Nina Dobrev, 30, has confessed that she “despised” her Vampire Diaries co-star, Paul Wesley, 36, when they first met. And she claims that the feeling was mutual. The duo played lovers on the hit show, which aired from 2009 until 2017. The Vampire Diaries fans enjoyed watching Elena (Nina) and Stefan (Paul) hit it off, before she ended up with Stefan’s brother, Damon (Ian Somerhalder).
Behind-the-scenes, however, Nina and Paul didn’t make a good first impression on each other. The actress shared the “fun little fact” in the June 10 episode of the Directionally Challenged podcast. “Paul and I didn’t get along at the beginning of the show,” she told co-hosts Candice King and Kayla Ewell. “I respected Paul Wesley, I didn’t like Paul Wesley. And I remember everyone would walk up to me after the show aired and they’d be like, ‘Are you and Paul dating in real life?’ Because everyone thought that we had such good chemistry… I realize now that there’s a fine line between love and hate, and we despised each other so much that it read as love but… we really just didn’t get along for maybe the first five months of shooting.”
Apparently, according to Nina, many onscreen romances hide the fact that the actors portraying a loved-up couple can’t stand each other in real life. “Most of the time, love interests in film and TV don’t get along and that ends up reading as really intense chemistry,” she said.
In this instance Paul predicted that they’d get over their initial distaste for each other. “Maybe we had a moment where we actually connected…and he looked at me and he was like, ‘Ten years from now, when we’re not on this show, you’re gonna really miss me. You’re gonna miss these times and you’re gonna look back, and this is gonna be the good old days. We’ll appreciate each other in 10 years,’” Nina said. “And he’s so f***ing right. We ended up getting to a good place and it was fine. But, of everyone [from the Vampire Diaries cast], I think I probably see him the most and hang out with him the most… We are probably the closest. We hang out a lot. We’re really good friends. And I love his wife. It’s so funny how time changes everything because I never thought that he would be one of my best friends.”
As Vampire Diaries fans know, Nina had great chemistry – on and off screen – with another one of her co-stars, Ian Somerhalder. However, they split in 2013 after three years of dating. The 40-year-old actor is now married to actress Nikki Reed, 32, with whom he has daughter Bodhi, who turns 2 in July.