The Vampire Diaries helped define the CW’s genre days, and for many fans, it’s also the moment they discovered Star Trek: Strange New Worlds actor Paul Wesley. He was cast alongside costar Ian Somerhalder to play the vampire brothers Damon and Stefan Salvatore, but things could have been very different: Marvel’s Sebastian Stan almost got the call to play the character.
In an upcoming oral history titled I Was Feeling Epic by Samantha Highfill excerpted in EW, she reveals that Stan took a meeting to potentially play either one of the Salvatores. At the time, the show’s co-creator and co-showrunner Julie Plec considered Stan because he was in “that movie with all the hot boys,” aka 2006’s The Covenant (aka “The Craft for boys”). The Covenant also starred Steven Strait, who was apparently also considered to play Stefan Salvatore.
It never worked out: Strait passed on the project, while Stan had to drop out after being cast in NBC’s Kings. Stan, of course, went on to join Marvel as Bucky Barnes.
With their “dream cast” slipping away, casting directors Greg Orson and Lesli Gelles-Raymond pivoted to bring Wesley in to play Stefan, apparently feeling “very passionate” about the choice. Show co-creators Plec and Kevin Williamson didn’t think Wesley was heartthrob material, but Plec admitted to being “dead wrong.”
But if finding the right man for Stefan was tough, settling on an actor for Damon Salvatore was harder: Orson and Gelles-Raymond auditioned some 400 people for the role. Meanwhile, Ian Somerhalder had just left Lost and wanted “edgier” material.
Initially, Somerhalder wrote Vampire Diaries off as a kind of “Twilight on TV,” but changed his mind after reading the script. The casting directors and creators knew he would be their Damon, despite his admittedly rough first network test. It was apparently so bad, Williamson and Somerhalder remember going into the hallway so the actor could calm down and get out of his own head; Williamson later threatened to leave the show if the CW went with another actor for Damon. Plec and then-Warner Bros. TV president Peter Roth also stood by him, and the rest is history.
You can read the full casting excerpt here, which reveals other actors considered for the Salvatore brothers—and if you’re a Vampire Diaries fan, Highfill’s book I Was Feeling Epic releases September 9.