The Vampire Diaries' Stars Look Back on Their Biggest Moments
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Kevin Williamson (Executive Producer)
"I’m most proud of the cliffhanger [at the end] of season 1. I remember sitting in the room and Julie’s like, 'No, Damon and Elena have to kiss. That has to be the cliffhanger. Don’t you remember Dawson’s Creek? You’ve got to do it.' And I’m like, 'No, they can’t. You cannot.' We were already fighting about Elena being with Damon or Elena being with Stefan."
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Kayla Ewell (Vicki Donovan)
"There’s an episode called 'Lost Girls' and my character, Vicki Donovan, is dancing with Ian Somerhalder and we are both high on blood and don’t have a lot of clothing on. Especially for me at that time, I think I was 23 years old, and Ian had just come hot off of Lost, it was the sexiest thing I’ve ever done in my entire life, especially on set."
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Susan Walters (Carol Lockwood)
"Obviously getting drowned was a big scene for me. And actually I was so lucky. I knew my death would be coming at some point. It was just kind of par for the course. I remember being so grateful that I had a private death, so it was just Joseph Morgan and myself."
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Marguerite MacIntyre (Liz Forbes)
"Listen, I always thought, there’s a world where this show ends [and] it’s just me and Matt at the Mystic Grill, we’re the only ones alive in the entire town being like, 'I don’t know what just happened, but cheers.'"
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Sara Canning (Aunt Jenna)
"I feel very lucky to have played her. It’s really nice to see that, even though she was only really around for two seasons, I think that she had some sort of lasting impact in the sense that her death really did affect particularly Elena and Jeremy and maybe Alaric too … hopefully."
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Malese Jow (Anna)
"When I found out Anna was going to die, it was heartbreaking. Since I was a recurring character, it was just episode to episode, so I was always on the edge of my seat. Through that I became so close with the cast and crew, so once I found out, of course everyone found out, and they were heartbroken."
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David Anders (Uncle John)
"It’s interesting because everybody hated my character until he killed himself. It was nice of them to give this much-hated character an honorable death. It was a bit unexpected. He was just finally coming into his own as a dad. He was owning his fatherhood."
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Michael Trevino (Tyler Lockwood)
"I’ll always remember the first werewolf transformation, which happened in season 2, because for Tyler, he was in season 1, but we were introducing our main leads. So for me, things didn’t really start clicking and moving aggressively, no pun intended, until season 2, and when it did, it had to be that first werewolf transformation just because we shot that over two days. It took two full days just to achieve that sequence."
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Phoebe Tonkin (Hayley)
"I remember the fan reaction to Hayley wasn't particularly positive. I was essentially coming between the two stan favorite couples, Tyler and Caroline, and then of course, Klaus and Caroline. And then when Hayley sided with Klaus and he killed all those people on her behalf, the fans were definitely very vocal."
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Daniel Gillies (Elijah Mikaelson)
"Very little was described to me in the beginning. They didn’t know what they wanted to do with Elijah. It was never anyone’s intention to make him Klaus’ brother. He was something of a mercenary or a hit man, and I think he was destined to be eliminated relatively early in the fabric of that narrative."
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Michael Malarkey (Enzo)
"Enzo is the closest to James Bond that I’ve gotten so far. I suppose I’ll miss being Bond-ish. He is kind of a mix between a Bond villain and Bond himself, which is a cool line to toe. It was my first major role doing a British accent, as well, which was a real treat."
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Candice King (Caroline Forbes)
"With her turning into a vampire, I thought that was such a fun and beautiful, defining arc for her. It was still so early on in the series that I just wanted to keep my job and I wanted the character to stay alive, even if that meant that she had to become dead to do so. "
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Ian Somerhalder (Damon Salvatore)
"Damon has had a very fun time for a very long time. Damon’s had a great run. He’s had a lot of great lines, he’s had a lot of great scenes, there’s been a lot to do, and I learned a lot. I learned a great deal playing this character and navigating the waters of being on a big global hit network series."
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Kat Graham (Bonnie Bennett)
"I had some pretty big losses over the last two to three years. Being able to play a character like that through some of my darkest hours, it was my saving grace."
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Paul Wesley (Stefan Salvatore)
"The show’s at its best honestly when it’s about the relationship between the brothers. The show’s really about brothers — two brothers fighting over a girl — but it’s really about two brothers and their relationship with each other and their story."
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Matt Davis (Alaric Saltzman)
"Vampire Diaries is my entire thirties, from 31 to 39 essentially. And it makes up half of my career so far, so it has definitely been a significant journey in my life for sure. There are no real words that will give it justice. It’s more than just a creative experience. It was more than just being on a TV show."
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Julie Plec (Showrunner)
"I have my favorite episodes. 'The Reckoning' is one of my proudest hours. I love that episode so much. The Alaric goodbye: It’s funny because the Alaric goodbye is one of my top five favorite moments, even more so than the episode. 'Ghost World' was such an incredibly difficult episode to find the right tone for. I remember at the time it was very divisive because some people hated it — they thought it was cheesy and hokey — and I loved it."
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Zach Roerig (Matt Donovan)
"For me, not only has The Vampire Diaries been the longest job I’ve ever had, but it’s been a quarter of my life. I became a parent doing this job. It’s been a very healing process."
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Nina Dobrev (Elena Gilbert/Katherine Pierce)
"This goodbye feels different than it did when I left the first time because I was leaving and the show continued, and now the show’s ending for everyone. It feels more final. It’s more almost like closure. Everyone’s been very nostalgic; it’s a bittersweet ending."