Anna Paquin Hates Drinking (Sugar-Free) Vampire Blood

Nude scenes? That’s a breeze, says True Blood star Anna Paquin. But having to drink vampire blood — well, that just sucks.

“I get a kick out it, but the actual blood makes me want to gag!” Paquin tells Self in its July issue on newsstands Tuesday. “It’s kind of a sweet corn syrup, I think, with an aftertaste that’s less than pleasant after the 10th take,” she adds of filming scene for the popular HBO series. “In season one, they asked me if I wanted sugar or sugar-free. I was like, ‘Sugar-free blood? Sounds great!’”

Big mistake: “It only tastes like the latex tubes it’s coming through,” says Paquin, 27, who, in one particular scene had to feed “ravenously from Bill’s arm so I drank probably a gallon. Never again.”

Kissing a vampire, says the actress, is “sharp [and] dangerous” and those famous fangs are top-quality props they’re not allowed to take home.

“Those things are actually really expensive and quite fragile! They are not toys,” she says.As for why she and fiancee Stephen Moyer, 40, kept their relationship a secret for the first 10 months, Paquin explains the the two costars simply “had a job to do.”

“You don’t want to bring personal stuff to work,” she says. “I’m of the opinion that if it’s nobody’s problem, it’s nobody’s business. But who knows who knew what and when? Clearly Alan Ball, the show’s creator, cast us because we had chemistry!”