Nelsan Ellis BLASTS Luke Grimes
True Blood‘s Lafayette aka Nelsan Ellis SLAMS Jessica’s love interest Luke Grimes who played James for quitting over a bisexual storyline on the final season.
This season Jessica’s love interest James played by Luke Grimes was replaced by Nathan Parsons who took over the role of James on True Blood because he had to engage in a romantic relationship with Ellis’ Lafayette. CelebNMusic247.com has learned that Nelsan Ellis is speaking out on Luke Grimes, who took on the role of James on the show, spending much of last season wooing fellow vampire Deborah Ann Woll‘s Jessica. This season, though, James suddenly had a new face as Nathan Parsons took over the role.
See Nelsan plays the gay character with charisma, charm and has a 6th sense on HBO’s “True Blood.” As Lafayette.
Parsons tells The Hollywood Reporter:
“Now we’ll start to see more of Lafayette and I together, and Jessica has another thing she’s going to start dealing with.”
As for how the sexy scene unfolded, Parsons explains,
“It was a full-night shoot, and we had a bunch of group stuff to do earlier that day. There were 20 actors there and we shot all their stuff, and then for the last four or five hours it was just me and Nelsan.”
After this season of True Blood started airing and “the creative direction of the character” revealed his character of James as a bisexual and starting a relationship with Ellis’ Lafayette he got cold feet and quit. Shortly after, Grimes issued a statement saying that he left over his feature film schedule, and that it had nothing to do with storylines, but HBO alleged that his decision was due to “the creative direction of the character.”
Ellis revealed to Vulture after his character’s first sex scene with the new Jame, saying:
“I just think that, you’re an actor.”
“We’re all sitting there going, ‘You quit your job because … really?’ I’m just… I’m over him. You quit your job because you don’t want to play a gay part? As if it’s … You know what? I’m going to stop talking.”
Ellis continued:
But he didn’t. “You make a statement when you do something like that,”
“You make a … big statement, when you go, ‘I don’t want to play this part because it’s gay.’ If you have a child, if you have a son, and he comes out as gay, what are you going to do? If you have a daughter who comes out gay…? You just made a statement, and it has ripple effects.”
He said that a show like “True Blood” almost demands that its actors come in prepared to expect the unexpected. Created by Alan Ball, who is openly gay, the drama is known for its sexual content and LGBT characters and relationships.
Ellis said:
“I’m supposed to do what my boss tells me to do, as an actor.”
“I can’t approach a character with judgment. I certainly can’t tell my boss, ‘I can act what I want to act, but not what you tell me to act,’ especially on a show where you come in, knowing what it is.”
