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Love Bites
We meet up with the lead cast of The Vampire Diaries to find out just what it is that makes this new breed of vampire so popular...
Whilst the very thought of a romantic high school vampire is enough to make most horror aficionadas shudder in disgust, thanks to the success of the Twilight movies our screens have been swamped with smoldering boyband vampires.
When we were invited to meet the lead cast of The Vampire Diaries in a London hotel last month, the large groups of teenage girls waiting outside to catch a glimpse of their on-screen heroes confirmed just how popular the show was with a certain demographic.
Like Twilight, the series has its own extremely loyal, dedicated prepubescent fan base, who simply cannot get enough of the current vampire craze. That isn't where the similarities end with Twilight either... They are both based upon a best-selling series of books (although The Vampire Diaries was the first to hit the shelves by nearly ten years), they both feature a likeable heroine who falls in love with a potentially-dangerous vampire, and they both have a love-triangle to keep things as emotionally dramatic as possible.
Ian Somerhalder, who plays bad boy vampire Damon in The Vampire Diaries, thinks that this combination of romantic mystery and menace is a big reason for the genre's popularity. "It's that sort of archetypal outsider, that rebel who is somewhat vulnerable and yet dangerous, sexy and mysterious at the same time," he says. "I think women always gravitate towards rebellious guys and it's just another form of that in more extreme measures."
Playing the role of his on-screen undead brother Stefan, Paul Wesley agrees. "Vampires have always been a huge part of storytelling; it's just become this sort of resurfaced pop culture thing. I think female teens all secretly want to marry a guy who has the wisdom of someone who's hundreds of years old, and can protect them at any minute, but yet is still mysterious and has a danger to them. By the same account I think teenage boys also want to be that guy, so it's universally appealing."
Thanks to this universal appeal, The Vampire Diaries has been a huge ratings success. Often described as the middle ground between Twilight and True Blood, The Vampire Diaries features more of a complex storyline yet not quite so much gore as its two main rivals respectively. "It was probably the most opportune time for a primetime network version of the vampire genre," Ian remarks, "You have Twilight, which is the big franchised version, the movie version and then you have True Blood, which is the cable version. The problem is, 13 year-old girls can't watch True Blood with their parents - that would be awkward. So now you have The Vampire Diaries, which kind of sits in the middle of the two."
As we witnessed first-hand outside the hotel, fan interest in the series can reach fever pitch. However, female attention for the two leading actors has led them into more problems than they first bargained for, with one particularly irate father venting his anger on Ian Somerhalder at a convention a few months ago. As Ian walked past a young female fan she asked him to sign her chest, and that was when the trouble began. "I didn't know that her father was right there and that she was really young - she looked like she was 20 - and he was not happy about that. She really caught me; she was like, ‘Will you sign my chest?' and pulled her shirt down," he explains, "I didn't realise that her dad was like three shoulders into the crowd, and came out at me as if I'd just eaten his firstborn. It turns out she was 13."
When they are not being harassed by angry parents, the intense shooting and promotional schedule has dominated their lives over the past year; not that they are complaining. "We spend every day together," Ian divulges, "For the last season we literally spent, I would say, eight out of ten weekends travelling and doing publicity."
An exhausting schedule by all accounts, but Paul is quick to point out that there is no other job that they would rather be doing. "Look at the rewards, the product? We do it because we love it. That's it at the end of the day and if we didn't have it, we'd be miserable. We'd get to sleep every day for 12 hours but when we woke up, we'd be dreaming of having roles like these."
That's just as well, because with a second series currently in production and the vampire craze showing no sign of abating, The Vampire Diaries, and its millions of screaming fans, are set to be with us, for quite some time to come...
The Vampire Diaries: The Complete First Season will be available on DVD and Blu-ray September 1.
Picture caption: Ian Somerhalder and Paul Wesley at the 50th Monte Carlo TV Festival Opening Ceremony, courtesy of Getty Images. Taken by Pascal Le Segretain.