An other interview with Ian Somerhalder: ‘The Vampire Diaries’: Ian Somerhalder talks about going bad, ‘Twilight,’ and his return to ‘Lost’
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Literally, the first question
submitted for you was from Jason, who asked, “When will we see Damon
shirtless on the show? Kthx. Love, the gays.”
IAN SOMERHALDER: Immediately. [See: the promo for tonight's episode.] I think Damon will probably have his clothes off often. [Laughs] He’s a troublemaker, what’s a good troublemaker without some…
Sex scenes?
There are a lot of things for Damon to do with his clothes off.
Cryptic. Leo wanted to know if there’s any chance of a love scene WITHOUT death being the end result?
Ohmygoodness, I hope so. No, of course. The thing is, there’s a really
funny thing that these boys have, Damon in particular — the whole mind
compulsion thing. I can essentially do whatever I want to you, and then
make you completely forget about it. Which… it comes in handy, you know
what I mean? [Laughs] I’m glad I don’t have that power. That would be daaaangerous.
Is Damon purely evil? A lot of readers are trying to figure out how they should feel about him.
He does things that would definitely be deemed as evil, and at best,
mean, at times. But he does them because he believes in what he’s
doing. It would not be on the heels of someone like Kevin Williamson to
write a one-dimensional character. Damon’s clearly not that. Damon is
the most fun character I’ve ever played. He’s such a blast. I guarantee
you he’s not gonna be a one-trick pony.
Some people would say the show’s success depends on the
chemistry between Elena and Stefan. I think a show like this is only as
good as its villain. How do you see it?
I just see it as another component in the story. Every love story needs
a catalyst of some sort. Love is tested in so many ways. How do I
articulate this? Two people are together. There are stakes, strife,
struggles, all these things that make us fall for someone, love someone
even more, leave someone. But there’s always a catalyst. Something
happens. And Damon, I think, is just that catalyst.
Debi asked if there’s anything special you do to climb into Damon’s mind?
Ooh, I don’t think I want to go there. That might offend a lot of people. [Laughs]
Then it’s something we need to hear.
Damon goes into some weird places, and you wouldn’t have that
conversation with your girlfriend’s mother, ’cause she would never let
you back into the house. [Laughs]
Once the teeth and the eyes go in, I become like a completely different
dude, which is a lot of fun. He’s not necessarily a prankster, but he
just loves to have fun — that’s the gag, that’s what makes this whole
thing so fun. I was always so envious of Josh Holloway on Lost
because he always gets to say the cool stuff. And it’s always so fun to
watch, even if it’s someone you don’t necessarily like, you still want
to hear what they have to say and the way they say it. They truly mean
what they’re saying, even if it’s demented and wrong.
Becca wanted to know who or what influenced or inspired you to craft Damon the way that you have.
I don’t know of one specific actor, I just know that the ones who I’ve
always been drawn to, that always amazed me whether they were good or
bad — like Cary Grant, Jack Nicholson, Ed Harris — they all have
something that was interesting. Whether they were being an antagonist
or a protagonist, there’s always something in their eyes. You could
never quite tell what they were thinking, you just knew that they were
thinking something and it probably wasn’t good. [Laughs]
You definitely have that.
Well, we’ll see. [Laughs] Until Damon gets a stake in his heart.
I did a poll when I recapped the premiere asking readers if
they saw you the actor, not the character, would they slap you, kiss
you, or slap you, then kiss you.
Oh my god.
We had more than 4,400 people vote: 80 percent said they’d slap you, then kiss you.
[He laughs, heartily]
Do those results surprise you at all?
Not. At. All. That’s awesome. That is so funny… I’m at an airport, and I’m looking at very long stretches of people, and I can just imagine 4,000 people lined up and kissing all of them and getting slapped.
I think it goes back to what you were just saying: When it’s
difficult to read people, you find them unnerving and yet, you’re
attracted to them.
Yeah. You want to know what the hell are they thinking? Why are they doing this? It’s so mean. It’s so wrong. It’s kinda funny, it’s kinda sick. [Laughs]
We’ve talked about what you like about playing Damon. Is there something that scares you about the role?
Yeah. That I just don’t screw it up.
How did you know it was right for you?
This guy is gonna get himself into some trouble, and the attraction was
simply the fact that I haven’t really gotten a chance to play those
characters and really have fun. I’ve sorta learned that I’m so tired of
taking myself so seriously. It’s so great to show up at work and truly
enjoy every word you say.
Blair wanted to know if it’s nice to not have to protect
your scripts under lock and key? Or are your scripts still under lock
and key?
You mean physically or metaphorically? The distribution on these
scripts is really tight. I keep my script very close to me at all
times. I would never want to have to deal with the wrath of Kevin or
the studio or anyone. Our scripts are all watermarked, our names are on
them, so if they get out through photocopies, it’s clear whose it was.
So there’s responsibility, and there should be responsibility for that.
Scripts leaking kills it, it’s not fun.
Have you read the books? We’re finding that when we write about shows like this and True Blood,
fans who’ve read the books they’re based on will write comments that
they don’t realize are major spoilers for people who haven’t.
That’s funny. I hadn’t read the books before, and actually just started
reading them. This show is an interpretation of the books, but it’s not
a translation. I think it’s gonna be fun to see where they take it. I
think the books are a great backbone, skeletal structure of where to
go, and there are a lot of great storylines within that. I don’t think
Kevin’s slept in like a month and a half. Our writers work their asses
off. Having stories that are fleshed out is a very, very difficult
component of writing scripts, and having five books to pull from —
that’s amazing. I understand how premieres of shows work and the
drop-off in the number of people watching, but this show only gets
better, and I say that truly. Every script, you sit there and you go, Wow, what a blast. There’s a lot of fun and unique storytelling happening on this show right now, and I just hope that we get to do it for a while.
