Cuter than a barrel of button noses and more ripped than a seamstress's inbox, Ryan Kwanten made his American cable television series debut with his face crotch-deep in a possible "fang-banger." As Bon Temps, Louisiana's resident playboy Jason Stackhouse in HBO's new vampire drama True Blood, Kwanten is a fireball of shirtlessness and Southern drawl. Based on Charlaine Harris' Southern Vampire Mysteries book series -- which series creator and Executive Producer Alan Ball (Six Feet Under) first read while passing time in a Barnes & Noble before a dentist appointment -- True Blood follows Stackhouse's sister, Sookie (Anna Paquin), a mind-reading waitress who falls for Bill (Stephen Moyer), a vampire that, like others of his ilk, is trying to assimilate into the human world since the Japanese invention of synthetic blood.
"The beauty of the show is that you create this hyper-reality and it's steeped in something that's entirely possible," says the native Australian. In actuality, 31-year-old Kwanten's laid-back Aussie talk and positive attitude prove he's more than just another dreamy import. He uses words like "microcosm" when talking about the Australian film industry and still remembers the bus routes to Burbank from his broke-and-auditioning days. With True Blood signed on for a second season after only two aired episodes, the former Australian soap opera star is poised to attack. And while the key grip might be complaining that he sees Kwanten naked more than he does his own girlfriend, women across America are not.
Ryan wears a shirt and pants by RVCA
RSS