Q&A with Kristin Bauer
Access: This season on ‘True Blood’ it was revealed that Pam had gotten together with Eric (in her backstory). When you saw that in the script – and you’re friends with Alexander Skarsgard – what went through your head?
Kristin: I have such comfort with Alex and such trust that I just kept trying to picture what I wanted the scene to look like, because we’ve waited so long for this… We’ve known Pam for the last five years, and she’s 100-and-some-years-old. We know that she’s pretty unapologetic, she’s pretty blunt, she’s pretty harsh, she really only has affection for one person and then [as an actress, I] work my way backwards and go, ‘Wait a minute, what would be the genesis of that? How do I find the vulnerability? I have to show the vulnerability because we have to understand why she leapt into this other life and chose it.’
Access: You actually got to kiss Alex for the first time. He talks about those kinds of things as part of the job, but when you actually have to kiss a friend – after all this time – it seems like it would be a little weird.
Kristin: Yeah, I know. [But] for some reason, it didn’t feel weird… But Stephen [Moyer, who plays Bill Compton] and Mariana Klaveno [who plays Lorena]… they were standing right outside the doorway to that room in the brothel… So we kiss and [Alex] sort of scoops me and twirls me out of the scene — one of my legs is incredibly tangled up inside the skirts… I’m battling with this fabric and six inches from Stephen and Mariana who are staring at us like they’re watching their parents make out.
Access: Oh no!
Kristin: I look at them and go, ‘What?’ and they go, ‘It’s like watching our parents kiss.’ I’m like, ‘What do you mean by that!’ So there’s always this difference between the experience of filming it and then what it looks like, and I felt like when I watched it that it was good. It was perfect.
Access: Why do you think Pam needed to escape the life she was in by slitting her wrists in the hopes that Eric would turn her into a vampire?
Kristin: I feel, from an actor’s viewpoint and talking to Raelle Tucker, who wrote that episode, she had to force the issue with Eric. She could see that he wasn’t gonna do it, and also, it shows the same Pam that we know today — that she’s a very committed, ballsy person and that she also really was only giving up five years of life. She was saying, the story doesn’t end well for women in this time… I will die alone, horribly. It shows that bold character that we know, and it also, to me, really represented how unbelievably happy she is and unapologetic about being a vampire. She had no love for humanity. She chose this, she forced this and then the fact [is] that he really does save her.
Access: What’s coming up in the Pam/Eric storyline? He’s in some trouble again.
Kristin: What is coming up, is we see a couple of things. One is the depth to which the Vampire Authority is affecting all of our lives and how extreme the situation could possibly get and it forces us into making tough decisions and we see on the [promotional] billboard – ‘Everything’s At Stake’ – and I think, yeah, it is. So much of what Pam values, which is mainly her relationship with Eric — even that is now at stake. (Access Hollywood)
