The CW has cast Elena, the lead female role in their upcoming series The Vampire Diaries. Who’s the lucky gal? Canadian Nina Dobrev, best known as Mia on Degrassi: The Next Generation, as announced by The Hollywood Reporter. This is the second time in as many years that a Canadian from Degrassi: TNG has been cast as lead in a CW series.
Even though I have the books here waiting to be read, I’ve yet to delve into them, but it seems fans aren’t too happy with casting a cute brunette as Elena, known for her striking blonde hair, blue eyed beauty. Others are saying WTF to the casting of a brother, which I mentioned in a previous post. Apparently Elena doesn’t have a brother in the books, only a much younger sister.
My guess? This series, much like True Blood, won’t be an exact retelling of the books. I know there was a lot of discontent with casting Anna Paquin as Sookie Stackhouse, but we see how well that turned out. True Blood became the most successful series on HBO since Sex and the City and The Sopranos, and Paquin even took home the Golden Globe. I have read many of the Southern Vampire novels, and they act as somewhat of a foundation for the series, but there are huge differences. It still works, though. Hopefully Kevin Williamson and his team are able to do the same with The Vampire Diaries. Vampire Diaries Purists will probably hate it, but who knows?
Are you a fan of The Vampire Diaries books? Will this casting choice prevent you from tuning in when the series makes its debut? Even after I complete the books, I’m planning to keep an open mind. And I am always happy to see young Canadian talent do well within the country and beyond its borders.
Melissa, aka The Televixen, is a Toronto-based TV blogger and podcaster with a weakness for vampires and viper pilots. After freelancing with print and online magazines for several years, she founded 
I think I might be one of the oddballs because I’m willing to give it a chance. It is crazy how people are already judging it when it hasn’t even filmed yet. Since this is just the pilot to see whether or not it becomes a series I’m going to keep an open mind. I love Kevin so I’m looking forward to it.
Of course there are going to be changes and in the case of True Blood I liked the fact that they changed Tara having her be a bigger presence in the series and not so meek. Sure the brother thing is odd but it is possible things could change with cast before it ever hits the airwaves.
I’m a huge Joss Whedon fan so after seeing the commercial for Moonlight I of course thought of Angel but I kept an open mind and the show turned out to be awesome. Sadly the network was stupid and got rid of it. I think people should wait before going on about how horrible it’ll be because you really won’t know until you at least watch it.
That’s a horrible idea. The most major driving point of casting this character should have been to at least choose someone with blonde hair and blue eyes. This is very stupid of them. At least make her blonde, that’s like a huge part of her character in the books, her beauty.
They Seriously messed up here. I mean Elena is suppose to be blonde like an angel and her eyes are suppose to be a striking blue. This girl is friggin brown all over. And Bonnie is suppose to be really white with red hair not black. Im not racist I just believe in keeping to the characters. And for gods sake who they chose for Damon is sexy. Thank god they got one thing right. And people need to stop saying its a cheap imitation of TWILIGHT THIS BOOK HAS BEEN OUT IN THE 90′S WAAAAAAAAY BEFORE TWILIGHT WAS THOUGHT OF AND THESE BOOKS ARE WAAAAAAAAAAAY BETTER THAN TWILIGHT LJ SMITH IS THE VAMPIRE WRITER NOT STEPHANIE MEYER
OhMiGod! i think its stupid to make it a t.v show i mean i was hoping for a movie not a t.v there going to ruin it all over…..and nina or whatever her face is going to kill elena’s looks. i think its stupid i dont care there should get the cast as close to the real book people as possible.
I think they messed up totally. I also agree what the other people are saying. But, one thing so called Stefan looks like a wannbe edward (no offense) and aren’t the Salvatore brothers soposed to be like twins??? They look nothing alike. And don’t get me started on Elena!!!! She is soposed to be BLOND WITH BLUE EYES!!!!! everyone KNOWS THAT. ugh. I am very disappointed in the cast. The least you could do is die her hair golden blond like the REAL Elena. Very Disapointed…
I have read the books and they are not following it all, I don’t know why they are even calling it vampire diaries. The only thing they got right are the names or maybe matt. LJ Smith is good and I do agree with you that stephanie meyer is not the vampire writer. Anne Rice is the ORIGINAL vampire writer.