Subtitles section Play video Print subtitles who I love so much. with the newest resident in Bon Temps, Nathan Parsons. ( cheering, applause ) And then the beautiful Jessica, Deborah Ann Woll. ( cheering, applause ) Lafayette himself, Nelsan Ellis. ( cheering, applause ) ( woman shouts ) Thank you. Miss Arlene, Carrie Preston. ( cheering, applause ) And his first time at Comic-Con, Chris Bauer, Andy Bellefleur. ( cheering, applause ) And the now Buddhist Sarah Newlin, Anna Camp. ( cheering, applause ) ( laughs ) Executive producer Brian Buckner. ( cheering, applause ) Bauer: Dead man walkin'. Pam, Kristin Bauer van Straten. ( cheering, applause ) Man: I love you, Pam! - ( Stack chuckles ) - ( cheering, applause ) The dearly departed Tara Thornton, Rutina Wesley. ( cheering, applause ) Stack: Look at that jacket! That's such a cool-- I love that jacket. Sam Merlotte, Sam Trammell. ( cheering, applause ) Mr. Bill Compton, Stephen Moyer. ( cheering, applause ) And the lady who without this show wouldn't exist, Sookie Stackhouse, Anna Paquin. ( cheering, applause ) - Audience members: Go, season eight! - Okay. - ( laughs ) Season eight. - Season eight. This is crazy. Well, you guys, let's go back-- since this is maybe one of the last times you'll all be together onstage, what do you all remember from shooting the pilot? Did you immediately think, "This is something special"? Did you think, like, "I can't believe this-- I don't know if this is gonna go"? What did you guys think? What are your memories of that pilot? - Moyer: Can anybody remember seven years ago? - ( laughter ) There was that little lot-- I just remember that "The Suite Life of Zack & Cody" was shooting right next door and we had all these naked bloody people walking around. That's my memory. What about the rest of you guys? You have any memories? Anna, Stephen? - No? - I mean, yeah, but somebody else go first. - Stack: Okay. - I remember Merlotte's. - Stack: Yeah. - One of the only sets that was actually built at the time was his bar, and I remember walking around and looking at every single detail, every beautiful little-- there's loads of posters that you won't have seen of the Louisiana peach-eating competition or the best peach in Louisiana. - Paquin: I think it's Peach Festival. - Peach Festival. And all of these little posters up that were brought in by Ron and Suzuki Ingerslev and just thinking, "Wow, this is amazing, this-- the world that they're setting up." Trammell: Yeah, they literally have, like, cards for carpenters and plumbers from Louisiana, like real people tacked on the back of the bar. It's really detailed. It's pretty amazing. Rutina, do you have any memories? I love when Tara yells at that lady in the store. That's, like, my favorite-- I love that. Wesley: I think that's one of my favorite scenes of the whole series. I remember from the pilot for me just being terrified because it was my first job-- almost my first job out of school, and I was like, "Oh, my God, just please don't fire me. Please don't fire me." But I remember just having a lot of fun, learning a lot really quickly. And all these guys, of course, were so welcoming, so it was a lot of fun. And Nelsan, Lafayette was supposed to die originally and you-- I think Stephen told me the story that you-- I think you were, like, with Alan. You guys were, like, "We can't kill this guy off. He's too good." Woman: Yeah, he is! ( laughter, cheering ) Well, I'm glad he kept me with a job. ( laughing ) It's funny because what I remember most is I was like, "Do my shirts have to be this tight? Jesus, okay." Do you guys have-- over the course-- over seven years now, do you guys have favorite sort of, like, what-the-eff moments? Sort of fave-- I always think about the meat tree. I love the meat tree. I think the meat tree is just-- I like the idea of it. But, like, Stephen, do you-- the Lorena sex where you-- I'm just gonna go back to something 'cause you just made me think of it, Nelsan. There was a moment in the pilot that we talked about before, Tim-- there was a moment in the pilot where Nelsan is cooking grits or something. Was it, Nelsan? What were you cooking? Ellis: I think I was cooking burgers. Paquin: When you started humping the thing-- And he starts basically doing this... Ellis: Oh, six gear. That was my six gears. - What was it? - That was my six gears. ( Buckner laughs ) It's your six gears. And at which point he turns around and says, "Everybody love the pussy. John, even you. You scared of the pussy, right?" And there was this guy, this extra that was there just for the day that was Big John, as he became known, and because of that moment when Nelsan turned around and said, "Even Big John's scared of the pussy," even at that moment, Big John has been in every single one of our episodes ever since. - Because of him. - Stack: Oh. Because of Nelsan. I like that, I like that. Brian, there's been a lot more flashbacks, I think, this season, especially with Bill and Pam and Eric. Is that a conscious decision to show-- I mean, do you guys want to bring things full circle? Because it started with Bill and the Civil War stuff. Well, with Bill-- we've got a character who we turned into a vampire god. And he wasn't that nice when he was a vampire god, so, honestly, the thinking there was, as Bill tries to find his way back to himself, let's give him a little help by flashing back to his human life. And that's kind of the case across the boards with a lot of the flashbacks-- to give a little bit more context, you know. How Pam and Eric came to Shreveport in the first place. Just filling in holes that were out there and learning something else about these characters who we've already spent a lot of episodes with. So, yeah, for sure conscious, but we've always done flashbacks. There's just some purpose to them. - Stack: Right. - Yeah. I love-- my favorite flashback so far this year was the fact that Pam and Eric owned a video store franchise. Mm-hmm. Who came up with-- where'd that come from? Was that your idea? How did that even come to be? We wanted to do a flashback to how they came to Shreveport. There was, um-- we're like, it needs to be the worst punishment imaginable. Like, the worst punishment imaginable. And it was one of our writers, Craig Chester, who actually said, "A video store." And, yeah, so that's how we came to that. And, Kristin, how-- those must've been so fun to shoot. I mean, the '80s clothes-- I know you love your costumes as Pam, but those were, like, another level, I think. Was that a blast to shoot? Yeah, the '80s was another level and it was really fun to go back there and have even more hair, and it really is so brilliant that we end up in this fluorescently lit video store and then also that the throne,