True Blood's Rutina Wesley

Hey guys, I'm JC Dupre here in the Young Hollywood Studios at the Four Seasons Hotel. And I'm sitting here with Rutina Wesley. How are you doing today?

I'm doing good. How are you?

I'm good. True Blood on HBO, huge hit. Now, your character, Tara, she kind of has a little mouth on her, right?

Yeah, she's a little, she's a little fiery, but I mean those defenses are earned, definitely.

What's your favorite line of hers that you've gotten to say?

Affirmative action. Affirmative action. That was first season, I believe, to Sam as to why he hired me and I replied affirmative action. And I thought that was really funny. My mama blacked out for months at a time. I'm a black-out expert.

Are you? Certified. Are you getting recognized on the street when you, when you walk down the street here in the Hollywood? Are you getting recognized now? What is that like for you?

You know, it's, it's really, really cool. It's actually very, very inspiring um to me because to know that I am moving an audience um with my work. It's like why I'm here in the first place is to tell great stories. And so when people come up to me and they wanna bite me, put they put the little fangs in. They're like, "Can I bite you?" And I'm like, "No, but we can, you can get a hug, you know."

Oh, man.

I'll sign a picture for you.

And I was gonna ask you what the craziest thing a fan has come up and said to you, but is it the biting thing?

I think the biting thing was, was one of the craziest. And uh I love this woman at Ralph's. Um, she came up to me and was like, "Oh my God! Tara, you're my best friend True Blood. I'm so good. Girl, get over here, give me a hug." And I like had these bananas in my hand. I was like, "I'm just like trying to get bananas." But she loves me. She's like, "I'm your number one fan." And I went to Ralph's the other day and she was there. She was like, "Girl, we were just talking about you." About the show. Yeah. She loves the show. But I that's what I love that. True Blood. Tara. That is such a beautiful name. As far as you're concerned, my name is that girl from Bon Temps. Wonder how she's doing. Too bad I can't get a hold of her anymore.

Do you and the cast and crew ever hang out off-set? What do you guys do, you know, in your spare time together?

Yeah, we do occasionally get together and have little potlucks. We actually had one recently and that was a lot of fun just to be kind of off-set and get to like just talk to each other. Um it was really, really cool actually. And uh a lot of the cast members came and hung out because there's gonna be some crazy stuff that happens this season, so we wanted to all get together before all the crazy stuff happened.

Mhm.

Tell you what the crazy stuff is. Okay. It's crazy.

And you guys um shoot primarily in California, correct?

Mhm.

And then do you get to go out to Louisiana very often?

I have. I've been um New Orleans and like outside of New Orleans. It is eerie and like swampy. It makes so much sense. I mean for me because as an actor it was like, "Oh, this is what it's like. This is what that heat feels like." The sweat like literally dripping off of you like you could take off your shirt and wring it. And it was like. It was gross. But it was like amazing cuz then I could then take that back to the studio.

On True Blood, the humans drink the vampire blood to kinda heal themselves when they're injured. So if you go and like you're just having a majorly hard workout or you've had a long day on the set, do you drink anything to kinda get you recuperated?

My go-to thing is probably my caffeine. But you know, water's also good. Yeah. Yeah. Cuz we have it's been an action-packed uh season. So we've had a lot of stunts and stuff so I've definitely had to like guzzle the water.

Wow. Yeah. Your accent on the show, a Southern human. Your accent is amazing on the show. I'm from South Texas. You nail it. Do you like walk in the grocery store and just for grins order or you know, get checking out a thing and use your Southern accent?

No. No, no. I I I just talk like I'm talking now and people like freak out they're like, "Oh, you don't sound nothing like her." Oh my gosh. And I'm like, "No, I'm me." This is my voice. Um, but you know, every now and again it'll come out. But my dad is from Tallulah, Louisiana, so I have a natural twang anyway. So I think that's where I I get just naturally spoken from.

Does he help you to school you?

No, he just thinks it's great. He just watches. He has no notes. He's just like Yeah, he's just on the TV. He loves it. He's so proud. Him and my mother and my entire family like it's they're just really proud and it's just kind of cool.

Well, they should be very proud. HBO's True Blood is a huge hit right now. Congratulations on its continued success. Thank you so much for hanging out with us today in the Young Hollywood Studios.