Stephen Moyer joins Anna Paquin in the cast of Alan Ball’s upcoming HBO vampire drama based on Charlaine Harris’s Southern Vampire novels.

Stephen Moyer has been cast in True Blood, the upcoming HBO drama pilot from Six Feet Under creator Alan Ball, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Moyer will play the vampire love interest to Anna Paquin‘s mind-reading waitress Sookie Stackhouse, based on the characters from the Southern Vampire novels by Charlaine Harris.

Brook Kerr (“Whitney” from NBC soap opera Passions) also has been cast in the project, which Ball wrote and will direct and executive produce. Kerr will play a beautiful, smart, articulate young woman who takes a job in the bar where Sookie works. Ryan Kwanten will play Sookie’s brother Jason, while Sam Trammell will appear as Sookie’s boss.

True Blood takes place in a small Louisana town where the integration of vampires, who now have legal rights and buy Japanese-made synthetic blood, causes quite a stir, as does the innocent, human Sookie’s love affair with a vampire.