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While there have been many popular love triangle-focused fantasy shows, The Vampire Diaries remains one of the most successful and beloved names on the list. The casting of the Salvatore brothers was loved by fans who swooned over Paul Wesley as Stefan and Ian Somerhalder as Damon.
But there is one actor who almost played Stefan before Paul was finalized, and it’s none other than Sebastian Stan. Samantha Highfill’s new book, titled For I Was Feeling Epic: An Oral History of The Vampire Diaries, is all set to release on September 9, 2025, and here’s what it revealed about the Marvel star’s casting.
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The Vampire Diaries: Was Sebastian Stan Almost Cast As Stefan Salvatore?
As per the excerpt retrieved by Entertainment Weekly, Sebastian was one of the names being considered to play Stefan. Nathaniel Buzolic, who later played Kol Mikaelson in The Vampire Diaries spinoff The Originals, was also in contention to play the popular Salvatore brother.
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In the book’s excerpt, Julie Plec, the showrunner of the series, revealed that casting Stefan was the hardest part. “It’s the kind of role that you can’t just cast the smoldering pretty boy because there’s such depth and layers of loss and loneliness living in that character,” the 53-year-old explained.
The creatives needed a true actor but didn’t want to cast a theater actor who wouldn’t really be able to make “people’s hearts go pitter-patter.” Kevin Williamson added, “The book destroyed us because if you look at the description in the book, that person doesn’t exist,” referring to descriptions.
Julie continued that Stefan is “a good soul” but “with a layer of danger” as he is a vampire who struggles with bloodlust. They then opened up about meeting a star for the role. Lesli Gelles revealed, “It was Sebastian Stan. He came over to meet, so we got to spend some time chatting with him.”
“It was very cool. We were totally interested in him, and he was discussed at the studio the first time we tested Stefan, but we couldn’t do it because he was tied to another show,” referring to the 2009 drama series Kings. It was also disclosed that Sebastian had read for both Stefan and Damon.
“But Sebastian was on Kings, so that wasn’t going to work out,” Lesli felt, referring to scheduling conflicts.
Sebastian Stan was almost cast as Stefan in ‘The Vampire Diaries’ TV series, reveals casting director:
“He came over to meet, so we got to spend some time chatting with him. It was very cool. We were totally interested in him, and he was discussed at the studio the first time we… pic.twitter.com/9Lg1K6ZZ0R
— Sebastian Stan Archive (@sebstanarchive) August 27, 2025
The Vampire Diaries: Was Paul Wesley’s Casting Finalized Under Pressure?
Julie also mentioned how production was pushed at least once. “We were sort of pressured into casting Paul Wesley against our desires, which means everybody knew way better than us and that we almost missed out on the most perfect piece of casting,” she joked.
The showrunner explained that the goal was to find an actor who could combine and “live in both worlds, the heartthrob world and the serious-actor world.” She then concluded, “There was no denial that Paul could act the part; we just didn’t see him lighting up the screen, but we were just dead wrong.”
everyday is a good day to appreciate paul as stefan salvatore pic.twitter.com/QNT2ohkS06
— 🦋 (@loml_stefan) January 15, 2023
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