Actress Jamie Gray Hyder. Photo Credit: Bjoern Kommerell.

Actress Jamie Gray Hyder. Photo Credit: Bjoern Kommerell.

GALO: True Blood is now coming into its seventh and final season. Since your character left the show, what do you think of its progress and how do you feel about it coming to an end? Does it look like fans will be pleased with the way things are wrapping up?

JGH: You know, I think that it’s time. I think that True Blood has been such a force for so many years that now it’s time to kind of put it to rest while it’s still at the height of its popularity. I think that so far they’ve delivered a really intense, nerve-wracking finale season, and I think that’s what the fans want to see. I’m excited to see how the whole thing ends.

GALO: You are also in the middle of season two of USA’s Graceland, in which you play Lucia Solano, a sort of watchdog role to her brother Carlito (Erik Valdez), who runs the dangerous Solano cartel in the United States. Lucia is one of the more complex characters introduced to the show, where she is often conflicted between doing what is right for her and what is right for her family. Would you say that you were attracted to Lucia’s character for her unpredictability in this aspect?

JGH: I agree, I think she’s a really complex character, and that’s one of the things I was really excited about when I started working on the role. She’s trying to be a good person in a really bad world and it’s a constant battle for her — like you said, trying to decide between what’s best for her and what’s best for her family. She’s trying to keep everyone out of trouble, but, at the same time, she’s sacrificing a lot of herself in trying to help others. That’s definitely what first attracted me to the role.

GALO: Initially, Lucia is seen as a very strong and wild character, but then as the season progresses, she starts to soften. You said in a previous interview that you didn’t want your portrayal of her to come across as a caricature. What did you focus on so as to make her character development a smooth and genuine transition?

JGH: I treated her like a real person. I didn’t want to make a caricature of this Latin cartel girl who’s facing all the stereotypes associated with that culture. I wanted to make her a real person in a really difficult situation — so that was really important to me with portraying her. As an actor, she is such a dream role because you really do see her change and you see her go from being so strong and aggressive to being super vulnerable and gentle — given the opportunity to play that range in a character is a really cool one.

GALO: It’s impressive how convincing you and Erik Valdez are as siblings. Would you say that the two of you have a more natural chemistry or does it come from spending a lot of time together off set?

JGH: Erik and I have become such close friends outside the show; we are really like brother and sister at this point. I am so lucky to work with him, he is so talented and so professional, but we also have a ton of fun while we work. Erik and I, spending weeks on end in Fort Lauderdale in that hotel together — eating meals together or hanging out on the beach — the relationship that you see on screen, the connection that’s there fits in real life. I don’t know about the animosity, but the connection that you see is definitely something that fits in real life for us as well.

GALO: What are you hoping Graceland fans get from Lucia’s character this season? Would you say that the audience can continue to be surprised by her?

JGH: Absolutely, I think you’ll see her in even more difficult situations than she’s already been in. I think she represents something that Graceland has a lot, and that’s one reason why people like the show so much. She represents the idea that there’s a real gray area to being good and evil. You see a lot of characters on the show go back and forth between that line, and I think that Lucia is an example of somebody stuck on the criminal side that is attempting to do right. That’s such a theme among a lot of the characters on Graceland, and an important one that keeps people interested.

GALO: Switching gears a little here, you also play the voice of Echo, a fictional character on the video game Killzone: Shadow Fall, which is similar to Call of Duty but with a sci-fi twist. What would you say is the most surprising thing you’ve learned from doing a voiceover for a video game character? Have you considered doing something like this again — perhaps an animated film?

JGH: I would love to do more work in voiceover and video games. The video game itself took weeks of motion capture, fight weapons training, doing the voice for the character, and doing body panning so that the character had my likeness — all of her gestures are my gestures as well. Through that process I learned so much about focus, because you’re trying to do an honest portrayal of a character — even though it’s a video game, it’s really important to still give it integrity. You’re trying to do an honest portrayal of this character, but at the same time you have to be aware of all the technical elements involved with motion capture, so it requires you to be focused on several different levels at once. And you do everything so separately that it took a year between the time that I auditioned to the time that the game was released. So over a year, I did each part of the process, and not until a year later did I actually get to see my character up and running with all of the components put together.

GALO: What did you end up thinking of the final product once you saw it?

JGH: I thought it was awesome and really freaky. It’s one thing to hear your voice come out of your own body when you’re watching yourself on television, but it’s another thing to hear your voice come out of an animated character. Especially when I’m playing the video game and she can be antagonistic, and then it’s like I’m mad at myself [laughs]. It’s a weird juxtaposition.

GALO: Do you have any projects that fans can look forward to, whether it is TV or film?

JGH: Well, we just wrapped Graceland a few weeks ago, so I’m getting back into the audition circuit. I’m really excited to see what my next project is going to be, so your guess is as good as mine.

GALO: What sort of character would you love to be able to sink your teeth into during your future career?

JGH: One thing I haven’t gotten a chance to do yet is comedy, and that’s something I did since I was a little kid. I don’t know about the sense of a character, but I would love to move into the comedy genre. I’ve actually been thinking about trying stand-up for the first time, but that is slowly in the works, and hopefully, I can let you know one day that I actually got the balls to get up and do it — so I’ll keep you posted.

Featured image: Actress Jamie Gray Hyder. Photo Credit: Bjoern Kommerell.