NINA DOBREV chats with Dose about Vampire Diaries.
“I’ll be honest: when I first read the pilot synopsis, I remember thinking, ‘Oh, this is just Twilight on TV,’” the 21-year-old Canadian says during one of her few days off from filming in Atlanta. “Then I researched and realized it was much more than that. We began shooting and it kind of grew a life of its own. It’s such a huge departure from how it originally came across.”
The first few episodes of The Vampire Diaries followed the standard vampire formula: young Elena (Dobrev) meets and falls for Stefan Salvatore (Paul Wesley), unaware that he’s a centuries-old vampire – or that his brother, Damon (Ian Somerhalder), is similarly afflicted and has been attacking the town’s residents. But once Elena discovered the Salvatores’ true nature, The Vampire Diaries let loose, employing a breakneck pace of storytelling rarely seen on other shows (ahem, Lost).
Events that could take weeks to develop on another series instead occur within a single episode (or less) on The Vampire Diaries. Elena gets kidnapped? She’s rescued within the next 20 minutes. Stefan discovers a terrible secret about Elena’s past? He shares it with everyone immediately so they can determine a plan of (literal) attack. Now in its second season, The Vampire Diaries is enjoying great ratings and even better reviews – many of which begin with, “You’re not going to believe it, but…”
“You always hope that a show will be successful and it will do well and people will watch it and love it, so we always had hopeful expectations,” Dobrev says. “And then when the show premiered, it started doing well and had a good response, we were absolutely thrilled. It’s just been going strong since then; the ratings have been consistent, people are still watching and I think it’s because we’re still delivering intense, jam-packed, sexy, dramatic, action-filled episodes.”
Describing the show’s writers as “masterminds,” Dobrev adds that The Vampire Diaries won’t let up on the action any time soon: “They’ve got a plan and I’m so confident in them. I know they’ve got a good, long plan for the show.”
That’s not to say that The Vampire Diaries sacrifices character development; rather, showrunner Kevin Williamson seems to have realized his actors’ talent and has written their characters accordingly. Dobrev and her costars are constantly acting out the devastating emotional consequences of living such dangerous lives: Stefan has shown to have a dark side, while Damon has struggled to confront both his feelings for Elena and his more destructive tendencies.
Dobrev has the added challenge of playing two characters: the well-meaning Elena, and Katherine, her evil vampire doppelganger who wouldn’t hesitate to snap the spine of an innocent bystander.
“As Katherine, I can get away with a lot more and say a lot more and be a little bit more edgy and bad. She has a very playful personality. As soon as I put on the heels and they start curling my hair, I’m in the zone,” Dobrev explains. “As Elena, it’s the same thing: I put on the Converse and jeans and a T-shirt, and I feel like this strong, young woman, figuring herself out. That’s who she is: she’s figuring herself out and she’s growing.”
And while Elena may not be as over-the-top as Katherine, Dobrev appreciates that she’s evolved beyond the sulky teenager who is constantly in danger.
“Elena started out as a very troubled young woman and throughout all the hardships and experiences of the last year and a half, she’s grown and taken on responsibilities. She’s becoming a strong, confident woman. She’s very courageous; if you ask me, she’s a very courageous individual. I wouldn’t be able to do half the things she’s dealing with.”
Of course, the extra work load can take its toll.
“I’m not sleeping very much!” Dobrev laughs. “The hours are pretty crazy and I’m working a lot; I’m actually becoming a vampire in my own right.
“But it’s great; it’s a really great opportunity that I’ve been given.”
The roles aren’t without their challenges: she admits that she sometimes struggles to understand Katherine’s motivations, especially her die-hard love for Stefan.
“I honestly don’t even know [why she loves him],” Dobrev says sheepishly. “They tell me that when I play Katherine, ‘Oh, she loves Stefan.’ ‘Oh, really? Why?’ ‘Don’t worry about it. She just loves Stefan.’ That’s what they tell me. I have to make up my own backstory and hope that it’s right.”
As for Elena’s relationship with the Salvatores, Dobrev praises its layered, complicated nature and commends the writers for not backing off for the sake of convenience.
“She’s with the two boys out of circumstance. They keep worming their way into her life and complicating it very much; as much as she loves them, they pose a lot of problems for her and her family – and her survival,” she emphasizes. “At the same time, you can’t help who you love. As much as she fights it, she has this undeniable chemistry with Damon and she has this love for Stefan. As horrible as it is and as much danger as it puts her in, she can’t get away from them.”
She adds: “And it doesn’t help that Damon’s constantly coming around and roping her into his life.”
The love triangle is so complicated, Dobrev says, that she can’t come close to answering the one question of every Vampire Diaries fan is asking: who should Elena end up with?
“Right now, I don’t know, because Stefan and Damon are so different – each one fulfills different needs or quenches a different part of Elena’s thirst,” she explains. “She’ll grow and change, and the things she needs from people change all the time. She’s still figuring it out. It depends on what kind of person she eventually becomes; that will determine what kind of person she’ll eventually need. I just don’t know.”
And if the writers have any idea, they’re not telling.
“They want to keep us on our toes as much as possible; they want us in the moment, just like our characters,” Dobrev says. “We live and play day by day, and we’re just as shocked and surprised as the viewers are by what happens next.”
Source: Dose
Tags: Nina Dobrev, Vampire Diaries
“First, Jeremy getting trapped in the tomb was like, Katherine wins! When Stefan came in, she’s like, ‘Wow, I couldn’t have planned this better if I tried. The one person I want to be stuck with, here he is, and now he’s got nowhere to go. I will seduce him, I will tease him, I will anger him.’ The line between love and hate truly is very, very thin,” Dobrev says. “So she has a chance to egg him on, and he can’t do anything about it. He has no choice but to listen, and yeah, it is a very kind of sexy, manipulative scene, and he gives in. It’s pretty crazy.”
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