That hungry stare as Bill Compton Credit: HBO

Mystery, horror, romance and humor combine in HBO's new vampire series "True Blood" based upon the Sookie Stackhouse novels. Sookie, played by Anna Paquin, is a telepathic waitress who is fascinated by vampires. In Sookie's world, they live among us and most drink a blood-like concoction called Tru-Blood rather than chowing down on humans. Sookie has her eye on Bill Compton. Almost 200 years old, the handsome "vamp" was roaming the South when there were plantations and Scarlett O'Hara belles.

Handsome, of course, brooding Bill is played by Brit born Stephen Moyer who co-starred with Debra Messing in "The Starter Wife". Picture tall, dark and, yeah, cute.

TeenTelevision: How did you get this job? Was it just a normal audition that your agent sent you to?

Stephen: I had come back from Australia, where I had been doing 'The Starter Wife', and, at the time, I was tan and blonde.

TeenTelevision: Whoa, not a good look for a vampire.

Stephen: I'd been away for a long time and I didn't want to come to America, straight away. But then, I saw 'True Blood'. I read it and I put myself on tape the next morning. They'd had trouble finding Bill. They'd been looking for about five months. Alan [Ball, series creator] saw it that afternoon, and I flew in the next morning. When Anna and I met and first had those initial meetings with Alan, I was tan and blonde, and she was white with black hair. We've kind of reversed [looks] completely.