I felt pride, wonderful pride, when I was captain. It was an honour to take over from Labby. Anybody who has ever captained a big club, which Everton are, will tell you it's a great honour.

The fact that we die, that makes life important. It's hard to take, but it's the truth.

I'd seen 'Interview with A Vampire' and saw Dracula movies growing up, but I never thought, 'I love vampires; I have to do a show about vampires.'

I really love storytelling, and I love the stories as they reveal themselves. It's an incredibly nourishing process; it's probably the closest I come to having a religion.

As a culture, we are not comfortable with mortality. We do not accept it the way other cultures do. We cling to youth, and we don't want to die. It's like, 'Well, too bad, we do.'

Well, here's the thing with relationships on 'True Blood': Once they happen then you have to throw a monkey-wrench into them, because to have people be happy is not that exciting.

We live in a time where there's an alienation factor. There's a certain disconnection. We don't have any real sense of community anymore.