The Vampire Diaries hive, rise up! A new book is spilling (or should that be sucking?) all the TVD goss from the course of the series and the tea is piping hot, including intel that Nina Dobrev quit the show over being paid significantly less than her male co-stars Ian Somerhalder and Paul Wesley. Honestly, good for her!
The book, titled I Was Feeling Epic: An Oral History of The Vampire Diaries, was written by Entertainment Weekly editor Samantha Highfill who spoke to the cast and crew to dig up all the spicy behind the scenes facts.
“Candice [King], Kat [Graham], and I were the three lowest-paid series regulars in the first two seasons,” Dobrev said. “It was a bit of a tricky situation because my contract only said to play Elena, but I was playing multiple characters, which doubled my workload. I had to be on set for double the amount of time, I had to memorise double the amount of lines.”
In the book, Highfill noted that actors usually don’t get to renegotiate their contracts until season three, meaning Dobrev earned less than Somerhalder (Damon Salvatore) and Wesley (Stefan Salvatore) during the early seasons.
“I wanted to play Katherine, but I wanted to be compensated fairly for that, and I wanted to be an equal to the boys,” Dobrev added. The actress eventually got more $$$, Highfill wrote, but she never received equal pay to her male co-stars.
She recalled being told that “out of principle”, the studio “wouldn’t bump me up to being equal to the boys, and so that was probably the most hurtful because it felt like I was really working hard and we shot eighteen-hour days sometimes, and nights, and I was putting my absolute heart and soul, blood, sweat, and tears into it”.
She added: “I remember feeling like the studio didn’t appreciate what I was bringing to the show, and it felt like they were saying that all the hard work I was putting into it didn’t matter to them and that I wasn’t an equal to my male counterparts, and so that was upsetting to me.”
The author also spoke to The Vampire Diaries co-creator Julie Plec, who claimed that things “got really heated” when they told the show’s writers they couldn’t use Katherine anymore because it meant the studio would have to pay Dobrev more each time.
However, Plec said that “was not something that I felt was right or fair”, leading them to “beg the network to let us even write story for Katherine”.
Plec said that eventually, the writers were told they could write for Katherine: “I literally think we had to say, ‘We’ll kill Katherine,’ in order to get permission to use her”.
“Over time, between Nina being generous and gracious and the tension simmering down a little bit, we were granted a certain number of episodes,” the co-creator said. “[But] I literally think we had to say, ‘We’ll kill Katherine,’ in order to get permission to use her.”
Dobrev shocked fans by bowing out after season six, when Elena was knocked into a magical coma by big bad Kai Parker (Chris Wood). The twist? Elena’s life force was tied to bestie Bonnie’s, meaning Elena couldn’t wake up without Bonnie dying.
Producers didn’t dare kill her off completely though – leaving the door wide open for a dramatic comeback. And sure enough, she made her grand return in the tear-filled series finale, aptly titled ‘I Was Feeling Epic’.
But when Dobrev staged her comeback for the eighth and final season, it reportedly reignited a behind-the-scenes pay war, according to Highfill’s book. Showrunners Julie Plec and Kevin Williamson even admitted they originally wanted her back for the whole season – not just the finale.
“I really wanted Elena and Stefan to end up together,” Williamson admitted, “that would’ve been my preference, but we didn’t have Elena to bring that relationship back around. You couldn’t bring them back together in one episode.”
Dobrev wasn’t about to play second fiddle – she made it clear she’d only step back into Elena’s shoes if her paycheck matched Wesley and Somerhalder’s, who’d been cashing in on multiple raises since she left.
“I was always open to coming back for the finale, and storyline-wise it made sense. I felt like it was important and it needed to happen for the show, it needed to happen for the fans,” the actress explained.
Dobrev later spilled that the studio’s first offer to lure her back for the finale was a total lowball – five times less than what she’d been raking in when she left after season six.
“That’s the only reason why at one point I almost didn’t come back,” she added. “I needed to be paid parity to the boys. I had to put my foot down and say if it didn’t happen I wouldn’t be able to come back,” she said. “And it wasn’t about the money — I didn’t give a shit about the money at all — it was the principle.”
Even showrunner Julie Plec had Dobrev’s back, admitting in Highfill’s book, “She should’ve been making what those boys made all along… To her credit, she advocated for herself and stuck to her guns.”
When Dobrev flat-out refused the studio’s lowball offer, Plec swooped in, went to bat for her star, and put her foot down. In the end, the studio caved – but only for one episode at the rate Dobrev demanded.
“The reason we couldn’t have her for more than the one episode is because they just wouldn’t pay,” the co-creator shared. “It took a lot of work before they finally relented, but it came back that it was one episode only that they’d say yes for.”
Dobrev added, “For the fans I felt horrible and I wanted the story to be told in the best way possible, and it was heartbreaking that the artistry had to suffer because elf this, that we didn’t get to maybe have the few episodes at the end of the show that Julie wanted. … I’m very happy that we were able to make it work and that I came back, because I wanted to be part of the goodbye.”
Tea on Nina Dobrev and Ian Somerhalder’s relationship
Elsewhere in the book, the topic of Nina Dobrev’s relationship with Ian Somerhalder came up. When she auditioned for the role, she was dating another guy who had read for the part that ultimately went to Somerhalder.
“There was a bunch of drama around that [audition] because I was dating Rob Mayes at the time, but they didn’t know that,” Dobrev shared. “We were trying to keep it really secret because we were afraid that if they found out, they wouldn’t cast one or both of us.”
Ironically, Dobrev’s wish to play opposite a real-life love interest ended up coming true off-screen—when she and Ian started dating for real.
“It got awkward because I did get cast but he didn’t, and then we subsequently broke up,” Dobrev explained. “Then, I ended up eventually, years later, dating the actual Damon.”
Yep, the Degrassi alum and Ian were an item from 2010 to 2013. Even after calling it quits, Dobrev kept sharing the screen with her ex until she left the show in 2015 – and somehow, the former flames managed to keep things cordial in the years that followed.
I Was Feeling Epic: An Oral History of The Vampire Diaries is out now, if you wanna suck more of that TVD blood, I mean, tea!
Image credit: The Vampire Diaries
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