While there have been many popular love triangle-focused fantasy shows, The Vampire Diaries stays one of the vital successful and beloved names on the list. The casting of the Salvatore brothers was loved by fans who swooned over Paul Wesley as Stefan and Ian Somerhalder as Damon.
But there may be one actor who almost played Stefan before Paul was finalized, and it’s none apart from Sebastian Stan. Samantha Highfill’s recent book, titled For I Was Feeling Epic: An Oral History of The Vampire Diaries, is all set to release on September 9, 2025, and here’s what it revealed in regards to the Marvel star’s casting.
The Vampire Diaries: Was Sebastian Stan Almost Solid As Stefan Salvatore?
As per the excerpt retrieved by Entertainment Weekly, Sebastian was certainly one of the names being considered to play Stefan. Nathaniel Buzolic, who later played Kol Mikaelson in The Vampire Diaries spinoff The Originals, was also in contention to play the favored Salvatore brother.
Within the book’s excerpt, Julie Plec, the showrunner of the series, revealed that casting Stefan was the toughest part. “It’s the form of role you could’t just solid the smoldering pretty boy because there’s such depth and layers of loss and loneliness living in that character,” the 53-year-old explained.
The creatives needed a real actor but didn’t wish to solid a theater actor who wouldn’t really have the opportunity to make “people’s hearts go pitter-patter.” Kevin Williamson added, “The book destroyed us because in case you take a look at the outline within the book, that person doesn’t exist,” referring to descriptions.
Julie continued that Stefan is “an excellent soul” but “with a layer of danger” as he’s a vampire who struggles with bloodlust. They then opened up about meeting a star for the role. Lesli Gelles revealed, “It was Sebastian Stan. He got here over to satisfy, so we got to spend a while chatting with him.”
“It was very cool. We were totally enthusiastic about him, and he was discussed on the studio the primary time we tested Stefan, but we couldn’t do it because he was tied to a different show,” referring to the 2009 drama series Kings. It was also disclosed that Sebastian had read for each Stefan and Damon.
“But Sebastian was on Kings, in order that wasn’t going to work out,” Lesli felt, referring to scheduling conflicts.
Sebastian Stan was almost solid as Stefan in ‘The Vampire Diaries’ TV series, reveals casting director:
“He got here over to satisfy, so we got to spend a while chatting with him. It was very cool. We were totally enthusiastic about him, and he was discussed on the studio the primary time we… pic.twitter.com/9Lg1K6ZZ0R
— Sebastian Stan Archive (@sebstanarchive) August 27, 2025
The Vampire Diaries: Was Paul Wesley’s Casting Finalized Under Pressure?
Julie also mentioned how production was pushed not less than once. “We were kind of pressured into casting Paul Wesley against our desires, which suggests everybody knew way higher than us and that we almost missed out on essentially the most perfect piece of casting,” she joked.
The showrunner explained that the goal was to search out an actor who could mix and “live in each worlds, the heartthrob world and the serious-actor world.” She then concluded, “There was no denial that Paul could act the part; we just didn’t see him lighting up the screen, but we were just dead mistaken.”
on a regular basis is an excellent day to understand paul as stefan salvatore pic.twitter.com/QNT2ohkS06
— 🦋 (@loml_stefan) January 15, 2023
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