Anna Paquin and Stephen Moyer's Love Story Will Truly Warm Your Blood
Originally appeared on E! Online
True Blood fans are still licking their wounds over Sookie not ending up with Bill (or any other creature of the night, vampire or werewolf).
But surely they find great solace in the fact that Anna Paquin took Stephen Moyer home with her for real and they've been together ever since, marrying in 2010 and producing now-11-year-old twins Charlie and Poppy along the way.
Incidentally, the kids are now the same age their mom was when she won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for The Piano. But they're growing up privately, their parents having said multiple times that they're not going to choose a public life for their children just because Mom and Dad are famous.
Which doesn't mean that Charlie and Poppy don't know their way around a set. The pair usually join Paquin when she's on location if their dad is working at the same time— but the couple's latest project kept the whole family together.
Having learned that being apart for too long isn't their bag—"damn the long-distance thing NEVER gets any easier," Paquin, who's turning 42 on July 24, wrote on Instagram in 2022, tagging her husband "#myperson"—Moyer directed his wife in the recently released drama A Bit of Light.
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"Downsides, it sounds absurd to say this, there aren't any," Moyer said. Not least, he told Us Weekly ahead of the film's April 5 release, because "it means the kids get to have both of us there at the same time."
But for Paquin, doing press for the film also meant fielding questions about her health after she walked with a cane on the red carpet at an April 3 screening of the film.
For inquiring minds, she'll probably talk about what's going on "at some point," the New Zealander said on TODAY April 5, noting that she was "having a good day" at the moment.
And of course she's had Moyer's sturdy support throughout, mouthing "I love you" to him as he watched from the wings.
"He's got my back," Paquin said. "And I've got his."
They were also "extremely lucky" to be creating art together, the actress continued. "We met doing the thing we love, on what was kind of objectively a dream gig. Even if it had only been the pilot, you know what I mean, it was one of those that's just special from the get-go."
Mainly, Paquin added, "We got to know each other in our natural habitat."
And she and Moyer, 54, didn't just fall for each other while making True Blood, which ran for seven seasons on HBO. Rather, they aced the chemistry test on day one.
So even if you think you don't believe in Faerie tales, you will after you sink your teeth into Paquin and Moyer's love story:
Origin Story
Anna Paquin was cast in HBO's True Blood a few months before Stephen Moyer in 2007, meaning the English actor needed to vibe with the New Zealand-born Oscar winner before he got the gig.
"We met screen-testing for the show," Moyer recalled on Watch What Happens Live in 2020. "We were both single at the time, and there was just this kind of spark."
Three months later, they reunited to shoot the pilot—Paquin by then a blonde for the role of telepathic waitress Sookie Stackhouse and his sandy hair dyed dark brown to play brooding vampire Bill Compton—and Moyer was down for the count.
"By day three or four—oh, this is going to sound so syrupy—but I knew I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her," he said. "It was within seconds, really, and it just became a thing."
Plus-One
Moyer was the Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee star's date to the DGA Awards in January 2008—nine months before True Blood premiered.
(And, the cherry on top: The film won for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Movies for Television/Miniseries.)
The First of Many Kisses
Technically Paquin and Moyer's first kiss was an onscreen moment for Sookie and Bill, but the actors had become very close off-camera while staying at the same hotel as the only out-of-towners in L.A. to shoot the first season.
They'd have breakfast together every morning "and then we'd have supper because, you know, we were there," Moyer said on The Kelly Clarkson Show in February 2024. "It was just like this, I don't know, this magnetism."
"And if you watch the show, though, those first few episodes when we're coming together," he added, "it's kind of like off the charts."
True Love
Paquin acknowleged that the "fascination and attraction" between Bill and Sookie "made it kind of hard to pinpoint where it ceased to be fiction, because that's how we've always been around each other," she told The Telegraph in September 2009. "But there was no massive revelation moment of, 'Wow I fancy you.'"
Moyer, by then her fiancé, was "lovely," she continued. "He’s very funny. I’m definitely not on any level attracted to people who don’t have a good sense of humor. That’s how you get through the ups and the downs."
It's Not TV, It's Sexy HBO
Making the sex-and-blood-drenched series, all of the stars had to get real comfortable, real fast seeing each other "butt-ass naked," as Paquin put it in, er, hindsight.
And that included her and Moyer doing love scenes with more than just each other.
Just a Little Pinch
Paquin likened being bitten by a vampire to the dozen piercings she already had, while Moyer approached the dynamics rather philosophically.
"If we go from a base level, vampires create a hole in the neck where there wasn't one before," he told Rolling Stone. "It's a de-virginization...And there's something sharp, the fang, which is probing and penetrating and moving into it. So that's pretty sexy. I think that makes vampires attractive."
Win-Win
Paquin only had eyes for her leading man after winning Best Performance by an Actress in a TV Series, Drama, at the 2009 Golden Globes for slaying her first season as Sookie.
The Occasional Date Night
A Little Bit of a Jewelry Girl
Even though Paquin wouldn't call herself a "jewelry girl," Moyer had proposed with this diamond and antiqued platinum ring by the time they were hanging out with True Blood costars Carrie Preston and Rutina Wesley in West Hollywood on Aug. 24, 2009.
"We pretty much consider ourselves married now, even though we aren't yet," Moyer told Rolling Stone that summer. "Doesn't it make you a little sick in your mouth?"
Paquin made a similar crack 14 years later on TODAY, referring to their love story. "People tend to find it either charming," she said, "or not fair."
Banding Together
Of not being in the throes of wedding planning, Paquin told The Telegraph, "It's more about being family than becoming Bridezilla overnight and wearing some big meringue wedding dress. That would scare the s--t out of me. I wasn't the girl who spent hours dreaming of my wedding."
Still, though they may have already felt married, they made it official on Aug. 21, 2010, at a private home in Malibu.
The newlyish-weds sported their wedding bands on a night out that October.
Diamonds Are Forever
The rings were ready for their close-up at the season 6 premiere of True Blood in 2013.
Blended Family
Moyer shares son Billy, born in 2000, and daughter Lilac, born in 2002, with actress Lorien Haynes—whose L.A. art show he and Paquin attended in 2012, a sign the exes remained friendly.
"My kids have been with us a lot, so Anna already had a huge understanding of that," Moyer told ABC News in 2014, referring to Paquin's experience parenting before their kids were born. "She's very much part of their lives."
And Speaking of Their Kids...
Paquin was happily just starting to show when she and Moyer attended the fifth season premiere of True Blood in May 2012.
"I feel fantastic," she told reporters on the red carpet, while Moyer said it's "always amazing" to be an expectant dad.
"I love my kids so much," he told The Hollywood Reporter, "and that fact that Anna is pregnant just adds more crazy to the bundle of fun."
Amazing x 2
Paquin and Moyer quietly welcomed son Charlie and daughter Poppy on Sept. 12, 2012.
The couple didn't make a public to-do about the births and Moyer first shared the names with E! News nine months later.
Around that time, the actor also shared that the twins had arrived "much earlier" than expected, telling People, "They were so fragile in the beginning. We are just trying to protect them."
Moreover, they were keeping the babies out of the spotlight because "they didn't choose to be actors—not yet!" he quipped. "Who knows what they'll be? It's just a question of wanting to keep that private for them so they can choose."
Mr. Paquin
Moyer directed several episodes of True Blood and his "respectful prop department" tweaked his chair to read "Mr. Paquin."
But secure of his place in both the Bon Temps universe and the real world, he took it in stride.
"I try to keep the set as light and as funny and as warm and as creative as it can possibly be," he said on Good Morning America in 2014. And when her husband directed her in a sex scene with Joe Manganiello's Alcide, the actress shrugged it off as "just choreography, who's going to put what where, blah blah blah."
It was all "really quite technical," she added, "and we're both grown-ups."
(But suffice it to say, when asked years later when the twins might be able to watch True Blood, Moyer's answer was, "Never, if it's anything to do with us.")
Back in the Comfy Chair
Moyer directed Paquin in the 2019 indie drama The Parting Glass, their first time doing a movie together, but she credited their "shorthand" way of communicating for making it so seamless.
Plus, "it doesn't get weirder" than the whole sex-scene-with-Manganiello collaboration, Paquin noted on the BUILD Series, so nothing could really faze them.
ESP 4 Ever
Moyer directed Paquin in the drama A Bit of Light, which came out April 5, 2024—and there were countless upsides to getting to go to work together every day.
"Perks are easy," he told Us Weekly. "We know each other inside out. We've worked together for many, many years as actors and as producers."
And while Paquin left telepathy behind when True Blood ended, she can still read her husband's mind.
There are moments on set "where I'll look across at her and she'll just go, 'I'll go in again,'" Moyer said. "She just knows that there's something that she wants to recalibrate. And so I have the luxury of knowing that I can leave her to it...I can go in and say one word and she'll just go, 'Stop. Got it.'"
The Gang's All Here
It may sound "absurd to say this," Moyer said, but there were simply no downsides to working with his wife, not least because they get to bring the whole family.
Usually "the kids have always gone with Anna and the dogs have always gone with me" when they had to travel for projects, he explained, but "when we're working together as a couple, the kids come with us. It's great they have both of us and they're not in some distant sort of Australian village or Toronto snow scape or Vancouver rainstorm or whatever. They've got both of us there."
Just for Us
While Moyer and Paquin have talked about parenthood, the couple have historically been very private with regard to all four kids in their life and, while there have been some rare outings to public events, they don't post pics of their children on social media.
They do love to post about each other though, both lovey-dovey-style and to champion their spouse's work.
"Everyone chooses what works for their family," Paquin said on TODAY. "There are aspects of one's private life that are fun and cute and not too revealing."
Case in point...
Lucky 13
"The good lady thespian/producer/all round badass 'er indoors, and myself have been married 13 years!!" Moyer wrote Aug. 23, 2023, marking their anniversary two days late. He added with a wink emoji that he'd forgotten to post the day of because, "ya know, we were kinda busy."
(Originally published April 14, 2024, at 5 a.m. PT)
