Ian Somerhalder Says Vampire Diaries “Rode on the Coattails” of Nikki Reed’s Twilight Films – E! Online

While Ian Somerhalder was in The Vampire Diaries and Nikki Reed was in Twilight, there’s no bad blood.

In fact, the actor, 43—who is married to the actress, 34—recently expressed how he thinks the popularity of the film franchise helped the TV show. (The Vampire Diaries premiered shortly thereafter in 2009.)

“You have to remember, Twilight hit in 2008—I only know that because I live with Nikki—and so we rode on the coattails of that theatrical success,” he exclusively told E! News Aug. 23. “We were the TV version of that.” 

Reed played Rosalie Hale in Twilight as well as in its follow-up films The Twilight Saga: New Moon (2009), The Twilight Saga: Eclipse (2010) and The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn parts one and two (2011, 2012), which also starred Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner. As for Somerhalder, he portrayed Damon Salvatore in The Vampire Diaries, which ran until 2017 and also featured Nina Dobrev and Paul Wesley. 

And even Somerhalder can’t believe how much time has gone by. “To think that it was 13 years ago,” he told Wesley, who portrayed Damon’s brother Stefan Salvatore, “you were in your 20s and now you’re 40. I was 30 and now I’m in my mid-40s….What the f–k?”