Canadian actor Nina Dobrev has opened up about the real reason she walked away from The Vampire Diaries at the height of its popularity — a pay gap she says never closed, despite her years as the show’s lead.
In Samantha Highfill’s new book I Was Feeling Epic: An Oral History of The Vampire Diaries, the 36-year-old revealed that the unequal salaries between her and co-stars Ian Somerhalder and Paul Wesley played a major role in her decision to exit after season six.
“Candice, Kat, and I were the three lowest-paid series regulars in the first two seasons,” she recalled, referring to Candice King and Kat Graham. While her contract only listed Elena Gilbert, Nina was also tasked with playing doppelgänger Katherine Pierce, effectively doubling her workload.
“It was a bit of a tricky situation because my contract only said to play Elena, but I was playing multiple characters, which doubled my workload. I had to be on set for double the amount of time, I had to memorize double the amount of lines. I wanted to play Katherine, but I wanted to be compensated fairly for that, and I wanted to be an equal to the boys,” she wrote.
According to Nina, even after she negotiated a raise, the network refused to bring her pay in line with her male co-leads. “They just said out of principle they wouldn’t bump me up to being equal to the boys, and so that was probably the most hurtful because it felt like I was really working hard and we shot eighteen-hour days sometimes, and nights, and I was putting my absolute heart and soul, blood, sweat, and tears into it,” she said
The studio even restricted writers from using Katherine because it meant paying her more. Co-creator Julie Plec, in the book, recalled, “It got really heated, and so it basically got phoned back down to us writers that we were not allowed to write Katherine in at all ever.”
When talks began for the series finale, the pay battle resurfaced. Nina revealed, “I needed to be paid parity to the boys. I had to put my foot down and say if it didn’t happen I wouldn’t be able to come back. And it wasn’t about the money — I didn’t give a shit about the money at all — it was the principle.”
