The Submission's Rutina Wesley on Her Stage Roots and 'Dream Job' as True Blood's Vampire Magnet

When Rutina Wesley was studying acting at the Juilliard School, she didn't picture battling vampires and werewolves for a living. She made her Broadway debut in David Hare’s The Vertical Hour and went on to appear in In Darfur at the Public Theater before being snapped up by HBO hit True Blood for the role of troubled vampire-magnet Tara Thornton. Now Wesley is returning to her stage roots in The Submission at MCC Theatre, and Broadway.com caught up with her at a recent press event to chat about her supernatural career path.

“When I got out of school, I never would have imagined this would be my job,” Wesley said of True Blood. “I still see myself on TV and think, 'Oh my God, I’m on a television and there are millions of people watching,' and I get really nervous and embarrassed and insecure.” But Wesley handles the extreme situations of True Blood with aplomb, and gives credit to her stage training.

"True Blood allows you to be big, so it’s almost like you’re on stage and I’m comfortable with that,” Wesley said. “The stakes are very high and it’s very extreme. It’s not a show where you hit your mark and say, 'hand me the scalpel' or anything like that. We’ve got vampires and werewolves chasing after us. People are getting bitten, people are going to scream and shake and cry, so we really get the chance to use our chops on this show."

It doesn’t hurt that Wesley’s co-stars in this over-the-top drama—including Anna Paquin, Sam Trammell, Tony winner Denis O’Hare, Olivier Award winner Fiona Shaw (as an out-of-control witch in the current season) and Wesley’s Juilliard classmate Nelsan Ellis—have a similarly theatrical pedigree, as profiled here by Broadway.com. According to Wesley, having stage vets on set makes all the difference.

“We work in the same way, and people are very grounded,” she noted. “We like to play off of each other, so it’s nice to have other actors who have a theater background. It’s a dream job to be on True Blood, working with these actors and [show creator] Alan Ball, who comes from the theater as well. And I have to say, Fiona Shaw is my number one crush right now. I love her. She’s amazing.”