True Blood Star warns of the curse of ‘The Caller’ via MTV.com

There are probably stranger, scarier things in the universe than a mystery woman from the past who can cross the space-time continuum to obsessively call your home telephone for hours and days and weeks on end. But the idea is plenty creepy as the premise of “The Caller,” director Matthew Parkhill’s indie thriller starring “Twilight” villainess Rachelle Lefevre and “True Blood” vamp Stephen Moyer.

In “The Caller,” Puerto Rico resident Mary Kee (Lefevre) moves into a new home following a nasty separation from her abusive husband (“Eureka’s” Ed Quinn), only to find an even more harrowing nemesis in Rose (Lorna Raver), an unhinged and disgruntled woman living in the late 1970s. Rose somehow has the ability to call Mary’s new phone number some 30 years into the future, a seemingly impossible sci-fi feat that leaves our protagonist skeptical, frustrated and frightened in turns. When Mary’s patience for Rose’s hysteria wears thin, she learns the hard lesson that scorning a deranged woman who lives in the past can be hazardous for your health.

Though it boasts a sinister plot, it was actually the behind-the-scenes mysteries that raised the hair on the backs of the “Caller” cast and crew’s necks throughout the film’s 23-day shoot.

“Sometimes a shoot will take on its own energy,” Moyer, who plays Mary’s love interest and resident time-travel expert John Guidi, told MTV News. “Every day, something was happening. Things were breaking, film missing, scratches on necks … it just became this regular occurrence. Even after I left the shoot, me and Matthew and Rachelle would speak regularly, and there would be bits and pieces happening on a regular basis: phone calls coming in from people, literally prank phone calls. It was an odd, odd thing.”

Parkhill said that screenwriter Sergio Casci was convinced there was a “curse of ‘The Caller.’ ” But the director doesn’t much believe in curses himself, though even he admitted to “weird” and “unsettling” occurrences.

Alexander Skarsgard’s Birthday in the Big Apple via JustJared/Buzznet.com

Alexander Skarsgard wears a pair of Persol 649 sunglasses while walking down the street in the rain on Thursday (August 25) in New York City.

The True Blood hunk turned 35 this week! Happy birthday, Alex!!!

Alexander, who’s in town to film his latest movie, What Maisie Knew, has reportedly signed on for another project.

Variety reports he’s attached to star in the drama Disconnect, “which follows a large ensemble of characters who are affected – and in some cases destroyed – by the Internet and other forms of modern communication.”

Alex is set to play a former Marine who is in financial trouble and “is emotionally cut off from his wife, prompting him to seek an affair.”

Ryan Kwanten talks Gruff the Invisible vs True Blood via speakeasy

Although he’s best known for playing the dim-witted hunk Jason Stackhouse on HBO’s “True Blood,” Ryan Kwanten has made a lot of smart choices in his career thus far. In addition to providing the voice of one of the main characters in Zack Snyder’s owl odyssey “The Legend of the Guardians,” he recently took on two dramatically different lead roles in the Australian films “Red Hill,” about a rookie sheriff who inherits a small town’s troubled past, and “Griff the Invisible,” a serio-comic adventure about a cubicle dweller who develops a superhero alter ego. Speakeasy sat down with a relaxed Kwanten while he was in Los Angeles.

This character is a little bit of a shrinking violet. How tough is it to perfect that “less is more” approach to creating a character?

There’s a huge amount of trust that you take when you are playing characters that are subdued. You trust in the filmmaker that he’s getting exactly what he wants, and you trust in the other actors around you; that’s why you build a supporting cast of characters, of colors, different flavors, that are in there that supports this kind of subdued version of someone. And then you have the sort of superhero element, too, that then amps it up and takes it to the extreme.

Is television acting a different discipline than film acting?

The beauty of working with “True Blood” is that they still pride themselves on making a character arc over the course of an entire season. So it’s not necessarily as much as you’re only seeing one episode at a time, quite often the arc will happen over the course of an entire season, or two or three seasons. So I think with that you feel like you know the characters more. And then in terms of parlaying that into film work, it’s all acting at the end of the day. So you play the lines and you do them to the best of your ability, and you find the truth in the words. And that’s your job; outside of that, I leave the film or TV element up to the people that do it. I just try to do my job as best as I can.

How important to you is it to balance your work on “True Blood” with projects like “Griff the Invisible,” that are created in or that shoot in your native Australia?

I’ve been very fortunate in the last couple of years, where two of the better scripts that I’ve read happened to be Australian scripts by Australian writers and directors. And that is now very much sort of an important part of my hiatus period – in the five months I get off, I’ll at least do one film that’s based in Australia now. Because there really are some great filmmakers down there, and some really good stories to tell.

Does working on a show like “True Blood” which has fewer episodes maybe than a network show give you more time to pursue these film projects?

The short answer is yes. I feel very fortunate to have landed the role, and to be on that network, because they do phenomenal stuff. They refuse to rest on their laurels, I feel, in terms of each season there’s a progression and it’s getting stronger and stronger, and outside of that it’s really changed my life. It’s taken my career to a whole other level.

Because “True Blood” is so consistently unpredictable, does it continue to surprise or challenge you, or have you sort of adjusted to its twists and turns and they’ve become a natural or comfortable progression?

No. Alan Ball does a very TV-savvy version of the books, so even if you are phenomenally well-researched in knowing what happens in the books, that doesn’t necessarily parlay into knowing what’s going to happen in our series. There’s been more than a fair share of things that have been different. This season is no different; my character is supposed to turn into a were-panther this season, but we’ll see what happens with that. He might be lucky to survive the season, so we’ll see.

Joe Manganiello takes us on a Graffiti Date via Hollywood crush/MTV

Any day we get to chat with “True Blood” star Joe Manganiello is a good day. So imagine our delight when we heard that the tall, dark and handsome man would like to venture outside the generic interview box and take us on a little tour of one of his favorite places in Los Angeles—the city’s “graffiti hall of fame.”

File this one under interesting and educational. Click play on the video below to see the very pretty and very knowledgeable Mr. Manganiello in his artsy element. If you’ve not considered walking through street art exhibits before, we guarantee that Joe’s expertise and impressive tour guide skills will pique your curiosity.