HBO’s swampy vampire soap “True Blood” is set in Bon Temps, Louisiana, but much of it is filmed in Southern California. Seeing-stars has a great breakdown of the show’s CA and LA locations that are real places in towns like Long Beach and Piru. However, one of the major locations, Merlotte’s Bar & Grill, exists solely on studio backlots and sound stages.
If you take the Warner Brothers VIP Studio Tour, you’ll see (the generally undressed) exterior of Merlotte’s as you cruise through the studio’s forest/jungle area. It’s nestled in the trees near a shack that’s recently been used on “Chuck” and “The Mentalist”. It remains undressed (as above) until the crew comes in to film scenes, at which point it is dressed up as the Merlotte’s you recognize from the show:
The interior of Merlotte’s is constructed and filmed on a sound stage at another studio. (Having been inside “Merlotte’s” as seen above, I can confirm there’s really nothing inside.) However, tucked away behind Merlotte’s is Sam’s trailer:
When I last visited the Warner Brothers lot, they’d just finished filming some scenes with Sam and his car was still on the lot, parked out by Merlotte’s. As with Merlotte’s, the interior of Sam’s trailer is pretty bare — the interior set is built on a sound stage at a different studio.
Still, it was cool that the tour guide for the Warner Brothers Deluxe Tour (which I took for the first time this month) let us wander in and around both locations — especially knowing that Sam Trammell had been there just a day earlier!
For more info on the Warner Brothers tour, check out our story & review here.
- Story and photos by Christina LeBlanc, Executive Editor
A trip to the USA and Warner Bros studio, (among other sites), is definitly on my bucket list. Mr. Woodborough from West Bridgford