True Blood's Stephen Moyer Says Bosses Helped Spark Romance with Anna Paquin

There are social networks for meeting people, and then there are TV networks – and Stephen Moyer credits the latter with hooking him up with his fiancée, True Blood costar Anna Paquin.

"It's HBO's fault," the British actor, 40, tells Details in its May issue. "They put us in the same hotel" – though in not the same room, at least "not to begin with," he adds.

"No, I'm joking. They put us in these hotel suites, and we hung out for a while and got to know each other. The attraction was there, so it was a matter of whether we acted on it or not."

And, obviously, act they did. While they announced their engagement last August, the closest date Moyer will forecast for an actual wedding is 2020 – not that he sounds serious.

He is open about discussing his relationship with Paquin, 27, and admits he was cautious when it first started. "To get a pilot that runs to a series, it's big s--- to people," he says. "And so to come along and go, 'Oh, let's have a quick f---,' and then risk arguing and being a nightmare when you're playing the two people who are together the whole time – that would be immature."

A Link to Venice

Having lived for seven years on a houseboat in London's waterside canal area called Little Venice, Moyer now resides with Paquin in a house on the canals of Venice, Calif. "I have to live in places that are called Venice," he jokes. "I'm a Venice-zuelan."

He's also the father of two children, Lilac, 7, and Billy, 10, from two separate past relationships.

As for his distinctive way of pronouncing "Sookie" (Paquin's character on the vampire series), Moyer is equally candid. "'Sookie' rhymes with 'cookie,' " he says. "It doesn't rhyme with 'kooky.' "

Asked if he calls her that at home, the leading man replies with a straight face, "All the time. When she's chained up."