AE: Can we play a fun character word association game? Would you rather answer as Lafayette or as Nelsan?
NE: Nelsan.
AE: Sookie.
NE: Sexy.
AE: Anna Paquin.
NE: Smart. She is very, very, very smart.
AE: She started in the business at such a young age, it is difficult to make the transition to an adult actor. She must be smart.
NE: She is very, very smart.
AE: Tara [Sookie's friend].
NE: Fiery.
AE: Rutina Wesley.
NE: Rutina? Meek. She is nothing like her character [Tara]. You yell at her, and she’s gonna start crying. She is nothing like her character. I went to school with her. She is nothing like Tara.
AE: How does she do that, how does she turn that on?
NE: She’s a good actress. She is nothing like her character. She doesn’t yell. If you yell at her, she’ll get teary-eyed. She hides behind her husband.
AE: She gets powerful!
NE: She does.
AE: So you were friends before the show?
NE: Yes.
Rutina Wesley, Nelsan Ellis and Anna Paquin
AE: Alan Ball.
NE: Laid back.
AE: Really?
NE: Yes, the man is laid back. He always acts like he has had two shots of vodka. He just chill all the time. It makes for a very, very, very chill set. There’s no yelling. There’s no shouting. Everything’s just chill, all the time.
AE: What about Jason?
NE: Jason, uh – sexaholic. Is that a word? Nympho.
AE: Ryan Kwanten.
NE: Cool.
AE: You guys have a lot of scenes together.
NE: We love working together. We both like ad-libbing and when we get together, it just works out.
AE: Do you get a lot of freedom to do that?
NE: Yeah. I mean, Alan can chose not to use it, but in four episodes, two of them we can just sort of, he always goes, “Okay, just do what you want on this take.” And all of the directors do that so we’ll have at least two takes where we just sort of say whatever the hell we want to say and do whatever we want to do. It’s a good time. Ryan is – we have a good time.
AE: Arlene.
NE: Racist.
AE: Really?
NE: Arlene is so biased, yeah. I think she’s racist, too. That’s just – I think Arlene is like backwater. I think Carrie [Preston]makes a choice to make it that way which is why her accent is so like ridiculously backwater. She sounds like the person my grandmother worked for way deep in Alabama. Yeah, that’s how Carrie chose her accent.
AE: She has that line about the good doilies . . . And what about Rene [played by Michael Raymond-James]?
NE: Rene is shady.
AE: Shady?
NE: That actor makes marvelous choices and you put it together mid-season. In rehearsals while we were shooting, there was a point in the seventh episode where I looked back and I went, “That dude is brilliant.” Because he is very, very shady. Very, very, very shady.
AE: As an actor, what kind of projects are you drawn to? Are you more a theater guy? Movies?
NE: Movies. Yeah, I went to school for seven years straight so theater … I was like, if I don’t see another theater again . . . It was just seven years straight of just theater. I love movies and I’m drawn to stuff that’s weird. I get to be weird. I like to play characters that are offbeat, because I’m offbeat. I like to – the straight dude, you know the straight guy, I’m not really interested in that. I want the crackhead, junkie, you know what I mean? Insane person. Something that’s a little off-kilter. Everything that my parents are completely against because they’re Southern Baptist.
AE: Have you done anything yet?
NE: Yeah, I did a couple movies.
AE: Anything specific that you really enjoyed?
NE: Yes, I did The Soloist with Robert Downey, Jr., Jamie Foxx and Catherine Keener. And Robert Downey, Jr. is a god among men. All my scenes are with him and he’s marvelous. He’s marvelous. We had one scene where the man was so good that, said, “Damn, he’s so good,” in the middle of the scene, and they’re like, “Cut. You have to not say that.” He’s good.
AE: Thank you so much for stopping by, it was a pleasure to meet you.
NE: Thank you sir.
AE: I think we’re all enjoying the show and we’re looking forward to seeing what comes up for you and for him.
NE: All right. Keep watching. It gets better and better and better.
Thanks for the interview
Nelsan Ellis is a total HOTTIE
Thanks for the great interview with Nelsan Ellis. I LOVE what he has done with his character on True Blood. He's made him sexy, warm, charming, mysterious, glam and all man.
I want to see more of his character and his love life.
xxooJim
Nelsan helped create such an
Thank you for representing!!!!
There are not many characters of African decent represented on the screen, whether it be the big or small one. Let alone the stories of a homosexual African American character. I am SOOO loving this!! Go ahead Nelsan, do you thing! I would love to hear this character's backstory. African American male, in the south and gay.... lawd! He has got to have one ole dramatic and catastrophic coming out story!!!!!! Inquiring minds want to know.
Now we just need to get more tales of same sex love told from our point of few.
Logo... if you reading this, call me..... I have some ideas! lol But no seriously!!!!!!!
We have a fan site!
We love lafayette and created a fan site for him here:
http://holdtheaids.com
He totally makes the show. We hope he gets more air time in later episodes.
Oh La La Lafayette
This interview gave me a bit of a chill because here we are talking about a show about modern-day Vampires, Fangbangers and Shift changers and just the simple fact that I'm truly in love with this show. I truly can't get enough and it has that Six Feet Under/OZ/ Sex and The City appeal to me because it seems that I'm longing for the next episode, where I'm freaking out trying to guess the outcome or I'm watching Cable On Demand to see re-runs because I miss it. It seems that I had to watch the entire season to catch up and staying in and catching up with Sookie, Lafayette and Tara and the gang was so worth it.
It seems that HBO has done it again and with the help of Alan Ball and the beautifully flawed and seductively inviting Nelsan Ellis a.k.a Lafayette. It seems that the fact that he is gay is secondary to everything that he is because he is a bit of a functional addict and between selling blood and drugs, having sex with politicians and pimping out his sexier-than-hell friend (Jason) for his webcast is enough to fill an entire day for most but it seems this character is a GO-GETTER, to say the least.
Mr. Ellis came clean about not being gay and that was honorable of him because he could have let it be a mystery to keep his gay fans hanging on and hanging out. However he came out and declared the fact that he isn't gay but didn't want to be a cartoon of a black, gay southerner. However he is such a skilled actor that his portrayal of Lafayette doesn't take away the illusion of him being this very gay and very southern, he truly breathes life into this role. I guess that is what being a graduate of Julliard can do. It seems Lafayette likes fancy things and especially a bit of bling, glitter and gold but has this wisdoms that you can only find deep in the south and many times on lost episodes of Father Knows Best but there is always this vulnerable side of Lafayette that peeks through on occasion but never is truly exposed. What is always exposed is his gun show (his biceps) and it seems he is always doing something like working outside or cooking with a 'wife beater' on to showcase the fact that he is all-gay, all-male and all-the-time.
I love this show and I love Lafayette