TVSquad

Now here's some news I can sink my teeth into. Aside from my Buffy fixation, I spend my days and nights awaiting the return of Alan Ball's True Blood on June 16. I'm on a vampire roll.

The HBO show has just picked up Evan Rachel Wood, who will play a vampire queen in the second season. You know, she sort of has that vampire look to her. Or rather, the goth look I imagine a female vamp might have. I think she'll be great in the role.

Wood's character is the Queen of Louisiana, a 400-year-old vampire who rules over the undead residents of the Bayou State. She's a pivotal character in Books 2 and 3 of the Sookie Stackhouse novels on which the series is based (loosely, some would say).

Season two finds waitress Sookie (Anna Paquin) and vampire Bill (Stephen Moyer) on a secret mission to Texas, on the Queen's authority. Wood has signed for two episodes, but I'm guessing we'll see her throughout the series.

She made the gossip columns last year as the supposed flame of Mickey Rourke, her co-star in The Wrestler. Of course, I'll always think of her first as Jessie Sammler in Once and Again.