As you may already know, I got to check out the Vampire Diaries panel at New York Comic Con, and was invited to chat with the panelists in the Press Room as well. In the final edition of “Inside The Vampire Diaries NYCC Press Room”, I chat with stars Katerina Graham and Sara Canning!
We learned in the panel that Bonnie’s powers are continuing to grow. Will we see more of this in the upcoming few episodes?
Katerina Graham: They develop and there’s a positive to it and a negative to it. So you’ll be able to see both sides of that instead of just this already evolved witch whose evolution kind of came out of nowhere. The five episodes kind of placed her evolution when she was with her family from last season. You get to see her dealing with her growth for the first time, really, which I think is important to see. So the good and the bad, you’ll get to see.
Does Bonnie assume a lot of the blame for Caroline being turned into a vampire?
KG: I think enough to really make her want to help her and do what she can to make Caroline’s situation better. But at the end of the day, I stand by Bonnie, and her [thinking] “If these vampires hadn’t come to town, my grandma would still be here.” And people think Bonnie makes these decisions knowing the end of the episode – these are characters that have no idea what’s going to happen from the actions that they do. And I think that if Bonnie knew that Caroline was going to become a vampire, I don’t think she would have pressured Damon to give her the blood. But she didn’t know. She had no idea Katherine was going to go in there and do that. She had no idea that Tyler Lockwood was going to get into an accident and crash the car and Caroline would be in the hospital. These characters – people forget that they have no idea what’s going to happen if they do certain actions. So I think she feels … obviously as guilty as you can when you know you made a mistake, but at the same time, she made a mistake but she’s spending more time [trying to figure out] how do we fix this? How do we make this better?
What would you say is Bonnie’s motivation this season?
KG: Well I think one of the things that motivates Bonnie is compassion. And I think that she’s definitely the most – besides Damon, although Damon’s getting a lot more compassion – she’s a very misunderstood character in Mystic Falls. I think she’s probably the most misunderstood character on the show. So, compassion. She really loves Elena. She loves her, [she’s] her best friend. Losing her grandmother – I don’t know how many people are close with their grandmother – but when you don’t have a mother and you only have your grandmother, she becomes your mother figure in your life. So when that got taken away from her, she kind of loses a lot of that tolerance. I would.
Bonnie is showing some real power now, and we’ve seen her show it off, particularly in certain scenes with Damon, which he’s let her away with so far. Will this backfire on Bonnie?
KG: I think that however that looks, Damon had to protect her because he made a promise. And even in the episode of “History Repeating”, he mentions to Bonnie at the parking lot of the school that he wants to protect her, believe it or not. And I think it’s important to pay attention to that. But I think they’re going to go at it – again But I also think that she’s doing what she came to do. She wouldn’t let him know that she’s weak in any way. Even if she was weak, she’s not going to let Damon know that she’s got any weaknesses, because he’ll use it against her. People forget that he tried to kill her. He went for her throat, while she was being possessed. He took me out, or tried to, and vice versa. We’re going to keep going at it.
In more ways than one?
KG: In more ways than … hey!!! (laughs)
There are a lot of Bonnie and Damon fans out there …
KG: Yeah, and Julie [Plec] has a great line that she wrote in one of the episodes for Katherine and Stefan where Stefan was like “But I hate you!” and Katherine was like “Well that sounds like the beginning of a love story, not the end of one.” So we’ll see. I know the fans really, really love it. So maybe eventually. We’ll see. I love doing scenes with Ian, though. He’s so fun and creative.
We are going to see Bonnie use her powers on Mason Lockwood. What provokes this?
KG: Well basically, you guys have to watch the episode to see how much Mason was involved and what he does. But if Bonnie’s taking him down, it’s got to be for some reason. He did something wrong. I can’t say what he did.
How important is fan reaction to both of you?
KG: Oh, I live by the fans. They know that though. A lot of them in there probably know me. We’ve probably all gone to dinner. I’m really close with them. I scour the forums and blogs and obsess over what they say.
Sara Canning: The success of the show is completely due to that fan base, so we owe them everything. We all absolutely are always interested to know what the reaction was to the previous night’s episode. It’s what fuels us. Because we shoot, it’s crazy, it’s 8 days of hysteria. When you’re shooting a TV show, things happen really quickly and people work really long hours but our cast and crew are really driven by [the fans]. The first People’s Choice Awards that we got, I think that was like, “Ah, sweet! People are actually loving the show!” And it was such a huge surprise for everyone. We have really great fans, and therefore we want to have a really great show. We want it to deliver every single week. So it’s really important to everyone.
Will Jenna ever figure out what’s going on in Mystic Falls?
SC: That would be the question. I mean, that’s my question too. I think she will if we are lucky enough to be given another season. I think that Kevin and Julie definitely want to deal with one person at a time, and they don’t want to just throw the entire town into what’s been going on, all the vampires and the witches and the werewolves and everything else. So I think it’s important, and Kevin really does deal with normal people in a normal town, and I think it’s important for a show to still have those grounded elements, and those characters who have a lot going on. But they have a lot going on in reality and that’s a major theme – humans have problems. So I’ve loved really dealing with everything that Jenna’s been going through even without knowing there are vampires in the town. So I can’t wait to see how she deals with finding out her niece is dating a vampire.
Has Bonnie come into her powers on her own? Is it possible that there’s some knowledge that’s hereditary that passed from her Grams? Or is there a yet to be revealed teacher?
KG: That’s a great question. That’s kind of in the Bonnie development thing that’s probably in line with the other developing things. We’ll see. That’s a Kevin question. I’m just the actor. But I definitely think a lot of Bonnie’s stuff is instinctual. She can feel things. That’s just a part of who she is, and it comes from a very organic place right now.
New York Comic Con was such a memorable experience, and I wanted to thank Kevin Williamson, Julie Plec, Steven R. McQueen, Sara Canning, Zach Roerig and Katerina Graham for their time and insight into the show. And thanks to Warner Bros. for bringing the show to NYCC – you made this gal very, very happy!
Photo by Sheryl DaSilva – Copyright © 2010 TheTelevixen.com
