True Blood: Rob Kazinsky Talks Show Twist

BURBANK, Calif. --
Caption No more shadowy figures in the shower or on the wall! “True Blood’s” Warlow is finally in Bon Temps!

Actually, as Truebies found out during Sunday night’s episode of the HBO series, Warlow has been there for several episodes disguised as Ben, a fairy with a Southern accent, who has been getting close to Sookie Stackhouse.

His feelings for Sookie were his undoing as they prompted Warlow to save Jason Stackhouse from death, and a tiny drop of his blood that fell on the floor helped Sookie figure out who he is.

British actor Rob Kazinsky, who plays Warlow/Ben, opened up to about the big twist and what’s ahead now that there’s a fairy-vampire hybrid in Bon Temps.

The secret’s out: You are Warlow! How cool is it to finally talk freely about being the guy who has been after Sookie?

Rob Kazinsky: It’s cool… Ben has always seemed like a very bland character because you [couldn’t] show the fact that Ben was Warlow, otherwise it gives away the whole season’s secret. This is actually the first conversation I’ve been able to have where I say, ‘I’m Warlow.’ I didn’t even know when I got the job that I was Warlow. I auditioned to play Ben and then I actually found out from costume, way after I got cast, that I was playing Warlow. I’d watched Season 5. I’d seen everything. I was like, Warlow’s a bada**. I get to be a vampire-fairy? That’s cool as hell. And I’ve got so many things that I want to talk about, about Warlow. It’s so good to see that villains can have shades… that he doesn’t have to be an automatic evil vampire thing and the idea that he is a fairy? It has been hypothesized that Warlow could be a fairy-vampire, but what you’re about to see and what he is, is gonna supersede any kind of preconceived notions that people had of what that means.

 Because Warlow is part fairy, maybe it’s not such a bad thing for Sookie because he’ll emphathize with her.

Rob: You have to remember that everything that Ben says to Sookie in the previous three episodes is true. He is not faking how he feels. He is not faking what he has said, he is being absolutely honest. However, coming and meeting a woman and saying, ‘Hi! We’re meant to get married. I killed your parents. I’m a vampire,’ is not gonna go down as planned. The idea was to create the character of Ben to earn her trust and then perhaps later on to be able to explain who he was and now, unfortunately, because of his own sense of conscience and generosity, he has been outed and fireworks are about to go off.

 How different of a vampire is Warlow compared to Bill or Eric?

Rob: Well, the difference is, he’s a day walker. He’s the only vampire that can appear in the day or walk in the day and has control of the light. … He isn’t a hybrid. He was a full fairy who is also a vampire, so he’s been around a long time. He’s not a creature of gray; he’s a creature of light. He is a victim. He’s one of the first vampires. He came from a place of sheer goodness and he’s been corrupted by vampires to serve their needs, but at his core, he is still just a fairy. … That constant battle between light and dark for him is really, really powerful. And the other thing that you’ll see with Warlow is that the darker it is, the more he’ll struggle with that darker side of him.

Can we not trust his feelings for Sookie since he has that other side pulling at him?

Rob: Imagine a drug addict who is surrounded by his drug all day long. He hates himself every single time he indulges and he has to fight against his every single urge to take that drug. That is Warlow. He is a junkie who is trying his best and has been trying for thousands of years to be clean. It is a constant struggle within himself to manage the darker impulses that he has. He knows what is right and wrong and that’s the difference between a lot of the vampires on the show. [With Warlow], you have a victim and vampire in the same body.

Can we expect you to interact with other vampires? There’s a few that have feelings for Sookie.

Rob: There’s certainly gonna be some fireworks between Ben and the other well-established fairies. There’s a very interesting relationship being played out between Warlow and Bill, which is gonna explain a lot of things over the course of the season and that’s definitely worth waiting for. 
Is Ben/Warlow’s quest for the rest of the season trying to make Sookie his? And him having to fend her off because she’s trying to destroy him? She aimed her light at his back at the end of Episode 4.

Rob: It’s a very, very complex character. … A lot of people fall in love with Sookie and that is an overriding arc for him. Everything that he said to her … and everything that you’ve seen previously, they were all real. … You’ve gotta bear in mind that he’s been ostracized by his people, by vampires and by humans. For a creature as lonely as him, that creates a very, very needy, hungry monster.

Tara ran into one of those a couple of season ago.

Rob: Yeah. … Well, [the] worst possible ex-boyfriend in history. Just a bad situation, but [Ben/Warlow is] a good guy, essentially.

“True Blood” continues next Sunday night at 9 PM on HBO.