Nina Dobrev pulled back the curtain on pay disparity on the set of The Vampire Diaries. Entertainment journalist Samantha Highfill’s recent book, “I Was Feeling Epic: An Oral History of The Vampire Diaries,” chronicles the actress’s fight for equal pay on the CW hit. Needless to say, the revelation shed light on the injustice that has been plaguing the industry for a long time.
Here are the details.
Nina Dobrev had to fight for equal pay to her Vampire Diaries male co-stars
Nina Dobrev led the show for over seven years in the dual roles of Elena Gilbert and Katherine Pierce. Despite this, the actress received a drastically different paycheck than her male co-stars, Ian Somerhalder and Paul Wesley.
“Candice [King], Kat [Graham], and I were the three lowest-paid series regulars in the first two seasons,” Dobrev revealed. “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,” she added.
Although she did get a raise in Season 3, the amount wasn’t close to that of Wesley or Somerhalder. The studio then allegedly asked the creators, Julie Plec and Kevin Williamson, to remove the character of Katherine Pierce.
Dobrev recalled the gruelling work hours during the shoot. She reveals how “hurtful” it was when the studio refused to cut her a paycheck she deserved. “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,” she recalled.
The actress left the show after Season 6 but returned for the series finale. However, the pay disparity persisted even then. Dobrev stated that the “opening offer” was “five times less than what I made when I left in Season 6.” It ended up taking a lot of convincing from the creators before the studio finally decided to have her back for one last episode (via Variety).
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