Julie Plec recently revealed details about adding new characters in Season 7 of "The Vampire Diaries" and keeping track of story building for her two vampire shows.

In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter (THR), Plec shared that one of the challenges in helming two series that exist in the same world, particularly “The Vampire Diaries” and “The Originals,” is avoiding “mystical mines.” These are situations which Plec described as the direction of plots or storylines in one series, which would contradict the mythology of the other show.

"More often than not, the general rule is to keep everything grounded enough in a believability, and so the mythology tends to match show to show, because of a desire to not go so ridiculously over the top we can't keep track," she said. "Obviously, we mess that up every now and then, but it's not as hard as it probably could be."

The showrunner also told THR that introducing new characters to a series, which is what they did with the heretics in Season 7 of “The Vampire Diaries,” was a “jackpot” for the team. She even explained that the best parts in adding new characters is having “fresh new bodies” to write stories for, welcoming new actors into the “little family [they’ve] built in Atlanta” and seeing how they “come to love it.”

With regard to ending shows such as “The Vampire Diaries,” Plec said in her THR interview that she would love to keep telling stories for the series for as long as possible, adding that she’ll continue to do so “as long the people who help me tell the stories want to do it.” Plec was referring to the show's writers, studio and network.

“It's a big group decision, frankly, and it's fascinating; the behind-the-scenes of it all is so interesting,” she said. “When you get to a show that has run this long, you get to a group of people who dig in to their desire to keep doing it -- it's wonderful. We shall see.”

Meanwhile, in a “Julie’s Diary" feature in Entertainment Weekly where Plec shares behind-the-scenes information from “The Vampire Diaries” episodes, the showrunner dished an interesting detail about Season 7’s second episode, titled “Never Let Me Go.” Plec revealed that in the scene where heretic Nora (Scarlett Byrne) was wearing a frumpy dress, the laugh of Candice Accola-King, who plays Caroline, was genuine.

The showrunner recounted that when the scene was shot, it wasn't Byrne who wore the dress. Plec said it was assistant director Tony Griffin who walked in wearing the frumpy attire, which elicited a laugh from Accola-King. The production team decided to keep the actress’ genuine reaction in episode 2 of “The Vampire Diaries.”

“The Vampire Diaries” Season 7 airs every Thursday on CW in the U.S. and Friday in Australia’s FOX8 channel.

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