Ian Somerhalder is opening up about a difficult moment he experienced while filming The Vampire Diaries.
In an excerpt from the upcoming book I Was Feeling Epic: An Oral History of the Vampire Diaries, the actor revealed that during Season 3, he was so unhappy with the direction of his character (Damon Salvatore) that he nearly quit the CW show.
Ian explained that he didn’t want Damon to become a romantic lead as the character of Stefan (Paul Wesley) got to explore a dark villain arc.
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“I was so upset about the trajectory of Damon, so much so that at one point I was sitting across from Julie [Plec, co-creator] in her office in Atlanta almost in tears—actually, my eyes were quite misty—and asked out of the show,” he admitted.
“I was so angry about it. I wanted off. Because I saw the writing on the wall. Damon was heading toward the love-interest role. I was like, ‘S–t, I’m in my early thirties, I’ve got a lot of this heat because of this show, I’m sure I could go find something that’s really cool and dark and edgy.’”
Julie convinced him to stay, reminding him of the six-year contract he signed, and assured him that there would be a balance in his storyline.
“I was like, ‘They’re going to turn me into a sappy character.’ Julie was like, ‘You’re not leaving the show. First of all, you’re one of the stars and one of the parts of the beating heart of the show; and two, you signed a six-year contract, so that’s not happening; and three, don’t worry, there has to be layers,’” he explained.
Julie added in the book: “I said, ‘If one’s going dark, the other has to go light, there’s a balance in the narrative that we want to be playing around with these characters and giving you all exciting and interesting things to do, and this is Paul’s time. Let Paul have his time.’”
He would continue on with the show, which ran from September 2009 through March 2017 on The CW.
Read the full book excerpt at Variety.com.
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Source: justjared.com