{"id":922768,"date":"2026-10-06T12:44:11","date_gmt":"2026-10-06T12:44:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/922768\/"},"modified":"2026-10-06T12:44:11","modified_gmt":"2026-10-06T12:44:11","slug":"why-sebastian-stan-turned-down-vampire-diaries-lead-role","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/922768\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Sebastian Stan Turned Down Vampire Diaries Lead Role"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tIt\u2019s hard to imagine anyone other than <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/t\/paul-wesley\/\" id=\"auto-tag_paul-wesley_1\" data-tag=\"paul-wesley\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Paul Wesley<\/a> playing Stefan Salvatore in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/t\/vampire-diaries\/\" id=\"auto-tag_vampire-diaries_1\" data-tag=\"vampire-diaries\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">The Vampire Diaries<\/a>. However, the role nearly went to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/t\/sebastian-stan\/\" id=\"auto-tag_sebastian-stan_1\" data-tag=\"sebastian-stan\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Sebastian Stan<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tWhile recently chatting with Josh Horowitz on the <a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/h6ctwgdICXs?si=Mdyn_jQ4jMHBwmPg\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/h6ctwgdICXs?si=Mdyn_jQ4jMHBwmPg\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Happy Sad Confused podcast<\/a>, the Oscar-nominated actor opened up about why he turned down the lead character in the supernatural teen drama that went on to become a massive hit.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t\u201cThey offered me Paul Wesley\u2019s role,\u201d Stan said. \u201cAnd I had just come off Kings and I sort of felt really burnt out from that not working out and just sort of the idea of thinking, \u2018Oh, I\u2019m just going to sign up again for something that probably is not going to get to the second season.\u2019 And I think it was because The Covenant sort of was in that supernatural world, and yeah, I didn\u2019t do it. And then the show went on to be super successful.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tWhile Kings got canceled at NBC after one season in 2009, The Vampire Diaries \u2014 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/lists\/the-vampires-diaries-cast-then-now\/\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/lists\/the-vampires-diaries-cast-then-now\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">which starred Wesley as Stefan<\/a>, Ian Somerhalder as Damon Salvatore and Nina Dobrev as Elena Gilbert \u2014 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/tv\/tv-features\/the-vampire-diaries-15th-anniversay-julie-plec-interview-1235995799\/\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/tv\/tv-features\/the-vampire-diaries-15th-anniversay-julie-plec-interview-1235995799\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">ran for eight seasons from 2009 to 2017<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tThe Apprentice star admitted he \u201ccan\u2019t look back and go, \u2018Oh, what if?&#8217;\u201d as he believes everything in his career happened as it was meant to. After building a name for himself with early roles in Gossip Girl and The Covenant, he achieved mainstream stardom with his role as Bucky Barnes\/The Winter Soldier in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, beginning with 2011\u2019s Captain America: The First Avenger.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t\u201cNow looking back, I feel grateful in a way \u2019cause I don\u2019t know if I was really ready for that kind of exposure when I was younger, to be honest,\u201d Stan said. \u201cEmotionally and mentally, I know what I went through in those years and my focus was all over the place. Maybe that\u2019s just \u2019cause it worked out the way it did and this is my story, but I\u2019m definitely in a place right now where I wouldn\u2019t change anything.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s hard to imagine anyone other than Paul Wesley playing Stefan Salvatore in The Vampire Diaries. However, the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":922769,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[49,48,75,72618,166341,72619],"class_list":["post-922768","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-entertainment","tag-paul-wesley","tag-sebastian-stan","tag-the-vampire-diaries"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/922768","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=922768"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/922768\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/922769"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=922768"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=922768"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=922768"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}