Best Vampire Diaries Bloopers We Could Find
A part of the vampire craze that characterized the mid-to-late 2000s, "The Vampire Diaries” arrived on the scene in 2009, a year after the first "Twilight" film premiered and the first episode of "True Blood" aired. Like its undead contemporaries, "The Vampire Diaries" was based on a book series of the same name. The first book was published in 1991, nearly fifteen years before Stephanie Meyer published her first novel, though The CW did decide to produce the series because of the success of the first "Twilight" film, per Entertainment Weekly.
"The Vampire Diaries" centers on Elena Gilbert (Nina Dobrev), a teenage girl living in Mystic Falls, Virginia, who loses both her parents in a car crash. Elena falls in love with a vampire named Stefan (Paul Wesley). However, things become more complicated when Stefan's older brother Damon (Ian Somerhalder) comes into town, initially planning to bring back the brother's long-lost love, Katherine (who, coincidentally, looks just like Elena), but winds up falling in love with Elena instead.
The series comes off as a typical teen show but quickly turns into something darker and more profound, as the love triangle between the three leads complicates things to a nearly inextricable degree. Though the series itself is quite serious, behind-the-scenes videos reveal that the cast had a lot of fun making the show and brought levity to the filming when they could. Read on for a look at the funniest bloopers we could find from the set of "The Vampire Diaries."
The crew give Nina Dobrev a helpful mnemonic device
Certainly, one of the most difficult things about filming a show that contains supernatural elements has to be all the names and phrases that the cast has to memorize while filming, not to mention all the dead languages that characters regularly use. For whatever reason, it often seems like there are certain names or phrases that actors just can't quite get right.
That was certainly the case in Season 1 when Nina Dobrev had trouble with one name in particular. While reading a list of names that includes various figures from the history of Mystic Falls, Dobrev keeps stumbling on one –- Honoria Fell, who was one of the co-founders of the town itself. For some reason, Dobrev can't quite wrap her tongue around the name, and in order to help her remember how to pronounce it, the crew helpfully yells from behind the camera, "it's gonorrhea!"
It's unclear if this reminder actually helps Dobrev or not as she fails to pronounce the name properly at least once more, but it's certainly an unforgettable rhyme.
Paul Wesley drools on Nina during a kissing scene
Kissing and love scenes are very common on television, especially on sexy teen shows like "The Vampire Diaries." Though it was on The CW, the show had its fair share of PG-13 rated moments, especially since both Stefan and Damon spent a lot of time vying for Elena's love. The possibilities for romantic entanglements become even more numerous when Elena's doppelganger, Katherine, comes back in Season 2. This is not to mention all the other relationships the three lead characters find themselves in throughout the show's eight seasons.
However, before everything else got so complicated, there was Elena and Stefan. They were the first real couple on the show, and, much like the Edward/Jacob question, many fans remain divided on whether Elena should have ended up with Stefan, Damon, or neither of them.
Though love scenes on "The Vampire Diaries" couldn't get as graphic as they often were on HBO's "True Blood," they did sometimes get a little hot and heavy. In one scene between Stefan and Elena, things may have gone a little too far. In one blooper, Paul Wesley is meant to be hungrily looking up from Elena's neck after kissing her, and he realizes he's just started drooling. "I'm drooling, I'm sorry," he says. In this case, maybe Wesley got a little too into character for anyone's liking.
Katherine Pierce trips over her dress while playing football
Though "The Vampire Diaries" star Nina Dobrev only signed on to play one character in the show, she wound up playing a total of four characters throughout the series' run. As it turns out, Elena has three other doppelgänger –- Amara, Tatia, and Katherine –- who play important roles in the show. Katherine Pierce, who was a part of the show for several seasons, is the most significant of Elena's counterparts, and she first shows up in flashbacks in Season 1 before she returns in the present day.
Stefan and Damon were born in the 1800s, which is when most of these flashbacks occur. Obviously, this means the actors all wore period-specific clothing, something that is often much more time-consuming and restrictive for actresses than actors. In one amusing blooper, Katherine is speaking with Stefan and Damon when she grabs a football from Stefan's hands. However, before she ever gets to throw the ball, she promptly trips on her dress and drops the football, falling right on her back.
Wesley and Somerhalder double over in laughter at this, and Dobrev complains that she keeps falling over the large skirt she is wearing. There's nothing funnier than an actor suddenly tripping in the middle of a scene, and Dobrev does this with an abundance of grace.
Ian Somerhalder forgets that he's playing a character
In Season 2, "The Vampire Diaries" introduced another supernatural element: werewolves. After all, you can't have vampires without werewolves, right? The first werewolf viewers meet is Tyler Lockwood (Michael Trevino), a classmate of Elena's who plays on the high school football team. After his werewolf nature is triggered, his uncle Mason Lockwood (Taylor Kinney), also a werewolf, comes to town to help him learn how to control his powers. Mason is a former surfer from Florida who runs with a pack of wolves in Miami.
In the first episode of Season 2, Mason comes to town and meets the residents of Mystic Falls. In one scene, Mason is introduced to Damon, but things do not quite go as planned. In one take, Mason says, "Mason Lockwood, I don't think we've met," and Ian Somerhalder responds, "Oh sure! Ian," and shakes his hand. Laughter ensues from the rest of the cast and crew, and though it's certainly not the first time an actor has gotten their own name confused with that of their character, it's amusing nonetheless.
Paul Wesley falls on his face trying to stop Caroline from feeding
Caroline Forbes, played by Candice King, is Elena's childhood friend and one of the main female protagonists in "The Vampire Diaries." Though she begins the series as a human, Caroline gets turned into a vampire in the Season 2 premiere when Katherine kills her after she feeds on Damon's blood. Though Katherine turned Caroline with the intention of her using her to complete her nefarious plots, Stefan is able to counsel Caroline and stop her from going over to the dark side.
Stefan and Caroline eventually become good friends (and later lovers), and in Season 2 Stefan teaches Caroline how to use her powers and control her urges. In one scene, they are in the woods together when Caroline suddenly feeds on an unsuspecting stranger. Caroline can't help herself in this moment, so Stefan has to pull her off of her unwitting meal. In a blooper for this scene, Paul Wesley pulls Caroline off her victim but quickly trips and falls on his face. "S***, sorry everybody," Wesley says. While it may have been a heroic move in the script, this particular take didn't quite hit the mark.
Nina Dobrev struggles to adjust to vampire life
At the end of Season 3, Elena dies after falling off of a bridge, but she does so with Damon's blood in her system, which causes her to start transitioning into a vampire. In the first episode of Season 4, Elena completes her transition after drinking human blood and then must struggle to adjust to her new life.
While it certainly took Elena some time to adjust to her newfound vampire lifestyle, it seems it also took a bit of work for Nina Dobrev to adjust as well. There are a couple of scenes in Season 4 where things don't quite go as planned. In one scene, vampire Elena is biting someone's neck when Dobrev's fangs abruptly fall out of her mouth, cutting the take short. Dobrev stops just short of swallowing the tooth, instead spitting it into her hand.
In another scene, Elena is at a cheerleading competition when she sees a rival cheerleader with a blue ribbon that she likes. She decides she wants the ribbon, so she follows the girl onto a school bus and corners her there. "I like your ribbon," Elena tells her. "I want it." In a blooper for this scene, Dobrev is meant to pull the girl's ribbon out of her hair while she's sucking her blood. However, in this take the ribbon gets stuck in her hair, and Dobrev can't get it out no matter how hard she tugs. Dobrev shrugs while the other actress laughs, and Dobrev has to engage her vampire powers at least one more time.
Nina Dobrev throws the cure for vampirism in the fish tank
In Season 4 of "The Vampire Diaries," it's revealed that there is a cure for vampirism that makes former vampires mortal again. The treatment was created by a witch named Qetsiyah in ancient Greece and was only unearthed 2,000 years later by another witch, Elena's friend Bonnie Bennett (Kat Graham). The cure is used by Elena, Stefan, and Damon, although it is eventually destroyed.
In Season 4, Katherine gets her hand on the cure, which she keeps in a safe in her apartment while hiding a fake version in a giant fish tank. In one scene, Katherine gives the cure to Rebekah Mikaelson (Claire Holt), one of the original vampires, in order to escape the clutches of Rebekah and Damon.
In one take, however, Dobrev had a different plan. Instead of throwing the cure to Rebekah (which was probably done in another shot, anyway), Dobrev throws it backward, and it lands directly into Katherine's fish tank. Dobrev looks behind her to see that the cure did indeed go in, and the set erupts with cheers. "One hundred bucks, right here!" Dobrev exclaims. Whoever bet against Dobrev's aim definitely made the wrong decision.
Paul Wesley wants to be punched in the face
Sometimes, being an actor can be tiring, repetitive work, especially when you keep messing up a scene. It has to be embarrassing to stand there in front of hundreds of people and flub your lines or miss your mark over and over again. If you watch enough "Vampire Diaries" bloopers, you'll realize that this kind of thing happens quite often, especially to actor Paul Welsey.
In one Season 5 scene, Stefan is dancing with the witch Qetsiyah (also known in the show as Tessa). Qetsiyah is thousands of years old, one of the most powerful witches of all time, and she created the cure for vampirism as well as the purgatory dimension known in the series as "the other side." In one take, Wesley flubs his lines (seemingly not for the first time) and exclaims, "somebody punch me in the face!" When someone does actually come forward to punch him, he acts shocked – "Wow, a lot of volunteers!" But as Janina Gavankar, who plays Qetsiyah/Tessa, puts it, "he asked for it!"
Nina Dobrev sucks down some helium
Days on set can be long and tiring, especially if you're Nina Dobrev, who often plays two different characters in a single episode. (How did "Orphan Black's" Tatiana Maslany do it?) Dobrev actually got so tired of playing both Elena and Katherine that producers had to work to convince her to play Katherine once again in Season 5. In fact, getting her to agree to take on the role again came with the condition that Katherine would be killed off later that season, as executive producer Julie Plec explained to Entertainment Weekly.
In one blooper from Season 6, Dobrev got a little silly after filming for what was presumably a very long day. Dobrev is leaning over Elena's brother in the series after the characters in the scene had narrowly escaped with their lives. Dobrev turns away from the camera while she inhales a helium-filled balloon, and when she turns back around, her voice is hilariously high-pitched. She does a dramatic helium-induced reading of her line, "She's going to be okay, guys. We'll make it through together." Dobrev certainly found one way to lighten up the mood that day.
Nina Dobrev can't open a bottle of champagne
In one particularly confusing plotline in "The Vampire Diaries," Damon and Bonnie become trapped in an alternative universe called a prison world. In this side reality, every day is repeated on an infinite loop and is established after the supernatural purgatory known as "The Other Side" is destroyed. The particular prison world Damon and Bonnie become trapped in takes place in the year 1994, which was created to banish an evil witch who killed his siblings.
Of course, Damon and Bonnie are eventually able to escape the prison world and reunite with Elena. However, this is made more complicated by the fact that while Damon was gone, Elena magically removed all her good memories of Damon, although she eventually gets them back at the end of the season. In one scene following Bonnie's return from the prison world, Elena wants to celebrate with a bottle of champagne. Unfortunately, the scene doesn't come that easily because Nina Dobrev can't figure out how to open the bottle of champagne. While saying the line "suck it, 1994," Dobrev tries at least four times to open the bottle before she finally succeeds. At the very least, it makes the moment when she finally pops the cork all the more exciting.
Paul Wesley gets pranked on his birthday
The tricky thing about filming vampire movies (and especially vampire shows) is that unlike the vampire characters they're playing, real-life human actors do age. At the time of the show's premiere in 2009, "Vampire Diaries" actor Paul Wesley, who played an eternal 18-year-old, was 27, and the actor who played his brother, Ian Somerhalder, who played an immortal 25-year-old, was 30.
Obviously, shows such as these ask you to suspend your disbelief in many ways, the real-life ages of the actors being just one example. During the filming of Season 7, Paul Wesley celebrated a birthday, which at this point would have made the immortal teenager well into his thirties. In one scene, there seems to be something of an inside joke that Somerhalder references to prank Wesley on his birthday. In the scene, Stefan says, "I'm not willing to let Matt die." (Matt, by the way, is both Elena and Caroline's ex-boyfriend).
Instead of responding with the line that's actually in the script, Somerhalder whips out his phone and says, "well, you just did, brother." On his phone is a video of Wesley, shirtless in his bed, saying, "happy birthday, Paul!" We may never know the actual context of this video or of the joke Somerhalder seems to be playing on Wesley. Still, Wesley seems to find it hilarious because he doubles over with laughter while the rest of the crew cackles behind the camera.
Paul Wesley is told to kiss more violently
Though Stefan and Elena are the first real couple in the show, they break up in Season 2, which leaves room for both characters to date other people. One of the women Stefan becomes involved with following his breakup with Elena is Valerie, a witch-vampire hybrid whom Stefan originally met way back in the 1800s. In fact, she was his first love and was even at one point pregnant with his child. They reunite in Season 7 and start dating after Stefan breaks up with Caroline.
In one romantic scene, Stefan and Valerie are kissing on the beach in front of a restaurant when Paul Wesley is given a peculiar note from the director. Right as Wesley is in the middle of kissing Valerie, a voice from behind the scenes yells, "a little violent!" This stops Wesley in his tracks, and he pulls back from Valerie (Katie Lumpkin) to ask, "what do you mean violent?" The director clarifies that he means "sexy," but Wesley remains mystified, and he and Lumpkin pretend to strangle one another instead.
Damon drives with no hands
It's always interesting to see behind-the-scenes videos of scenes where characters are driving in a car because it can really take you out of the reality of the show for a moment. We've certainly come a long way from the cheesy green screens of mid-century Hollywood, but it still takes a fair amount of effort to make scenes that take place in a vehicle look believable. Since they are cool guys who've been around for a long time, Stefan and Damon both have pretty sexy cars. Stefan drives a red 1963 Porsche Coupe, while Damon drives a blue 1969 Chevy Camaro Convertible.
In one scene from Season 7, Damon is meant to be driving his vintage car in the snow while having a conversation. Somerhalder spends several seconds very seriously delivering his lines, only to have someone behind the scenes tell him, "Ian, I'm sorry, you're driving." Somerhalder had been shooting the whole scene without his hands on the wheel, a prospect made even more unnerving considering the fact that it was meant to be snowing outside. While vampires have been shown to have more special powers than their human counterparts, being able to drive a car with one's mind isn't on the list, so Somerhalder and the crew have to start the scene over.