Sebastian Stan says he turned down the lead role of Stefan Salvatore on The Vampire Diaries, a decision he now credits with sparing him a level of fame he was not ready to handle.
The Fjord star made the admission Monday on the “Happy, Sad, Confused” podcast with host Joshua Horowitz. He said the offer arrived right after Kings, the NBC drama in which he played a secretly gay young royal. Stan felt burned out and did not want to commit to another network series that might die before a second season. Kings ended after one season.
Stan believes producers approached him because his film The Covenant also sat in a supernatural world. The vampire drama became a hit anyway, running eight seasons on The CW from 2009 to 2017 with Paul Wesley as Stefan, Ian Somerhalder as Damon and Nina Dobrev as Elena. Stan holds no regrets. “I feel grateful in a way,” he said, adding that his focus in those years was scattered and he doubts he could have absorbed that exposure.
The casting record tells a different story about how the offer fell through. I Was Feeling Epic, Samantha Highfill’s oral history of the series, reports that producers met with Stan, discussed him at the studio level and had him read for Damon. Casting director Lesli Gelles-Raymond told Entertainment Weekly the team “couldn’t do it because he was tied to another show.” Producers even pictured Steven Strait as Stefan opposite Stan as Damon. The two accounts disagree on who made the call: Stan describes a choice, while the book points to a scheduling conflict. Kings was pulled weeks before The Vampire Diaries premiered.
Co-creator Julie Plec has described Stefan as the hardest part to cast. The producers wanted to save Wesley for the role once Somerhalder landed Damon, according to the book.
Stan found other work on The CW, playing Serena van der Woodsen’s love interest Carter Baizen across 11 episodes of Gossip Girl. He later became Bucky Barnes in Marvel’s films and is confirmed for Avengers: Doomsday in December.
Wesley and Dobrev, meanwhile, are set to star in a Hulu adaptation of a new book.
