So basically it's when Elena stopped being a dunce?

Yeah, when your heroine sort of says, "Hey wait a second, I'm not going to just sit in the dark, I'm going to go after the truth." And when the truth opens the door to the past. You know, that's just such a fun way to tell the story. And it really clicked for us in that moment that we can keep doing this and make it interesting and make it dynamic.

Have your interactions with the real-life actors ever influenced what happened to a character later on in the show? I think you've mentioned that ghost girlfriends were due in part to how much you've enjoyed the actresses personally. Are there characters you thought you'd kill off but you liked the actors too much? How does one thing influence the other?

It actually influences it quite a lot and yet sometimes, painfully, not at all. Sara Canning as Aunt Jenna being the perfect example. There is not a more gifted, wonderful, professional, fantastic young woman on this planet than Sara Canning, but Aunt Jenna had to go. But on the reverse, I would say the same thing about Kayla Ewell being one of the loveliest human beings you've ever met, and though there's probably 70 percent of the audience that barely remembers Vicki Donovan, she as a human being made such a mark on us that we couldn't wait to bring her back. Daniel Gillies is a great example of somebody coming in and being such a tremendous actor in a role that was just kind of meant to be a henchman originally. And he was so good and so juicy that the whole picture of that character immediately evaporated and we created this life for him, his brother connection to Klaus, and suddenly Elijah's become one of the most important characters in the canon of the show.

Did you know how awesome Katherine would end up being? At first it seemed like she was going to be a Big Bad, but now it seems like she's maybe just more of a regular character. Was that an intentional decision?

Yes. That has a lot to do with the basic mechanics of the same actress playing two parts. As juicy and delicious as Katherine is as a villain and vixen in our series, it takes a lot out of Nina [Dobrev]. It takes a lot out on our production. It's very hard to do. So the simple logistics of executing it are really, really complicated and so we have to pick and choose our moments when she can be present like a Big Bad or, like, a romantic love interest. We just have to be really careful.

Are any of these kids going to graduate high school? It seems like they're all pretty truant.

Yeah, I know. [Laughs.] Well, they've got a history teacher in their pocket who can help them out.

Alaric's gonna fake their transcripts for them!

I think that one of the things we like about the show is that while these are teenagers and it's set in a high school world, high school is only part of their world. It is not defining their day-to-day lives, you know? And we do a lot of episodes that, in our minds, take place on the weekends! [Laughs.]

Okay, so for now it's just kind of enough to inspire millions of chapters of slash-fic? Is that the gay contribution?

For the moment! By the way, the other day I was watching a scene in an upcoming episode between Matt and Jeremy, and I called the editor, and I was like, "Are they in love? What is going on?" It is the most Ho Yay, homoerotic love story, accidentally being told between Jeremy and Matt right now. It's so funny. But you know, you've got these beautiful boys and they're acting their hearts out...

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