As far as ghouls go, Mr Paul Wesley, 29, is a particularly good-looking example. But the star of the hit teen drama The Vampire Diaries, in which he plays Stefan Salvatore, a Mr James Dean-type bloodsucker with a heart of gold, prefers Count Orlok from the 1922 horror Nosferatu: “Because he was so mangled and warped. I almost feel as if when older people hear the word ‘vampire’ they cringe and think, ‘Oh great, teen bullsh** and pretty girls running around.’ But a vampire used to be hideous, a monstrosity. That’s interesting to me.”

Mr Wesley, who boasts natural fangs of his own (he attributes them to night-time teeth grinding), was already an acting veteran when he secured a role in The Vampire Diaries. As a teenager he transferred New Jersey high schools to accommodate a role in the daytime soap opera Another World, and later dropped out of university to work full time. The risks paid off: an avalanche of TV roles followed, including recurring parts in Wolf Lake, Everwood and Army Wives.

Prolific is one way to describe Mr Wesley’s career so far, but it isn’t just down to luck, with his perseverance playing a big part. “One year I had a really bad experience where I didn’t get a pilot that I really wanted and it psychologically damaged me. I had to retrain myself to have the confidence to go in and do what I do as an actor,” he continues. “I know there are always going to be ups and downs – I don’t care if you’re Johnny Depp or Ryan Gosling – you’re always aspiring.”

When The Vampire Diaries debuted in 2009 it was considered an improbable success despite its eye-candy cast and the pedigree of its creator, Mr Kevin Williamson (Dawson’s Creek, The Faculty, Scream). It was also accused of being derivative of another teen vampire drama that was at the peak of its popularity. But Twilight is completing its cycle, meaning Mr Wesley is firmly in the business of starring in the next slavishly followed pop culture phenomenon. “We were able to carve a little niche,” he says, adding that his character’s tormented greaser style is beginning to affect him: “I’ve started wearing black biker boots non-stop, which is all Stefan wears…”

Naturally, for a show with a teenage target audience, there have been mall riots, including a particularly intense signing session in Atlanta, Georgia (where the show is filmed) in 2010. “They really love my character,” Mr Wesley says of his fans, and then laughs. “It’s overwhelming. I brought my little sisters to a signing. They know me as idiot Paul, brother, moron. When they saw all these girls getting really excited that I was there they couldn’t fathom why anyone would be interested.”

And what of his plans for the future? “We have six-year contracts. I hope the show will go on for that long but it’s such a peculiar business,” he says, adding that he would eventually like to get behind the camera. “I always thought The OC would be on for years and then it got cancelled after the fourth season. We’re all looking at other things to do in the future and searching for different roles,” he continues. For Mr Wesley this looks set to be in Hollywood: we’ll see him next as a DEA agent in the upcoming Southern hit man action-comedy The Baytown Disco opposite Mr Billy Bob Thornton.

Thank you for your patience!

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: How long have you known Elena would end season 3 in transition to become a vampire?
JULIE PLEC: The ending had been in the works for about two years. In the first series of books, that’s what happens to her. When Kevin [Williamson] and I first came on the show, we said, “Well, it can’t happen to her the way it happens in the books,” which is on, like, page 200 of the first book. [Laughs] That felt obviously too soon, and rushed, and we didn’t want to make a show about a teenage girl who instantly becomes a vampire. But we always knew that her journey would take her there eventually, and we just kept riding the wave of when it felt right. You’ve got a girl who just sorta lost her last adult living family member when Aunt Jenna died last year, so when we started this season, what we really wanted to do was begin this relationship with Alaric as her guardian and mentor, and then tear that away from her at the end leaving her and her brother with nobody. It felt like now was the time — when you’re left with no grownup, no adult supervision, no parent, no guardian — for Elena to experience the next evolution of her journey. All the stuff that we did with having her get stronger over the course of the year, training and getting in touch with her physical self, and all the grief and all the emotion that she went through, all the compassion that she has for everybody, it will all play into next year and what kind of person and vampire she will actually be — if she should choose to see the transition through.

Obviously, she will transition.
There will be a discussion to be had about it at the beginning, but the road we’re going down is pretty balls out.

Let’s talk about Elena’s goodbye speech to Damon when she told him if she had to choose, it would be Stefan.
What we’ve said all year is that this is the choice for who she is at this moment in her life, and what she wants out of her life, and who she wants to have in her life in a romantic way. Though she has obviously grown to love Damon, and probably be in love with Damon, over the course of three seasons, what she said was 100 percent true: Even at its worst, she never fell out of love with Stefan, and you just can’t let somebody like that go. So letting Damon go was the right thing to do for her. Of course now, who knows what’s gonna happen? Her life just got completely turned upside down and ripped inside out. God only knows how each brother is gonna handle it? If they have opposing viewpoints [read: Damon definitely would have saved Elena first, so she'd still be human], then how are they going to handle each other? They just miraculously survived this year tighter than ever as brothers, what will this new development due to that relationship? There’s all kinds of great questions that are gonna come up as a result of all this.

One of the twists we didn’t see coming — conveniently after Elena said maybe her choice would have been different if she’d met Damon first — was that Damon HAD actually met her first on the night of her parents’ crash, but he compelled her to forget because he didn’t want anyone else to know he was in town.
Damon now has a small collection of things that he’s compelled her to forget. If there’s one thing that everyone knows about our vampire rules it’s that when you die and are in transition, your memories start to come back. So, there’s some new information that will be introduced to Elena in the first episode of next season. I think it’s just all part of the ongoing friendship and romantic entanglement that Elena has with Damon. She’s never gonna be able to shake it completely, and new information is only gonna get under her skin and embed itself into her even more. And so, it will cause complications with Stefan, of course. But she’s committed to Stefan. She loves Stefan. We’ll get to actually see them be together for a little while.

So she made her choice, but you set up that it’s not necessarily final — the sexual tension will still exist, even if it’s just simmering. I feel like fans on both sides should be happy with this.
No. No. The most passionate of the opposing teams are never quite happy unless they get exactly what they want. But, I would say everybody else can understand that end game means end of series. We’re in the middle of the journey, and our heroine just made a life decision and then EVERYTHING in her life is about to change. We’re starting Part 2. We’ll continue to ask the question “Why was it right for her?” and answer it as we move into next season. Elena as a character will continue to evolve and change, as will our boys, as will their feelings for each other and for her. It’s a marathon, not a sprint.

To read the entire interview go here.

Would love to hear what you guys all think in the comments section!

‘Diaries’ star tells MTV News about her character’s game-changing decision on Thursday night’s season finale.

As the episode, titled “The Departed,” came to a close, a tear-filled Elena told Damon that while she cared for him, her one true love is his good-guy brother, Stefan.

“I understand why she made the decision,” Nina Dobrev told MTV News about her character Thursday night in New York. “I respect her decision, and I think, having seen the last three years, what’s happened in her life, everyone will also. They may not be happy, half the people will not be happy regardless, but they’ll get it, and it’s her decision at the end of the day.”

Gallery Links:
Paul Wesley Web > PHOTOSHOOTS > Outtakes > 2010: 012

Okay, “Vampire Diaries” fans… in two short days we’ll find out who Elena (Nina Dobrev) chooses to be with — at least for now. While we can promise that she does choose between the brothers, there’s no telling, of course, how long the choice will “stick.” This is television, and we may be having this same conversation in a year’s time.

For now, though, our heroine is faced with the ultimate dilemma: a super-hot vampire who loves her, or a super-hot vampire who loves her. Don’t you just hate when that happens?

Personally, here at Zap2it, we’re rooting for Matt (Zach Roerig), who could provide a nice quiet life free of blood-drinking and brother drama, but we’re pretty sure Elena has other ideas. When it comes down to it, Damon (Ian Somerhalder) and Stefan (Paul Wesley) are both good for Elena and bad for Elena. Let’s take a look.

Why Elena should choose Stefan: It’s been a tough year, but now that Stefan has once again emerged from his Ripper fog, he’s proven himself capable of being the stand-up man Elena fell in love with in Season 1. We’ve got to give him credit for not giving her an ultimatum — in fact, his lack of questions about her trip to Denver with Damon shows a certain nobility and a respect for her decisions.

As Klaus made clear in “The Reckoning,” the connection between Stefan and Elena is rare and powerful. He did fight compulsion for her, which means something in their supernatural world. There’s also an argument to be made for the fact that Stefan hasn’t so much as considered another woman (as anything other than a light snack) since he met Elena. She’s still a teenager with normal human jealousies, so that carries considerable weight.

Stefan also impresses us with his compassion not only for Elena, but for the people who are important to her. He doesn’t make fun of Jeremy or disregard the safety of Elena’s friends, like Tyler. At the Decade Dance, he offered Bonnie a truly genuine apology for her unwilling involvement in their vampire drama. He’s also shown regard for Caroline’s pain, particularly last season. Elena has always taken her friends’ opinions to heart, so their support for Stefan over Damon could be a powerful motivator.

Why Elena should not choose Stefan: It’s hard to excuse the Wickery Bridge incident this year. Stefan forced Elena to revisit the scene of her darkest moment and even force-fed her his blood, threatening to turn her into a vampire — all in the name of his quest for vengeance. Perhaps the most devastating thing about the ordeal was that he wasn’t compelled or supernaturally swayed in any way; he was just being selfish.

Additionally, despite Stefan’s general non-murderousness these days, it’s impossible to ignore the potential for a Ripper relapse. He’s spent the last century or more in a vicious cycle between slaughter and martyrdom, and there’s no telling what might set him off next. Can Elena trust him not to lose control again for the rest of their lives together?

From an audience’s point of view, revisiting the “Stelena”-centric story could possibly begin to feel repetitive. If she doesn’t choose him, it may offer an opportunity for fresh stories — for example, we’re curious to see what Stefan might be like with a different love interest. We’re also not sure if he’d really be able to forgive Elena her feelings for Damon if they did get back together. Wouldn’t he always wonder if she was confident in her decision?

To read the entire article go here.

Well, you can file this under News That Doesn’t Suck!

The Vampire Diaries, Supernatural and 90210 have all been picked up for the 2012-13 TV season by the CW. Go on, we’ll give you a minute to celebrate the news!

So what can fans expect from their favorite shows when they return next season?

Given that The Vampire Diaries is the CW’s highest-rated show, it’s no surprise that the show has been picked up for a fourth season, which will focus on Elena (Nina Dobrev) & Co.’s final semester of their senior year, executive producer Julie Plec confirms. “They’re making decisions about their future. Do I stay or do I go? And no, there will not be a Mystic U,” Plec says. “Grams taught at a nearby university and Jenna was getting her masters degree so there’s something out there that we’ll be introducing and seeing in season four.”

90210 will also be returning for a fifth season come this fall.