Why on earth would the creators of The Vampire Diaries not tell Nina Dobrev she had been cast in the leading role. Well, according to an article by Entertainment Weekly, there's a very good reason for this.
While Nina eventually left her character of Elena Gilbert part-way through Vampire Diaires' run on The CW, she's easily best-known for that work. Of course, Nina got her start on the Canadian show Degrassi alongside Drake. And she's become known for a ton of things since. But Elena really is the most important role in her filmography so far. So, why was earning this role kept secret from her at first? The answer is yet another amazing behind-the-scenes fact about the making of the show. Let's take a look...
Nina Booked It... But Had Absolutely No Clue
Elena Gilbert was, at one stage, the heart and focal point of the show. At the beginning the series, she was dealing with the death of her parents and was pretty much cold within. And then she met the Salvatore brothers and things really changed. Casting this role, which was really the character stand-in for the audience, was vital. But it was only one of many characters Nina was trying out for during audition season. And she was just one of many, many, actors co-creators Kevin Williams and Julie Plec, as well as director Marcos Siega, saw for the role. Although, Nina ended up doing two different auditions for them.
"[Nina] came in and read and she was sick and we sort of said, 'Oh great thanks, nice to meet you, see you again soon,' and she didn’t feel good about the impression that she left," co-creator Julie Plec explained to Entertainment Weekly. "So she went back and put herself on tape and had her reps re-submit the tape and asked us to take a second look. We did and it was just undeniable at that point that she was the one. So she basically booked the role off of her self-tape after, in her mind, blowing her first audition."
Even though Nina was the perfect actor for the role of Elena Gilbert, the filmmakers behind the show opted not to tell her. Seriously, they just didn't tell her that she was cast in the series and continued on with the process.
So, why would they do this?
"I did get the show but they didn’t tell me because they wanted to test different guys," Nina Dobrev claimed. "They wanted to keep me in the dark because they wanted to keep me on my toes and they made me keep auditioning over and over again with multiple guys. I think it was 15 guys I had to read with under the pretense that I still hadn’t gotten the role."
Finding The Salvatore Brothers
Ultimately, casting all three main characters was vital to the success of the show. Keeping Nina in the dark about the status of her casting while chemistry-reading her alongside a series of potential Salvatore brothers meant that she was bound to be putting in the effort and not phoning it in. This was really the only way the co-creators and director of the show could see if the potential of the series they were creating.
"They sent me the script for The Vampire Diaries, and I knew immediately that the show was going to be a hit because it was Kevin Williamson," Paul Wesley (who played Stefan Salvatore) said about the co-showrunner who had a lot of big series under his belt at that point. "They wouldn’t see me for Stefan because they thought I was too old. So I went in and read for Damon and had a callback and did okay. Then I didn’t hear anything and went on with my life. I actually think I tested for another show. Then I got a call that they were having a bit of a hard time and had done all these tests and they thought they found the guys and they didn’t."
Ultimately, they went with Ian Somerhalder for the role of Damon but didn't think Paul was right for the role of Stefan as Paul was actually older than Ian who was supposed to play his younger brother. However, the casting director, Lesli Gelles-Raymond kept pushing the co-creators to hire Paul.
"We pushed production at least once, and we were in danger of being less than a week away from shooting and having no male lead and ultimately — and quite famously — we were sort of pressured into casting Paul Wesley against our desires, which of course means everybody knew way better than us and that we almost missed out on the most perfect piece of casting," co-creator Julie Plec admitted.
Eventually, Paul was tested alongside Nina (who still didn't know she was cast in the role) to see if the two had any chemistry together.
"I had Nina come to my house with a couple of the guys that we were considering and one of them, unbeknownst to me at the time, was her real-life boyfriend," director Marcos Seiga said. "Obviously when they did their chemistry read, they had a lot of chemistry but he just wasn’t right. I could see she was giving it her all and he was too but it just wasn’t connecting."
And then Paul walked in...
"I read with a lot of guys and I had different experiences — good, bad, indifferent," Nina explained. "It’s not that one person was perfect for it; everyone was just so different. But I remember that Paul was the only one who didn’t speak to me unless we were speaking on camera. Everyone else was trying to schmooze with me and flirt with me because it’s a chemistry read, and that was my first-ever chemistry read so I thought that’s what it was supposed to be as well. I was trying to get a vibe: who did I have the most sexual tension with? And because Paul didn’t speak to me, we had the least sexual tension."
This is because Paul chose not to meet Nina before they auditioned so their chemistry would feel fresh, new, and totally authentic. While this rubbed Nina the wrong way, it actually ended up working. Paul was cast and the rest is history.
Only when both Salvatore brothers had actors portraying them did Nina know that she had booked her character long before either of them.