Can’t get enough of vampires? That’s exactly what the CW hopes, as they’re launching the latest and greatest bloodsucker saga, The Vampire Diaries, based on the books by L.J. Smith. The show’s leading lady is the lovely and talented Nina Dobrev, a young Canadian actress best known for her days on Degrassi: The Next Generation. She stars as Elena, a pretty and popular teen still smarting from the deaths of her parents when she makes the acquaintance of two vampire brothers, Stefan (Paul Wesley), who’s good, and Damon (Ian Somerhalder), who’s not. PopStar recently spoke with Dobrev by telephone as she headed into work down in Atlanta. The Vampire Diaries — which premieres tonight — will air on Thursdays.

How many girls did you beat out for the role of Elena?

They didn’t tell me how many girls tried out, actually. But I remember that when I was getting ready to go in to audition everyone was talking about this new vampire show. Everyone I knew that’s a girl, all my actress friends, they were auditioning for the show. I actually had to fly back to Toronto to film a movie, Chloe, and they asked me to put myself on tape because they still hadn’t found their girl. I think at that point they were down to five girls that they were reading in person for the studio, as a screen test. But I was in Toronto. So I sent in a tape. And my tape beat out everyone in the room. Then they flew me down to go against one other girl and I got the part.

What do you like about Elena as a character?

It’s hard for me to pinpoint what I like about Elena, what interests me about her, because there’s a lot there on the page. When I was reading it, when I would say the dialogue out loud, it just sounded right. Everything just felt right. There were a lot of things that were similar, that worked for me, and I was just drawn to her.

How will Elena’s relationships with Stefan and Damon go in the early days of the series?

For the first little while she’ll really have no idea that Stefan is a vampire. There are complications in their relationship. They have problems, just like every other couple in high school. So imagine what’s going to happen when she finds out that he’s actually a vampire. A lot of people are going to get bitten. A lot of people are going to die. Things happen really quickly throughout the series, and we’re going to be keeping people on their toes. That’s the good thing, I think. They don’t draw everything out forever. It’s that excitement. They want things to happen fast, to keep it moving, to keep people interested, to make people think that anyone can die at any time.

How are you enjoying working with Paul and Ian?

They are sweethearts. I feel like we’ve developed a family environment already. That can happen pretty quickly on a show, because you’re together so much. And we’re filming in Atlanta, so we don’t know anyone. So we’re all kind of leaning on each other. Specifically with Paul and Ian, I bought my first car recently. I’d never owned a car before, and I had no idea what to do, how to go about buying one. Ian came with me to the dealership and helped me do it. He’s like my Big Brother. Paul is awesome, too. Working with them on set, they’re so cool and there’s a lot of laughing on set between takes. It’s a really good environment.

If the show goes by the bookss, it won’t be too long before we see you playing a second character, Katherine. You eager to play to a vampire?

I’m incredibly excited about playing Katherine. If they go there and if everything happens as it should, I cannot wait until we do Katherine. That will be a real challenge. I tend to play the nicer girl, and it’ll Be Cool to play the evil character for once.

Do you worry about the general public possibly being vampire-d out by the time The Vampire Diaries rolls around?

At first people might think, “Hey, it looks like a rip-off of Twilight.” We have the vampire guy who comes to the high school and falls in love with the girl. That’s really just the pilot episode. More happens as things go on and I hope people will wait and Stick It out because there’s much more to it.

Source: PopStar