, exciting and complicated. It's very, very brilliantly layered.

TVGuide.com: Tell me about your work with the International Fund for Animal Welfare [to preserve a commercial-whaling ban that may be overturned].
Bauer van Straten: I flew out to D.C. on Earth Day and I'm spending every moment I can because this really can be turned around if people just dialed the White House and said, "Don't kill whales." We just want to let Obama know that we don't want whales being hunted. There's no humane way to do it. They're enormous, so they have to shoot them with an exploding harpoon. It's awful.

Are you excited for the return of True Blood?