Anna Paquin has been turning in solid work ever since her Oscar-winning performance as a child in The Piano. She’s worked steadily, most notably as Rogue in the X-Men movies and a small but interesting part in the often overlooked Spike Lee film The 25th Hour. It was no surprise to me that Paquin would end up doing a television show. There’s no shame in it, after all. Lots of Oscar-winners are finding juicy work in television, like Marcia Gay Harden and William Hurt on FX’s “Damages”, or Paquin’s Piano co-star Holly Hunter on TNT’s “Saving Grace”.

Paquin’s turn to television is HBO’s “True Blood”. It’s a strange but effective time for a television show about vampires, considering the craze for all things blood-sucker in books and movies. I haven’t seen the show, but I’ve seen a couple of interviews with the show’s British star (and head vampire) Stephen Moyer. What is it with Brits playing vampires these days?

Anyway, Moyer is really cute. He looks like the kind of guy I would have gone for in college (slender, good jawline, intense eyes), but he’s 37 years old! I would have pegged him at mid-twenties. Good bones, I guess. It looks like he’s Anna Paquin’s type too – the two are now dating, as Moyer confirmed to TV Guide magazine.

For any True Blood fan, the relationship between the show’s lead characters, Sookie Stackhouse (Anna Paquin) and Bill Compton (Stephen Moyer) is about as hot as it gets–even by HBO standards!

Now, it looks like the actors have taken that chemistry from the scripted page to real life!

“We are together,” Moyer confirmed to TV Guide Magazine. “It’s just exciting and that was there from day one. “We always take the piss out of each other and are silly with each other and it is great. We’re very, very happy. She’s the best.”

On the show, the tall dark and British Moyer, 37, plays a century-year-old vampire who has come back to live in a small Lousiana town and falls in love with the mortal and virginal Sookie (Paquin), a small town waitress with an ability to read people’s minds.

In real-life, Moyer and Paquin, 26, are living together here in the states, however Moyer splits his time between L.A. and London, where he has two young children from a previous relationship.

The couple’s real-life romance first sparked at the True Blood audition, but the pair decided to wait to go public. “The reason it was dodged last year was very intentional on both our parts,” Moyer says. “It was very important to me that the cast and crew we were working with didn’t feel it was fickle, and didn’t feel it could possibly potentially encroach on our lives, you know, just like, ‘Oh the two stars are having a thing.’ We didn’t want to take anything away from the show. The show is the star, not the two people having a relationship.”

From OK! Magazine

He’s sounds like a nice guy, but maybe a little… famewhoring? This is one of those rare times where the guy is gushing to the press about his relationship, and it makes me a little uncomfortable. But it seems like they make each other happy, so God bless. I wonder if he bites her in bed.

Anna Paquin and Stephen Moyer are shown at the Vanity Fair Oscar Party on 2/22/09. Credit: WENN

With all the talk around here of really famous people, how about a break for some less-famous hook-ups? Or possible hook-ups intended to bring in publicity for a TV show.

True Blood is a vampire series on HBO in which Anna Paquin stars as a mind-reading waitress named Sookie who consistently wears dresses that are way too small.

Us reports that 26-year-old Paquin, who won an Oscar at age 11 for The Piano but is probably best known as Rogue from the X-Men films, is dating her True Blood co-star Stephen Moyer, age 36 or 37, depending on what day he was born. Online sources only list his birth date as 1971.

Moyer has an eight-year-old son and six-year-old daughter from previous relationships. According to IMDB, he’s previously starred in a lot of British television series.

Anna is very protective of her private life but has been romantically linked to actors Logan Marshall-Green and Kieran Culkin.

Stephen Moyer obviously also keeps his private life private, because there is bupkus online about this guy.

According to Us, Anna and Stephen have been a couple since they met filming the pilot episode.

“They are really cute together,” says the source. “Extremely in love and perfectly suited.”

[From Us, print edition, September 29, 2008]

I don’t get HBO so I don’t know how good this show is, but I loved Moonlight on CBS even though it was super-corny. I’m still bitter that they cancelled it.

I’m always suspicious when co-stars are rumored to be dating because it’s the easiest way to get free PR for a TV show or movie, but these two actors don’t seem like the type to sell out their personal lives for publicity.

Images are promo stills for True Blood via WENN