The actress plays lead character Elena in the TV series, who was blonde in the books the show is based on, and said fans were “frustrated” to see a brunette in the role.

She said: “I couldn’t go online because everyone was like, ‘She’s not a blonde, Elena’s a blonde’.”

Nina went on: “But we had to change it because in the books Elena was a little bit more of a Queen Bee, the popular high school girl and it just didn’t seem relatable to a lot of people. The creators just wanted to make her more of a girl-next-door, who you can root for. If you’re not rooting for the main girl, then there’s no point in watching. You need to love her, you can’t hate her.”

The Bulgarian-born Canadian actress admitted landing the part was “a long gruelling process”.

“I’m so lucky that I got it because there was a lot of competition,” she added.

The Vampire Diaries begins on February 2 on ITV 2.

Source: The Press Association

The photoshoot is in the gallery as well as a sneek of the cover. Scans will be added when we can find them.

Love Hurts

Up all night with the cast of Vampire Diaries.

Those well acquainted with Serena and Little J may find this fact hard to believe: Vampire Diaries, The CW’s budding show about bloodsuckers and the teen girls who love and / or get eaten by them, has double the number of Gossip Girl viewers.

What makes it such a hit? It could be the current cultural zeitgeist of Edward, Bella, Sookie, Bill, and immortal drama. It could be the lingering teen appeal of star Nina Dobrev (remember her from Degrassi?). Or maybe it’s just damn fun and funny.

Luke Crisell – who calls the show “like Dawson’s Creek with less talk and more action” – sat down with the cast of and asked them himself.

On the similarities between Twilight, True Blood, and Vampire Diaries: “When the show first started… you automatically thought Twilight. But once you continue, there’s a whole other side of it that goes a lot deeper… It’s about letting everyone know that we’re different but we all respect each other.” –Nina Dobrev

On the sudden success of the show: ““Do I thing the show would be successful as it is, if it weren’t for all that? No.” –Paul Wesley

Hey Ian, is there any similarity between LOST and Vampire Diaries? “[My character] is gonna be the coolest character on television. There was no doubt about it. It reminded me of Sawyer, Josh Holloway’s character on LOST. He was always the character I secretly wished I could play.”

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

ND: I have read the first three books. I’ve been told not to read any further because the creator, Kevin [Williamson], asked us to get the feel for it, read the first couple, but then he wants us to take our own interpretation. My character especially has been changed the most out of anyone because, on a superficial level, I’m not blond and blue-eyed. But other than that, my character, they made her a little more relatable and a little more vulnerable, because they want the audience to feel and relate to her, whereas in the book, she has a little harder edge. She’s a little bit more of a mean girl.

EW: Will the series deviate from the book?

ND: It will and it won’t. We’re using it as a guideline, and a lot of the storylines, we’re going to take from it. But we’re making little changes that just will make more sense for a TV show and will be more effective. We want to stay as true to the books as possible. I think there are lots of other books that are made into movies. Everybody wants them to be as close as possible. But at the same time, every single person has their own interpretation of a book. You have your own imagination. Even if we did it exactly like the book, one person’s interpretation is very different from another, so it would be very difficult to appeal to every single person out there.

EW: How did you get involved? You auditioned?

ND: Yes, I did. I moved to LA to do the whole pilot-season thing for the first time this year and my first audition was Vampire Diaries. So it kind of worked out. I read the script, and I thought it was great, and I went in. Firstly, I met Julie [Plec] and Kevin in the audition and they liked me but then I had to go back to Toronto for a couple weeks to shoot a movie called Chloe, and in that time, they were doing all the screen tests and doing all that crazy stuff, so they asked me to put myself on tape, and my tape beat out the other people that were there in person.

EW: Did they say why you stuck out?

ND: I talked about it later and they said that my take on it and the fact that I made her a little bit more vulnerable…I’m not the most comedic person, so I tried to make it real, and sometimes the comedy is in the reality and the awkward moments. So they just liked my natural approach to it.

EW: Do you think you have a lot in common with Elena?

ND: I think you have to draw from any character and bring it to yourself as much as possible. And Elena – I hadn’t suffered as many tragedies as she has fortunately, so I don’t have much in common in that aspect. But just in some personality traits, yes. And then in terms of [Renaissance-era vampire] Katherine, everybody has as darker edge to themselves. I’m going to exaggerate that and see where it goes.

EW: What attracted you to the project?

ND: There were a lot of things. For one, vampires clearly right now seem to be something to talk about. And I am a fan of the vampire shows, especially True Blood. I’m obsessed with it. I got to meet the entire cast at Comic-Con and hang out with them. And that was awesome. I basically died and went to heaven.

EW: Did they give you advice?

ND: Yeah, actually. They were really, really awesome. Michael [McMillian], the guy who plays the preacher [Steve Newland], we talked for a long time, and we had the same agent, so that was the start of our conversation. And he was telling me, ‘You should read the rest of the books. I know that Kevin told you not to read the rest, but it’s something that’s out of respect to the fans of the book. At least read them, get a feel for it, and then you have a respect for that, and then you can go from there.’ That’s what he did. He read all the True Blood books. And then you can really get a feel for it and decide how much you want to deviate, how much you want to stay the course. They were so cool…we ended up talking and hanging out for a lot of the night at the EW party. And because of that, we really got to know each other, a lot of us. I know obviously because we all have vampire themes in our shows, we’re going to be constantly running into each other. And now we know each other. It’s kind of fun.

EW: You can help each other out…

ND: And I am so inspired by their work. First of all, HBO is such an awesome network, and a lot of the directors Marcos [Siega] has hired to work for us. Like John Dahl, who’s doing the next one. They’re all HBO directors. So we’re trying to make it a little more cinematic than you usually see on the CW. A little edgier. A little darker. We’re trying to push the envelope as much as we possibly can for network television.

EW: No nudity like in True Blood?

ND: We can’t do nudity. But you know what? There’s lots of implications. Where we go, we get this close.

EW: Besides True Blood, were you into the whole genre?

ND: I read the Twilight books before the movie and the whole craze happened. And then I loved it. I was in love with Edward before every other girl that says she’s in love with him was. Because I read them a long time ago shooting a movie in Salt Lake City, and one of Stephenie Meyer’s friends said, ‘Make sure you read my friend’s book.’ And I read it, and I was like, ‘This is actually really great.’ And then it turned into what it is now.

EW: Anything that touches vampires becomes huge. Are you ready for that?

ND: I really hope that people respond to the show and they like it, and as much as that’s very flattering when people keep coming up to me and telling me that and it’s really great to hear, we have some serious shoes to fill. The thing is, with us coming out with this TV show, we’re kind of like the third installment, where a lot of people think this is the rip-off. But at the same time, we’re very different. Every show is very different. And we’re trying to keep it that way. We’re not trying to step on anyone’s toes.

But if it does do as well as everyone is saying, I don’t know. We’re blessed that we’re in Atlanta, so it’s not the same kind of crazy whirlwind as it would be to shoot in LA, or Vancouver or Toronto or New York. So we have a little bit of a semblance of a life.

EW: How’s the mood on set?

ND: Oh god, we all hate each other. Kidding. We’re like, awesome. Honestly, I can’t even put it into words. We just all gel so well. We hang out more than you think we should because we want to. We want to be a part of each other’s lives. Paul [Wesley] and Ian [Somerhalder] are like my big brothers. The girls and I get together for girls night and go to the movies and hang out. We’re so lucky.

Source: EW

This isn’t Nina Dobrev’s thing.

She’s 20 years old, she’s Canadian, her family moved to Toronto from Sofia, Bulgaria, when she was two, she attended Toronto’s Wexford Collegiate School for the Arts and she grew up on Degrassi: The Next Generation. Hollywood? Not her deal. Not really.

Do the red carpet thing, stare back at the paparazzi, smile when told and work hard to look like you mean it and–most of all–don’t affect an attitude. That too-hip-for-the-room, ironic detachment thing is sooo last year.

This is a celebutante who reads, people. Like, actual books. On her official MySpace page– “After numerous fake profiles, I decided to make a real account where I (along with some help)will be occasionally posting new pictures, blogs and filming updates”–she lists Paulo

Coelho’s The Alchemist, Alice Sebold’s The Lovely Bones and Anne Michaels’ Fugitive Pieces among her favourite books, along with the obvious–Twilight, the Harry Potter series–and not-so-obvious: Nova Scotia writer Ami McKay’s The Birth House.

Her heroes: Rachel Mc-Adams, Meryl Streep, child rights advocate (and fellow Canadian) Craig Kielburger.

Her favourite TV shows: Heroes, House, Grey’s Anatomy, Nip/Tuck, So You Think You Can Dance and, like, you know, Gossip Girl.

Movies? The Notebook, Knocked Up, Rent, Juno, Schindler’s List and–wait for it–Transformers.

Don’t try figuring her out, in other words. She’s complicated and normal, all in one.

In The Vampire Diaries, she plays Elena Gilbert, the proverbial good-girl-on-the-cusp-of-adulthood torn between two vampire brothers, one saintly, one more in tune with his dark side.

Thanks to the pop-cultural hysteria over Twilight, Elena Gilbert was the most sought-after role for young actresses since, well, Bella Swan in Twilight, right?

So the audition process was a fight-to-the-death, and Dobrev only managed to land the role by the skin of her teeth. Right?

“Actually,” Dobrev says matter-of-factly, “The Vampire Diaries was my first audition for a pilot. I came to L. A. for the first time in January. I read the script, and I loved it. Loved it. Thought it was really cool. I’d just gotten off (Degrassi), so obviously I was trained and ready. I knew the drill and everything that goes with it. The character was great. I guess something happened, and they liked what I was doing.

“And so, yeah, the fact that I’m Canadian, maybe that had something to do with it.”

The small-screen adaptation of The Vampire Diaries is different in several important respects from L. J. Smith’s series of young adult novels, none the least of which is Dobrev’s soul-stirring central character.

“Elena has a lot of myself in her, and I feel I’m a lot like my character. But she has to be innocent. She’s a very different character in the books. We really wanted somebody who had a vulnerability and had a reliability and looks for the good in everyone. Things aren’t good for her right now–she’s in a tough place; she lost her parents; her brother is on a downward spiral–but she’s still trying to find the good in everyone and fix things and be optimistic. She’s trying to cope.”

Dobrev is only too well aware of the inevitable looming comparisons between The Vampire Diaries and Twilight.

“I read the Twilight books way back–well, really, it wasn’t that long ago, but it felt like a long time ago. It was before the whole vampire Twilight craze, this Rob Pattinson obsession with everyone in the world, so I was unaffected, in that sense.

“And I liked them. I really liked them. I mean, there are similarities. There are vampires in both shows. But they’re different. And as the series goes on, it’s going to get more different.”

The Vampire Diaries pilot episode was filmed in Vancouver, but the series relocated to Atlanta — in part because of Georgia’s more competitive tax incentives –and nearby town Covington. Dobrev has embraced her new small-town home with open arms, despite the long hours spent flying.

“I literally shot until 7 p. m. last night, went straight to the airport, got here at 2 a. m., went to sleep, woke up maybe an hour and 45 minutes ago. At Comic-Con, we shot until six in the morning, arrived maybe at 10 a. m., went to Comic-Con, then went to the cast party thing, and were back shooting at 6 a. m. It’s crazy. But I’m having fun.”

Tonight? Fly back on the red-eye, learn lines on the plane, snatch an hour’s sleep–two hours tops. Vampire hours.

As for the vampire fad, Dobrev says, “It’s not really a fad. It’s timeless. Don’t you agree? Vampires are . . . they don’t die. They’re always around. They’re eternal. It just seems, right now, people are really responding.”

As for whether she would go for the good boy or the bad boy– “Nina or Elena?” she says, with a quick laugh.

Speaking for Nina, “I don’t think I can really make that decision,” Dobrev says. “I love these boys –Paul Wesley and Ian Somerhalder–but they’re like my brothers.”

As for Elena, Dobrev says, “Stefan (Wesley) is the man who tries to reach out to her soul. He cares about her, and he takes care of her. Whereas Damon (Somerhalder) has that bad-boy quality, and every girl likes a bad boy at the end of the day. So it’s a toss-up. They’re both great guys; I’ll tell you that, though.”

Dobrev may play a high schoolgirl torn between vampire brothers in The Vampire Diaries, but she has no desire to be immortal in her own life.

“I don’t know if I’d want it,” she says. “I live a pretty cool life, so I’m happy where I am.”

Source: Catergory Herald

“There’s just something about vampires that’s sexy,” says the 20-year-old Canadian. “It’s the same reason why women go for the bad boy — you want them but you shouldn’t have them.”

Based on the young adult series by L.J. Smith, “Diaries” tells the story of Elena (Dobrev), a popular, happy-go-lucky teen who finds herself caught in a dark love triangle with a pair of “undead” brothers, played by “Lost” alum Ian Somerhalder and Paul Wesley of “Everwood” fame.

Sound familiar? Some critics think so and have suggested “Diaries” is nothing more than a “Twilight” rip-off, but Dobrev disagrees. “[‘The Vampire Diaries’] was written 15 years before ‘Twilight’ even existed, so this isn’t a show taking advantage of the success of that,” she says.

Still, Dobrev admits comparisons are unavoidable. “Both are about vampires, so there are going to be similarities whether we like it or not,” she says. “[But] we’re darker than ‘Twilight.’ We’re a little steamier.”

The show also features much gorier special effects, something that’s been a challenge for Dobrev. “I literally pass out when I see blood,” she says. “It’s very inconvenient for what I’m doing.”

Offscreen, Dobrev spends her time hanging out with best friend — and fellow CW talent — “Beautiful Life” star Sara Paxton. “It’s so cool because we get to experience everything, like all the promotional events and photo shoots, together,” says Dobrev, who was born in Bulgaria before moving to the Toronto suburbs as a toddler. She seriously pursued rhythmic gymnastics in high school before eventually deciding she wanted to become an actress.

“I didn’t have a stage mom at all,” Dobrev recalls. “I was the one who planned out my auditions and drove myself an hour and a half into the city.” All the hard work paid off when she was cast as a teen mom on the cult Canadian soap “Degrassi: The Next Generation.”

But while for now she can still keep a low profile, Dobrev has gotten a taste of what’s to come if “Diaries” takes off thanks to “Entourage” star Emmanuelle Chriqui, her celebrity doppelgänger.

“People tell me that I look like her a few times a day,” says the actress, who doesn’t mind the comparison. “I think she’s gorgeous.”

Source: WWD

Oh, right, you’re thinking to yourself. Teenage mothers are so . . . 2007.

This is 2009, the year of the cult vampire.

If you’re one of the handful of TV viewers whose obsessions run to Degrassi: The Next Generation, you know Nina Dobrev as unapologetic party girl and teenage mom Mia Jones – the transfer student from Lakehurst who dropped out of school to become a model, only to return to her old haunts, and habits.

The Bulgaria-born, Toronto-raised Dobrev was a regular in Degrassi since that program’s sixth season.

Now, she’s about to be thrust into the bright, hot spotlight of U.S. network television in The Vampire Diaries, based on the popular series of young-adult novels by L.J. Smith.

Dobrev will play high school senior Elena Gilbert, the tragic heroine who is torn between two vampire brothers – one good, one evil, in the grand tradition of Gothic thrillers.

Dobrev is not just following in the shoes of Shenae Grimes, another Toronto Degrassi alum who seized the spotlight in 90210, the Beverly Hills 90210 spinoff which returns for a second season this fall.

Dobrev is also following the blood-trailed paths of such ingenues as Twilight’s Kristen Stewart, True Blood’s Anna Paquin and, in an earlier day, Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s Sarah Michelle Gellar.

Whether The Vampire Diaries will live semi-forever like Dark Shadows or Forever Knight or burn out in a flash like Kindred: The Embraced is hard to tell.

The early signs lean suggest longevity, though: The Vampire Diaries is being produced by Kevin Williamson, the creator of Dawson’s Creek – the series that made Vancouver’s Joshua Jackson a star – and Williamson’s fellow writer- producers include many of the writers and directors from Gossip Girl and Dexter.

Dobrev is poised for stardom, either way. At age 20, she’s about to be the focus of a pop-culture publicity campaign the likes of which haven’t been seen since, well, Twilight.

Source: Canada.com