Anna Paquin True Blood

I was reading this and the funniest thing came to my mind. I have no idea what True Blood is. I would of thought it would be a video game, but reading more into it, it's not. Boy was mt face red. So I mentioned it to one of my friends and they made me feel very dumb about not knowing about it. He has been following it for awhile now I guess and couldn't believe I haven't ever heard about it.

BY TERRY MORROW

'Come in here and show them your teeth,'' actress Anna Paquin yells into another room.

Actor Stephen Moyer walks in, a bit perplexed about why she wants him to open his mouth to a room of strangers. Then she giggles and asks him again to bare his fangs.

And he does.

''See,'' she says, smiling. ''He does have them.''

As the star of HBO's vampire drama, ''True Blood,'' airing at 8 p.m. Sundays, Paquin thinks her co-star's pointy real-life canine teeth are cool. They are long and sharp like a vampire's would be. Strangers might find them a bit disconcerting, especially since Moyer plays a vampire on ''Blood.''

It's part of Paquin's charm to flirt. She can be playful and silly but rarely inappropriate or shameless. She still loves to talk about acting, with the same vigor of a young artist although she's played the Hollywood game more than half her life.

Despite her world travels, she still comes across as a bit of an innocent.

At 26, she's no longer the little girl audiences discovered in 1993's ''The Piano,'' for which she won an Academy Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role. After a few high-profile period pieces (such as HBO's ''Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee'') and a big movie franchise (Rogue in the ''X-Men'' movies), she's grown up. Unlike many actresses who had careers as children, Paquin doesn't feel a need to declare to the world she's an adult.

''I never did kids films,'' she says. ''I was a kid in [serious] films most of my life. It wasn't as if I had to overcome this cute-kid-with-dimples thing.''

As Southern barmaid Sookie Stackhouse on ''True Blood,'' Paquin says she's found an unconventional woman.

Sookie is intrigued by and attracted to the town's first resident vampire, a Civil War veteran named Bill (played by Moyer). She doesn't fear his sharp teeth. In fact, she loves to look at them. Her flirting with this mystery man causes her neighbors' jaws to drop.

''I love how hopeful she is," Paquin says. "I love how, despite whatever happens to her, she's still an optimist and a romantic.''

Scripps Howard News Service