'The Vampire Diaries' Showrunner Julie Plec Admits She Tried To Convince Nina Dobrev To Stay In The Show

Nina Dobrev’s announcement last month that she will be leaving “The Vampire Diaries” has devastated thousands of fans of the long-running CW series. Turns out, it was not just the fans who were crushed by the unexpected news, but creator Julie Plec as well. The TVD showrunner has recently revealed that she did everything she could do to make Dobrev stay, although to no avail.

Plec opened up about Dobrev’s decision to make an official exit from the show during a KCRW podcast Wednesday last week. According to her, she and the rest of the TVD family spent some time trying to convince the actress to stay, tempting her with all the big plans they had for the next seasons, Us Weekly reported. Unfortunately, Dobrev already made up her mind, reminding Plec that she only signed up for the show for six years and now that the time was up, she was eager to move on and “spread her wings.”

"She was just looking forward to moving on with no hard feelings and no drama," the 42-year-old showrunner said. "This is taking the personal out of it completely, from a storytelling point of view it's a great challenge." She added that the writers find took the new development as a “very rejuvenating” challenge and that it would exercise their creativity while they find ways to write off Debrov’s character Elena Gilbert by the end of the sixth season.

Plec also took the time to explain why her team decided to break the news about Dobrev’s departure from the series via Instagram, saying that she did not want the viewers to be caught off guard just like the “beautiful shock” after the death of Will Gardner (Josh Charles) in “The Good Wife.” She explained that TVD’s audience, which is mostly comprised of teenagers, have made a “profound attachment” to the leading lady of the show and she did not want them to feel like they were robbed of a favorite character. "I started looking at it from a fan point of view and being like, 'We need to tell them it's happening before it happens. You can't just end the season and do what we're going to do with this character," she said, as quoted by Design & Trend.

Right now, Elena has turned back into a human on “The Vampire Diaries,” while her vampire lover Damon Salvatore, played by Ian Somerhalder, is still struggling with the decision on whether to follow her to humanity or not. Fans are left to guess on how her story will end -- whether she will be killed off or she will run away from Mystic Falls with Alaric, Jo and their unborn twins.

For your feedback/comments on the article, contact the writer at prewchatterly@gmail.com