Teen drama fans are well aware that Nina Dobrev left her role as Elena Gilbert on The Vampire Diaries after six seasons, but a new book reveals details of her early exit.
In Entertainment Weekly editor Samantha Highfill’s, I Was Feeling Epic: An Oral History of The Vampire Diaries, Dobrev, 36, spoke candidly about how a pay disparity ultimately sealed the deal on her decision to leave. According to Dobrev, she Candice King and Kat Graham were the “lowest-paid series regulars” for the show’s first two seasons.
“It was a bit of a tricky situation because my contract only said to play Elena, but I was playing multiple characters, which doubled my work-load,” Dobrev explained, referring to her character’s doppelgänger, Katherine Pierce. “I had to be on set for double the amount of time, I had to memorize double the amount of lines.”
Dobrev explained that she “wanted to be compensated fairly” for the two roles — which, in her mind, included being paid the same as male leads Paul Wesley and Ian Somerhalder. (Rumors of a pay dispute between the three leads were swirling for years. Former CW President Mark Pedowitz was interviewed for the book, but did not comment on Dobrev’s pay. At the time, he confirmed there were closed-door contract negotiations happening.)
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Highfill wrote that “Dobrev was successful in getting more money” but she was never paid the same as Wesley and Somerhalder. The studio allegedly told writers to stop putting Katherine in scenes because they “had to pay” Dobrev for both roles.
The show’s creator Julie Plec recalled things getting “really heated” at the time.
“It basically got phoned down back to us writers that we were not allowed to write Katherine in at all ever,” Plec claimed. “Which of course was not something that I felt was right or fair.”
Dobrev felt like her work wasn’t appreciated.
“It felt like they were saying that all the hard work I was putting into it didn’t matter to them and that I wasn’t an equal to my male counterparts, and so that was upsetting to me,” she recalled.
Dobrev didn’t renew her contract after season 6 and fans said goodbye to Elena in May 2015. Dobrev did ultimately returned for the show’s March 2017 series finale — but it wasn’t easy.
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“It was just really important to me that at the end of the show, as a woman, I wanted to make sure that I was compensated and that I was an equal to my male counterparts on the show,” Dobrev said in the book, alleging that their offer for the one episode was “five times less” than what the actress made when she was on the show.
“That’s the only reason why at one point I almost didn’t come back. I needed to be paid parity to the boys,” she continued. “I had to put my foot down and say if it didn’t happen I wouldn’t be able to come back. And it wasn’t about the money — I didn’t give a s*** about the money at all — it was all principal.”
I Was Feeling Epic: An Oral History of The Vampire Diaries is out now.
