Ryan Kwanten Is Bloody Hot

An Australian import strips down to sink his teeth into Alan Ball's new HBO series, True Blood

By Marc Malkin Sep 05, 2008 9:33 PMTags
True Blood, Ryan KwantenHBO

Ryan Kwanten has no problems being more naked than not on the new HBO vampire series, True Blood.

In the new drama from Six Feet Under creator Alan Ball, Kwanten plays Jason Stackhouse, a small-town Louisiana hick who doesn't seem interested in anything but bedding any woman he can get his hands on. Just watch in this coming Sunday's premiere—the 31-year-old Australian native is shown in some rather revealing compromising positions.

"The shirt doesn't get on much more than it does in the pilot," Kwanten tells me with a laugh. "But I definitely think it's part of what makes Jason Jason."

Oscar winner Anna Paquin costars in True Blood as Jason's mind-reading sister, living in a modern-day world where vampires live openly among regular folk. All this blood-suckin' has Kwanten thinking about the possible real-life existence of fang-toothed demons.

"I believe there are other forces out there," says Kwanten, who starred along side Zac Efron and Jesse McCartney in the short-lived television series Summerland about three years ago. "Whether or not there are vampires that exist, I'm not sure about that. But they do intrigue me. That fact that they have somewhat human qualities, the fact that they were once us!"

Kwanten's family back Down Under recently had a True Blood screening party. "They invited 30 of their friends over and watched it," he says. "They called me drunk late at night at like 4 o'clock in the morning to tell me what they thought about it."

So what did mom have to say about all his nudity? "You know, she's seen me naked before," Kwanten says with a laugh. "Probably not in those positions before, but we come from a pretty liberal society when it comes to sex and your body. So it wasn't too bad."

Let's just hope his family recognizes his voice when he calls next time, because he's done a darn good job perfecting Jason's hillbilly accent. "When we shot down in Louisiana, they thought I was a local," he says. "That was a nice thing to get."