‘Vampire Diaries’ Ian Somerhalder: Hell Hath No Fury Like A Heartbroken Vampire

‘Vampire Diaries’ Ian Somerhalder: Hell Hath No Fury Like A Heartbroken Vampire



Ian Somerhalder is officially hot. The star of ‘Vampire Diaries‘ won both the Choice Male Hottie and the Choice Male Villain at this year’s Teen Choice Awards. The character he plays, bad boy Damon Salvatore, is also officially hot, scoring an upset victory over that sparkly wimp Edward Cullen in Entertainment Weekly’s sexy beast poll. So why have both of the women he cares about, Katherine and Elena (Nina Dobrev), brutally rejected him? Somerhalder opened up about Damon’s romantic faux pas, Katherine’s agenda, and which dead movie stars Damon has seen naked.

What happens in this week’s episode?
They realize in this episode very quickly that this whole wolf thing is a major problem. It’s great for the producers of the show because bringing in a really powerful supernatural element that can kill vampires, we better show up to work on time. I’ve been a vampire for the past 18 months and Damon’s been a vampire for 150 years. There are a lot of things that I just instinctively know. To watch [Caroline] figuring out all these quirks and abilities that you gain by virtue of being a vampire is quite interesting. Damon tried to kill Caroline (Candice Accola) because he knew it was the right thing to do. He needs to mend his issues with Elena. I don’t know how that’s going to happen. He killed her brother. What better way to say I love you than to kill someone’s sibling?

That brings up an unresolved issue from the season premiere. When Damon snapped Jeremy’s neck was he aware that he was wearing the ring that protected him?
Maybe. Maybe not. He would have had to be in a blind rage in order to not know that that ring was there. If he did know the ring was there, what a brutal, cruel act of flexing power and trying to hurt someone that you love. If he didn’t know the ring was there, that has to be one of the most asinine moves, period. Most people bring flowers or a bottle of wine or cupcakes to say I love you. They don’t break your brother’s neck.

What is Katherine going to do next?
When you saw Damon in season one, and how driven he was to accomplish one goal which was to get her back, that was the only thing he was going to do. It caused a lot of trouble. A great deal of this he learned from Katherine and now I think hell hath no theory like a woman scorned, well hell hath no theory like a heartbroken vampire whom his mentor, the love of his life, the woman who made him who he is, is in town and he realizes she doesn’t love him. Katherine has an agenda. She’s going to do and kill whatever she needs to do to make that happen. It’s going to be an intense ride. She’s powerful. She’s 350 years old. She’s manipulative. She’s sexy and she’s ruthless. You think Damon’s ruthless, wait until you see the s–t that she pulls.

If Damon could have either Katherine or Elena love him back, which woman would he choose?
He’d be a hell of a lot better off hoping Elena loves him. Katherine, seeing how she really is, also allows Damon to see how he was when he came to Mystic Falls: the havoc that he wreaked, the pain that he caused. I’m not sure he feels remorse for that but it’s an interesting reflection on how he was. He would truly be a lot better off having Elena love him. He’d probably be better off leaving them all alone and going to the Caribbean for 100 years.

Why do all the girls go for Stefan instead of Damon?
Because Stefan (Paul Wesley) is sweet and he wants to protect and keep them safe. I guess they’re smart.

A lot of fans have noticed the chemistry between Damon and Bonnie. Are they headed for a romance?
If you think Elena has problems with Damon, Bonnie (Katerina Graham), her entire lineage has problems with Damon. She despises him. To think that he will try to win her over, he needs her as a witch ally and she can do that thing where his head explodes and she catches him on fire. Damon needs to be nice and make good with Bonnie, otherwise he’s going to end up dead. Damon tries to have romances with everyone, so why not?

Are we going to see any more flashbacks of the Salvatore brothers past?
The episode next week ["Memory Lane," September 30] is a lot of flashbacks. It was a really tough episode to shoot. It wore our actors down. It wore our crew down. It wore our producers down. It was a tough, tough episode but I hear it looks beautiful and the story’s really compelling. It’s a big episode. There’s a lot of plot points, a lot of understanding, of Katherine explaining exactly what happened and why and how. It gives a lot of insight into how and why she is the way she is, what happened with the Salvatore brothers. When I read that episode it was like Christmas.

Over the centuries did Damon have any flings with famous women?
I think about that all the time. I have this dream of seeing Damon – using this incredible stock footage, at a Rolling Stones concert from 1970 – sitting in the front row with some super hot French chick. He had to have compelled Marilyn Monroe and he probably had to have compelled Sophia Loren. I can’t imagine he did not have an affair with both of those women.

Now that True Blood’ has broken down the barrier for vampire shows, would you like to see ‘Vampire Diaries’ get an Emmy nomination next year?
There are so many elements that go into that. To be honest with you, ‘True Blood,’ those guys put in the work. They are on a network that is typically nominated for Emmys and Golden Globes. This is a young network and politically I’m not sure that people want to recognize a show like the ‘Vampire Diaries’ for good work. We don’t even know if our work is that great. Of course that would be icing on the cake, but as long as we can sit down here in our little bubble and try to produce the best quality show we possibly can with the means that we have [we're happy.] We have amazing writers who come up with this stuff every week and it’s our job as the actors to try and tell that story in the best possible way that we can. The rest is up to the universe and politics.