Sam Trammell : NYPost

In three short seasons, the popularity of the vampire saga “True Blood” has exploded. What was once a cult phenomenon is now a full-blown obsession, thanks to a steady stream of sex, nudity, and biting — a constant commingling of flesh and blood, both highly exposed.

 

But for Sam Trammell, who plays bar owner Sam Merlotte, the nudity is a more trying experience than for most of his nubile colleagues. Unlike the vampires and werewolves who populate the fictional town of Bon Temps, Louisiana, Merlotte is a shape-shifter who changes into animals — usually, a cuddly little collie. Trammell’s shifts remove him from the scene entirely, as his role is taken over by an actual dog. When he changes back, then, he finds himself naked wherever the collie happens to land.

 

In a recent episode, Sam was found outside, laying starkers in the middle of a cold dirt road.

 

“We shot that scene in the middle of the night,” Trammell says. “It was freezing. You’re standing on a road in the desert, in a robe, and then you jump in the dirt. It’s not glamorous.”

 

And as anyone who’s ever sunbathed on a beach in a skimpy swimsuit can tell you, when you lay outside with skin exposed, you often bring unexpected gifts back home.

 

“I was rubbing dirt on my body so it looked like I really had been running through the woods. You find dirt in weird places,” he says. “It winds up in my ear, on your fingernails.”

 

While many of the show’s coffin-hopping characters enjoy the benefit of soft lighting and gorgeous, naked castmates beside them on a regular basis, Trammell’s nudity allows for a different set of sensations.

 

“It’s very humbling when you’re standing next to huge trees and you’re just a little naked guy,” he says. “It’s not a real majestic thing. That happens to my character all the time.”

 

Nudity for the sake of one’s art is nothing new to the 39-year-old actor, who spent years in the New York theater and performed in several plays that required the full monty.

 

But while being naked on “True Blood” has become old hat, even when Trammell does get to sex it up with some of his co-stars — as he did with Anna Paquin and Rutina Wesley in season one, and as he will this season with another cast member whose name he won’t reveal — the eroticism is at more of a simmer than a boil. “They’re totally bizarre,” he says of shooting the show’s sex scenes.

 

“I shot a scene the other day where basically I was having sex with someone, and it was seven in the morning. I was still half asleep, and so was she, and we were like, ‘Good morning,’ and then they said, ‘Action!’ And you’re almost fully naked, and you pretend to have sex. It’s a very strange business.”

 

But while vampire (and shape-shifter) sensuality is the show’s major selling point, the characters’ personal stories add layers of resonance. For Merlotte, this season, that means finding the family that gave him away after learning of his shape-shifting powers.

 

“Sam’s trying to figure out [his new brother] Tommy’s relationship with his parents,,” says Trammell, whose girlfriend, actress Missy Yager, starred opposite Matthew Broderick on Broadway in “The Starry Messenger.”

 

When not dealing with his television family, Trammell, a New Orleans native, has been lending his name to help with the relief effort concerning the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

 

Trammell participated in the recent Larry King telethon, and found it as bizarre as laying naked in the dirt.

 

“This guy Pete Wentz, who is Ashlee’s Simpson’s husband, wanted to take my picture, for Ashlee. I was sitting between him and Nicole Richie. I felt like I was in a club. I was waiting for Lindsay Lohan to throw a drink on me.”

 

Trammell’s experience at the telethon proved that “True Blood” has made him a bayou sex symbol.

 

““Victoria Principal started talking to me [at the telethon] about the very first episode of the show, when I’m naked, and a briefcase is covering my middle section,” he recalls. “She was saying, ‘Oh, it was kind of distracting because you’re naked.’ It was insane. Victoria Principal was flirting with me.”