Nina Dobrev was arguably the lead character on The CW’s The Vampire Diaries, but she was never able to reach pay parity with her male co-stars and she’s opening up about that fight in some surprising new comments.
Keep reading to find out more…
The 36-year-old actress was interviewed for the new book I Was Feeling Epic: An Oral History of The Vampire Diaries, which is out now.
Nina played Elena Gilbert, as well as doppelgänger Katherine Pierce, throughout the first six seasons of the show. She left the show and later returned for the series finale in season eight.
In the book, Nina revealed that show’s three female leads – herself, Kat Graham, and Candice King – were the lowest paid for the first two seasons.
“Candice, Kat, and I were the three lowest-paid series regulars in the first two seasons,” Nina said in the book (via People). “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.”
Nina claims that the studio eventually told the writers to stop writing for Katherine because they “had to pay” Nina whenever the character was used.
Showrunner Julie Plec confirmed this.
“It got really heated, and so it basically got phoned down back to us writers that we were not allowed to write Katherine in at all ever, which of course was not something that I felt was right or fair,” Julie said.
Nina eventually got more money from the studio, but she never reached pay parity with co-stars Ian Somerhalder and Paul Wesley.
“They just said out of principle they wouldn’t bump me up to being equal to the boys,” Nina said. “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. I remember feeling like the studio didn’t appreciate what I was bringing to the show, and it felt like they were saying that all the hard work I was putting into it didn’t matter to them and that I wasn’t an equal to my male counterparts, and so that was upsetting to me.”
When Nina returned for the final season, she only appeared in the series finale because the studio only agreed to give her equal pay for one episode, even though she was willing to do more.
Nina said, “I was always open to coming back for the finale, and storyline-wise it made sense. I felt like it was important and it needed to happen for the show, it needed to happen for the fans. It was just really important to me that at the end of the show, as a woman, I wanted to make sure that I was compensated and that I was an equal to my male counterparts on the show, and so it came down to that.”
“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,” she said. “And it wasn’t about the money — I didn’t give a s— about the money at all — it was the principle.”
“It was my second time trying to make this point. It wasn’t about the actual dollar amount, it was about being an equal. They really didn’t want to give it to me, and I politely declined the offer,” Nina said.
Julie had to step in and Nina only was brought on for the one episode.
“I’m very happy that we were able to make it work and that I came back, because I wanted to be part of the goodbye,” she said.
Nina also gave a rare quote about dating one of her co-stars while filming the show.
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