True Blood's Carrie Preston on Playing Arlene, Dying Her Hair, and Being Married to Ben From Lost

On a sanguinary series like True Blood, there are all sorts of bursts of shocking red, but none pops more than the brassy hairdo on top of the equally brassy waitress Arlene, played by Carrie Preston. This season, Arlene's had plenty to deal with, including an unwanted pregnancy from her bad seed ex, a vampire coworker at Merlotte's, and the mysterious machinations of Holly (Lauren Bowles), who seems oddly invested in Arlene's pregnancy. Preston talked to Movieline about those juicy moments, her character's "drag queen" looks, her husband (Lost's Michael Emerson), and her impressively Law and Order-studded resume.

Now, I love all your comic moments on the show, but that scene recently where you broke down with Holly was actually kind of a dramatic powerhouse. Was it fun for you to do something that was less wink-wink than Arlene often can be?

I cannot tell you how thrilled I was with that. Alex Woo, who wrote that episode...each of our writers pretty much writes two episodes per season, and the first episode Alex wrote, we were on set and doing the scene where I'm in the doctor's office and I find out I'm pregnant. Alex said to me, "You know what, I have to apologize to you." And I said, "What?" And he said, "I haven't given you enough in this episode. I need to write something better for you, and I promise that I will." Then that episode you're referring to came up, and he was good for his word.

I was so thrilled because I think it was high time for us to see another side of that character, and I think that's what this whole season has been about: delving deeper into all the series regulars and getting involved in all their personal lives. It was very nice to be included in that, and it was fun to play that scene with Lauren Bowles, who's new on the show. To play with a woman of equal age to me, it was great to have that kind of energy between two women that we haven't seen on the show.

True Blood is the sort of show where the cast is so big that even someone like Anna Paquin or Stephen Moyer might not get more than 10 minutes of screentime in any given week. Is it still satisfying for you to be a regular, but have just a handful of moments per episode?

You know, it's a great show and I'm so grateful to be involved in it. I always wish that I could be there more, just because I like to be at work and I like working there, so it can be frustrating when you don't have that much to do. It can also be really creatively challenging in a good way, because you might have only half a page to create the whole world that you need to create. Luckily, we do have really good writers and actors, and if you trust both of those things, it's gonna happen.

So where do things go with Arlene heading into the end of the season? I remember at some point in shooting you went to go do an arc on The Good Wife, and fans were a little freaked out that it meant something bad might befall Arlene.

I can't tell you much about what happens, but actually, it was quite flattering the reaction people had when they saw that I was doing The Good Wife. I realized how many people out there really like the character and what Arlene contributes to the show. I think I look so different from Arlene in real life that I don't really experience the fans on a daily basis like some of my other colleagues do, so I was kind of taken aback by how upset people were about that! It was really nice. I only did a few episodes of The Good Wife and I don't know if they're going to bring me back, but the story got a little out of hand and it made it seem like I'm becoming a series regular on the show, and I'm not. On True Blood, there will be a resolution to the conflict that Arlene is going through right now, but it's certainly not over. That's about all I can say! [Laughs]

Let's talk about the hair color you have in the show, because I'm sure that's why fans don't always recognize you when you're not shooting. I feel like it should be named "Arlene," although it probably has a real name.

That's a wig that I'm wearing on the show, and it is really extraordinary how hair color and style changes you look. I've had this very varied career full of every color and style of hair in the rainbow. That's what's fun about being a character actor, is you get to transform from one character to the next, but I haven't played a role that's this transformative. For it to be the biggest TV show I've ever done is funny to me. This is the one that hit, the one where I'm basically in disguise.

When we did the pilot, I was doing a movie at the same time, and I was already established in that movie as a blonde, so that's why we chose to go the wig route. Of course, once you make that decision you're kind of stuck with it, especially on our show, where there's so little time elapsed. Each episode picks up where the last one left off, and I don't think the audience realizes that the whole timeline since the pilot has only been about five weeks. There really hasn't been any time to change anybody's look so I was kind of married to the wig, but I kind of like it because it makes me feel married to the character when I come on and put on the wig and the fake nails and the tan and the bustling and the drag queen makeup. Suddenly I'm not myself anymore, and that's really fun.

But isn't your hair red currently?

Yeah, we started thinking that it would be fun to use my real hair, so I thought, "Let me see what it would be like to be a redhead in real life." So I dyed my hair and I do have red hair in real life now. Definitely, the visibility factor has gone up 100%. [Laughs] I've gone from nobody knowing I'm on the show to getting people who recognize me. Today on the subway in New York, this woman was staring at me but she couldn't really tell if it was really me, and she came over and said, "You are such a dead ringer for Arlene on True Blood." And I said, "That's good to know, because I am!" So even though I have red hair in my life, people are still a little hesitant.

Whereas your husband looks exactly like his Lost character. There's not much he can do!

It is funny. I'm walking around in disguise, and he's just completely exposed. I mean, yesterday he was walking down the street and these cops pulled over and put the light on, and they went, "Ben! Ben Linus! Come over here, Ben!" And they made him come over, and they were fans! It was hilarious. People from cars shout out all the time, "Ben! Ben!" It's just night and day from my experience walking around, and I think I probably have a better deal because I'm not being watched every moment like he is.

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