After six seasons, 133 episodes and four characters, Nina Dobrev is saying goodbye to The Vampire Diaries.
When Dobrev scored the lead role in the book series adaptation, she had just one significant role on her resume with the Canadian hit Degrassi: The Next Generation. Over the course of the next six years, viewers would watch the actress show incredible range as she transitioned from orphaned teen to newbie vampire, all while experiencing love for the first time and, yet, much more loss. She would also play a badass 500-year-old vampire, Katherine, and a vampire with her humanity shut off after the death of her brother. She’d later become a college freshman and, finally, she’d become human again. With just one final episode left, Dobrev, like her character, prepares to leave one significant chapter behind, and in her own words looks back on the journey that got her here.
In 2009, Dobrev flew to Vancouver to film the CW pilot.
I remember the first day on set like it was yesterday, which freaks me out! We shot in Vancouver, and I was with Kat Graham. We basically spent the whole day shooting in the car. Kat was driving and she had straight hair that was so weird looking and so did I. We kept having to crash because of the crow and we didn’t really know each other that well, but we were getting to know each other, and Kat’s a terrible driver, I just want to throw that out there. When we almost fake-crashed we almost real-crashed. It was a good day and we were all really excited. That pilot turned into six years of great memories that I will have with me for the rest of my life.Early on, the cast began doing press and appearing at Comic-Con. Still, it took awhile for enormity of the show’s reach to set in.
It was a gradual feeling. Look, we shoot in Atlanta so for years we didn’t really understand the magnitude. It wasn’t until we started doing press tours and began traveling across the globe to promote the show that we realized how popular it was and how big the fandom was. Also, I don’t feel any different and I surround myself with people who don’t treat me any different. So I know the show is very popular, but I don’t have people who give me special treatment by any means. But I think one of the first few times I realized was when a friend of a friend’s kid in high school said our poster from the show was on their locker and all over their rooms. I was like “Really?” And they were like, “Yeah, unless you watchThe Vampire Diaries on Thursday nights you have nothing to talk about on Fridays.” When somebody told me that I was like, “We’re a pop culture reference now; that’s so cool!” Continue Reading at TV GUIDE
