Ian Somerhalder thought he had enough of Damon Salvatore after The Vampire Diaries season 3.
Entertainment Weekly editor Samantha Highfill’s upcoming book, I Was Feeling Epic: An Oral History of The Vampire Diaries, reveals Somerhalder, now 46, took issue with Damon being seen as the hero of the story. So, he went to speak with creator Julie Plec.
“I was so upset about the trajectory of Damon, so much so that at one point I was sitting across from Julie in her office in Atlanta almost in tears — actually, my eyes were quite misty — and asked out of the show,” Somerhalder recalled, according to Variety’s excerpt of the book. “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.”
At this point in The Vampire Diaries, Damon and Elena (Nina Dobrev) were gearing up to become endgame while Stefan (Paul Wesley) was in his villain era.
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“I was like, ‘S***, 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,’” Somerhalder continued. “I was like, ‘They’re going to turn me into a sappy character.’”
Plec, now 53, was quick to shut him down.
“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,’” Somerhalder recalled.
The actor said he learned “to trust the process” with his character. Plec, meanwhile, knew the conversation was coming.
“All I kept hearing were rumblings like, ‘Ian’s not happy; Ian doesn’t like this season,’” she recalled. “He just was so sad that Damon had to be the hero and that Stefan got to be the villain and that Klaus [Joseph Morgan] was the villain and everybody else was the villain, and it felt like an identity crisis. That’s what was bumming him out.”
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Plec assured Somerhalder that Damon “cannot be a one-trick pony” onscreen. His character had to experience ups and downs.
“There are times when he’s the villain, there are times when he’s the hero,” she told him.
I Was Feeling Epic: An Oral History of The Vampire Diaries is set to be released on Tuesday, September 9.