Research is something that I really enjoy as an actor and it's something that I really throw myself into. I don't want to leave any stone unturned, so there's no way I would have gone on set having not known the arc of the character and the direction he was going to go.

No I wasn't. I didn't know anything about the books, or I didn't know much about vampires. It's a little embarrassing. In fact I had to give an interview in Louisiana, one time, they asked who my favorite vampire was and the only one I could think of was Count Chocula. There's a lot of pressure in these interviews, you want to sound interesting and you come across sounding like an idiot. (On being asked if he was aware of the novels by Charlaine Harris that the show "True Blood" was based on, beforehand)