Sookie Stackhouse is the fictional protagonist and narrator of Charlaine Harris' The Southern Vampire Mysteries and the main character in HBO's television adaptation, True Blood.

Sookie is a telepathic waitress from Louisiana who is in her mid-twenties at the beginning of the Southern Vampire Mysteries series.

Orphaned at the age of seven after her parents died in a flash flood, Sookie and her brother Jason were raised by their paternal grandmother, Adele. For most of her life Sookie experiences her telepathy as a "disability" that isolates her from other people. Her childhood is marred by the loss of her parents and sexual molestation suffered at the hands of her great-uncle.

Aside from her grandmother and brother, Sookie has a cousin named Hadley, with whom she was close in their early years. Other family that play an important role in Sookie's life are her fairy great-grandfather, Niall Brigant, her fairy cousins, Claudine, Claude, and Claudette, and her uncle Dermot. After her cousin Hadley dies (the final death), she discovers that her cousin had a son, Hunter, who shares Sookie's telepathic abilities.

Anna Helene Paquin (/ˈpækwɪn/; born 24 July 1982) is a Canadian-born New Zealand actress. Paquin's first critically successful film was The Piano, for which she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in 1993 at the age of 11 – the second youngest winner in history. Her acting career took off almost half a decade later when she appeared in a string of successful films including She's All That, Almost Famous and the X-Men franchise.

Paquin has received critical acclaim for her role as Sookie Stackhouse in the HBO series True Blood, for which she won the 2008 Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Television Series Drama.

Paquin was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, the daughter of Mary Paquin (née Brophy), an English teacher and native of Wellington, New Zealand, and Brian Paquin, a high school physical education teacher, native Canadian. Paquin is the youngest of three children; she has two older siblings: a brother, Andrew, a director, born in 1977, and a sister, Katya, born in 1980, who is the partner of Green Party co-leader Russel Norman. Paquin's family moved to New Zealand when she was four. She attended the Raphael House Rudolf Steiner School until she was eight or nine. Her musical childhood hobbies in New Zealand included playing the viola, cello, and piano. She also participated in gymnastics, ballet, swimming and downhill skiing, though she did not have any hobbies related to acting.

Charlaine Harris (born November 25, 1951) is a New York Times bestselling author who has been writing mysteries for over twenty years. She was born and raised in the Mississippi River Delta area of the United States. She now lives in southern Arkansas with her husband and three children. Though her early works consisted largely of poems about ghosts and, later, teenage angst, she began writing plays when she attended Rhodes College in Memphis, Tennessee. She began to write books a few years later. Her later books have been in the urban fantasy genre. She is best known for The Southern Vampire Mysteries series.

Harris was born in Tunica, Mississippi. After publishing two stand-alone mysteries, Harris began the lighthearted Aurora Teagarden books with Real Murders, a Best Novel 1990 nomination for the Agatha Awards. Harris wrote several books in the series before the mid-1990s when she began branching out into other works. She did not resume the series until 1999, with the exception of one short story in a Murder, She Wrote anthology titled "Murder, They Wrote".

Calvin Cordozar Broadus, Jr. (born October 20, 1971), better known by his stage name Snoop Dogg (formerly known as Snoop Doggy Dogg), is an American rapper, record producer, and actor. Snoop is best known as a rapper in the West Coast hip hop scene, and for being one of Dr. Dre's most notable protégés. Snoop Dogg was a Crip gang member while in high school. Shortly after graduation, he was arrested for cocaine possession and spent six months in Wayside County Jail. His music career began in 1992 after his release when he was discovered by Dr. Dre. He collaborated on several tracks on Dre's solo debut, The Chronic and on the titular theme song to the film Deep Cover.

Snoop's debut album Doggystyle, was released in 1993 under Death Row Records making a debut at No.1 on both the Billboard 200 and R&B charts. Selling almost a million copies in the first week of its release, Doggystyle quickly became certified 4× platinum in 1994 and spawned several hit singles, including "What's My Name" and "Gin & Juice". In 1994, Snoop released a soundtrack on Death Row Records for the short film Murder Was The Case, starring himself. In early 1996, Snoop Dogg was cleared of charges over his bodyguard's 1993 murder of Philip Woldemariam. His second album, late 1996's Tha Doggfather, also debuted at No.1 on both charts with "Snoop's Upside Ya Head" as the lead single. The album sold only half as well, being certified double platinum in 1997.