HBO’s hit dark fantasy series True Blood may have had a piece of Marvel Cinematic Universe history embedded in its pilot episode.
Creator Alan Ball attended the 10th-anniversary screening of True Blood‘s pilot episode, “Strange Love,” at Vulture Festival in Los Angeles (via Deadline). During a discussion after the screening, he revealed that the wig worn by Carrie Preston in her role as Arlene Fowler in the episode was borrowed.
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“It was Gwyneth Paltrow‘s wig in the first Iron Man or something like that,” he said.
So Arlene may have borrowed Pepper Potts’ hair…or something.
True Blood starred Anna Paquin as Sookie Stackhouse. Paquin played Rogue in 20th Century Fox’s X-Men movies franchise. Her co-star and now husband, Stephen Moyer, has gone on to play Reed Strucker in the FOX’s X-Men television series The Gifted. Had casting gone another way, there may have been more stars now associated with Marvel movies in True Blood, including Doctor Strange‘s Benedict Cumberbatch, the X-Men movies’ Jennifer Lawrence, and Dark Phoenix‘s Jessica Chastain.
“Benedict Cumberbatch came and read for Bill,” Ball said. He also revealed that Chastain read for the role of Sookie Stackhouse and that Lawrence auditioned to play a were-panther in the show’s third season.
“She was great,” Ball said, “but all the women in the room, because she was going to be Jason’s girlfriend, and she was 17 at the time, were like, ‘No that’s gross.’”
As for the future of True Blood, Ball says he’s heard good things about Nathan Barr’s musical version, which was first announced in 2014.
“It tells the story of vampires coming out of the closet,” Ball said. “Ultimately it really departs from the book, because people aren’t ready, and they’re too bigoted and they end up going back into the closet.” Ball says the project is still being workshopped.
True Blood was created by Ball based upon The Southern Vampire Mysteries series of novels by Charlaine Harris. The series debuted in 2008, the same year that Iron Man opened in theaters, and ran for 80 episodes over seven seasons. The series ended in 2014 after having won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Casting and a Golden Globe Award for Paquin’s performance.
What do you think of Gwyneth Paltrow’s wig’s possible involvement in the True Blood pilot? Do you miss True Blood? Would you like to see the musical version? Let us know what you think in the comments!
