The CW viewers immediately fell in love with The Vampire Diaries following its premiere on September 10, 2009. For eight seasons, the supernatural creatures of the fictional Mystic Falls, Virginia, entered fans’ homes once a week as they dealt with Original Vampires, hybrids and witches, among other creatures.
Aside from stars Nina Dobrev, Paul Wesley, Ian Somerhalder, Candice King, Steven R. McQueen, Kat Graham, Zach Roerig and Michael Trevino, tons of other well-known celebrities made surprising guest appearances throughout the course of the show’s eight seasons. While actresses like McKenna Grace and Jaz Sinclair had two-episode stints on TVD, other major names didn’t actually get a chance to join the cast as planned.
According to Nina, after the cast and crew caught wind that Taylor Swift watched TVD, she was supposed to play a vampire on the show!
“I remember at the very beginning, we heard that Taylor Swift was a fan of the show. And then the producers tried to write a role for her,” she revealed during an E! News interview in March 2020. “It didn’t work out schedule-wise, obviously, she wasn’t on the show.”
When creating the role of Stefan Salvatore’s best friend and vampire Lexi, cocreator Kevin Williamson had the Lover songstress in mind for the role. In fact, he also told E! News during the show’s first season that he was “desperate to have [Swift] come play a vampire.”
“Oh my God, I cannot tell you how hard I’m trying to get her. I would kill to have her on the show!” Kevin told the publication at the time, but as it turned out, she was “too big” for the series.
That being said, the role of Lexi did eventually get nabbed by John Tucker Must Die alum Arielle Kebbel, who went on to play the fan-favorite character in nine episodes of the series. The actress went on to star as Olivia in another vampire show, Midnight, Texas, from 2017 to 2018. And she definitely used her experience as Lexi to help her play this role.
“I feel like I learned so much from Lexi,” Arielle gushed during a press panel in March 2017, per TV Guide. “I kind of feel like Olivia is a grown-up Lexi in a way. She’s kind of my homage to Lexi. She’s her own character but definitely there were certain aspects of Lexi that I threw in.”
Scroll through our gallery to see which other celebs guest-starred in The Vampire Diaries over the years.
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