star Paul Wesley reflects on his time on the hit CW drama, revealing that he had fears about being typecast. First airing in 2009, the CW series, which is created by Kevin Williamson and Julie Plec, stars Nina Dobrev as Elena Gilbert, with Wesley costarring as Stefan Salvatore.
In a recent interview on Michael Rosenbaum's podcast, Wesley reveals that there was a time when being part of had him worried about being typecast later on in his career. In an effort to combat this, the actor branched out from Stefan and took his talents to an entirely new medium. Check out Wesley's full comment below:
“By season 3 or so, you’re going, ‘Oh, sh-t. I need to do some other stuff.’ I started to like really get into the whole, ‘I need to be a thespian.’ And so I started to do New York theater. That was my thing during hiatus, I was just going off and doing obscure off-Broadway plays.
I think I had the energy [because], first of all I was younger, but also you’re so… Look, I’m not knocking the show, but at the end of the day you’re doing a one-hour CW drama.
You don’t want to be typecast, and also you’re like, I have this pop culture thing to a degree, but am I respected? I want to be respected by fellow actors and so you’re striving to do different kinds of things.
Wesley has seemingly been able to avoid being typecast during and after and has since appeared in , and . While the actor has managed to take on a fairly varied set of roles, his fears about being pigeonholed are certainly not unfounded.
Many actors in Hollywood have taken or not taken certain jobs as part of a conscious effort to avoid playing the same types of roles over and over again. Christina Applegate, for example, passed on the opportunity to star in
From the lead with a tragic past to the mysterious love interest to the generic bully character, teen dramas often hit similar notes. managed to avoid many of the archetypes that plague the genre, but some characters did end up feeling a little familiar. While Wesley may have feared typecasting during his time on the show, it's clear that his extracurricular efforts ended up paving the way for a successful and diverse acting career following the show's conclusion.
