It was before the producers took a further look into the audition tapes and considered Nina Dobrev to be a more perfect choice.
- May 27, 2010
AceShowbiz - Twenty two episodes after, it has just been revealed that Nina Dobrev wasn't The CW's first choice to lead "The Vampire Diaries". The network initially wanted Ashlee Simpson to take the role of Elena/Katherine but the producers thought they should look further.
"We all independently looked at a bunch of [audition] DVDs," co-executive producer and director Marcos Siega said at a recent Screen Actors Guild event for TVD. "We couldn't find the girl we wanted. The network wanted us to hire Ashlee Simpson. ...But Nina sent this DVD back and we all were home looking, searching, and we came in the next day saying, 'We should look at Nina again.' We showed it to Peter Roth, and Peter only saw her on that tape and he said, 'That's her'."
Ashlee eventually took a role on "Melrose Place" which is now axed due to low rating. Nina meanwhile shared her side of story to E! Online, saying "Half of Hollywood I think went out for the role, for all our roles. I guess I did something right, here I am. We had to discover and find our characters. Every episode we learned something more and something more, and eventually we created and molded these amazing, awesome characters."
In fact, Paul Wesley was not always Stefan. Many times he would audition for the role of Damon before Ian Somerhalder snatched it. However, Ian previously said that he didn't get the role straight away because the producers did not think he portrayed Damon the right way the first time.
"The Vampire Diaries" went through a successful season 1 and has been renewed for another season this Fall. "Typically the second season of every show is generally its best year so I think we need to make it an unbelievable year of television," Ian said. Nina confirmed that the season will start right where they left it off.
