Damon and Elena were a star-crossed couple, but Julie Plec and Kevin Williamson had not imagined them to be endgame at all. In an interview in 2017, Plec explained that both brothers were supposed to die and watch over Elena as she thrived in her human life. She said that Elena would "maybe marry Matt Donovan or maybe become a doctor, but that those brothers would be side-by-side watching her live."
It's hard to imagine Elena ending up with Matt, whom she had dated before Stefan, but it did make sense if the show had to be rounded off in a wholesome way for her.
Fans were blessed by Delena being endgame, but the actors playing the enigmatic leads could have been someone else. Instead, both Ian Somerhalder and Nina Dobrev messed up their initial auditions for the parts, and both of them re-tested to make a lasting impression on the network and showrunners.
In 2012 at PaleyFest, Beverly Hills, Somerhalder stated, "I had to go back and re-test because all our big boss.
The love triangle was a big focus of the show for many seasons, and writers Plec and Williamson wanted to give Elena a choice at the end, but with Nina Dobrev's exit, it became impossible. In addition, Damon and Elena had an established romance before she went to sleep, so a sudden change of heart would have made no sense.
However, if she had stuck around longer, the Stefan-Elena ship would have stood a strong chance and would have been endgame as the writers wanted. Williamson elaborated in an EW interview in 2017, "It's no secret I was always a fan of Stefan and Elena ending up together. In another universe, that would've been the ending, but we didn't have time to tell that story in the last season because we didn't have Elena.
Delena fans had a huge part to play in how the romance between Damon and Elena unfolded. They loved his bad boy to redeemed anti-hero characterization so much that no matter how many hurdles the writers threw in the way of his moral progress, Damon stans were still in love with him.
Since Stelena was meant to be endgame, and Damon was supposed to be a villain, the Delena romance took a while to kick off.
While fans of pop culture reference king, Damon Salvatore, would have thought that Ian Somerhalder would support his own ship, the actor made his change of mind clear at the 2019 The Vampire Diaries and The Originals Official Convention.
"Stelena was better for my life. Because Delena fans got really mean to me and my wife and my family and stuff. So I love Stelena," revealed Somerhalder at the panel. Of course, Somerhalder is not the first actor not to support his own famous TV coupling, but the reasons are heartbreaking!
Nobody can imagine any other actor playing the role of the redeemed villain Damon, but there was an alternate reality where Paul Wesley, who played Stefan, could have been the Damon to Dobrev's Elena.
"We read Paul Wesley for Damon on day one. He was a favorite of our casting directors. We said, 'He's not ready for Damon, not enough humor there.'" This led to Paul being cast as Stefan, but he came close to playing Damon in the show. There must be some similarities between Stefan and Damon, after all.
Somerhalder tried to ethically think through the series finale in the 2018 Wizard World Con, where he made his views clear. He felt that the brothers had been heinous during their time on earth. They had killed and maimed mercilessly, so they both deserved to die in the end.
"I don't think that these brothers should have lived. I don't think that Damon should have had the happy ending with Elena," Somerhalder announced, "...humanity should have won." He clarified that his hatred was not for his character or Elena, but he only wanted the fair and just thing to happen on The Vampire Diaries.
Before an intervention by Kevin Williamson, Julie Plec and her team had zeroed in on Damon's death for the finale. "Which Salvatore brother is going to take the bullet for the other? We debated that so much because we could make a really strong case for either. And we finally settled on Damon was going to die," she revealed in a 2017 interaction.
However, this outcome did not see the light of day, as Williamson brought up questions about what Stefan's life would be like if he survived, which seemed bleak, so Stefan became the brother to meet his end.
Of the many cast members of The Vampire Diaries, Candice King and Michael Trevino are Delena shippers. Candice, who played Caroline Forbes, let fans know in a Twitter AMA that she prefers Delena, which adds up since Stefan ended up with Caroline on the show.
The Tyler Lockwood actor also showed an apparent inclination towards the couple in his 2012 Huffpost interview, saying, "I like Elena and Damon. He's crazy. He's wild. He's just more fun, I feel.
Delena fans definitely know of the three-year-long relationship that Nina Dobrev and Ian Somerhalder shared while filming The Vampire Diaries, but they may not know that years later, Nina and Ian are friends, and the stars even meet with his wife Nikki Reed on and off.
In a 2019 episode of Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen, Dobrev defended her camaraderie with her ex and his wife: "I don't think that's weird at all. I think that's great. Why can't everyone be friends? I think they have a beautiful baby, and they are happy and so am I." Some fans thought her relationship was weird, but it shows a lot of growth and maturity that the Delena actors remain friendly to date.
