Undaggering Elijah: Interview With The Vampire Diaries’ Daniel Gillies

This morning, The CW allowed KSiteTV’s Craig Byrne and six other media outlets the opportunity to speak with Daniel Gillies, The Vampire Diaries’ fan-favorite Original Family member that we know best as “Elijah.”

Last week’s installment, “Dangerous Liaisons,” had a huge spotlight on the Original family, as their recently revived mother, Esther, has done a spell that could doom them all. It can be safely expected that the new episode airing on Thursday night, “All My Children,” will continue with that thread, especially considering the title.

Gillies describes “All My Children” as being about the unity between the Original siblings, and reveals that “they’re going to have to dispense with their differences in order to overcome their mother.” Their mother’s spell was put into place last week, even though some fans noticed that Elijah didn’t appear to swallow the drink that would bind them all. “In the best of times, I’ll always try and create a question mark,” Gillies says about the ambiguity of the scene. “Even when I was doing that, I was thinking ‘it’s just always nice for them to have the sense of suspicion.’ Look, that’s in the editor’s hands. I did one like that; I did one where I was gulping it down. I kind of just wanted to create something enigmatic.”

Executive Producer Julie Plec said last week that Elijah and the others definitely did drink, but Gillies is still unsure of what will happen next. “They really keep us in the dark. They could go down that road. I don’t know. I know as much about my future as you guys do,” though he did admit that it appears that things are already set in motion. “He’s going to have to stop that,” Daniel says.

Another important thread last week concerned Elena and her hesitation to basically doom Elijah to death. Hopeful fans have noticed a chemistry between the two actors, a fandom that Gillies is aware of. “Look. Nina Dobrev and I just like working with each other. I think a lot of people just read into that. Maybe we’re a little too flirty with each other, and it just ends up in what we’re doing. That’s all it is,” he says. But will Elijah still be so loyal once he’s realized what she’s done? “I doubt it,” he says. “But then again, he’s able to forgive Klaus for some atrocities. I think that if he thinks people are doing things in their best interest, then he’s probably relatively forgiving. You’ll just have to see.”

One of the perhaps unexpected things about Elijah is how warmly he has been accepted by the Vampire Diaries fan base. What does Gillies think?  “I’m so grateful for it,” he says. “I’ve never really had a character like this before. My response to it that I’m extremely flattered. It’s what you would hope for, whenever you take a role. I had no idea that he would have the effect he did.”

“I was saying something to a journalist the other day, that I think that he appeals to this classical idea of a vampire,” Daniel explains. “God knows we are inundated with vampires right now. We’re just submerged. Everywhere we look, we see vampires. Now, Hunger Games is going to come along and eclipse all of it. Thank Goodness, to an extent. But what’s interesting to me, but I think that [Elijah] appeals to this older idea, this older mythology, this older motif of what a vampire actually is. I think that that’s something that Elijah represents. I could be guessing.”

“e does represent something that Bram Stoker tried to create originally. Especially when he’s with [Elena],” Gillies continues. “I think that that’s what also makes their scenes fun. They have an ancient quality to them. Within the context of the show, it’s the doppelganger and Elijah, his much younger self. In a greater sense, with popular culture, something’s resonating that looks like the older vampire and the maiden.”

Another thing noticed by the fandom is that Elijah doesn’t seem to have been seen feeding as of yet, despite being a vampire. “I’m eager to see why that’s revealed. It’s really cool, actually. This is a testament to how awesome Julie Plec is,” he says, saying that he and Julie Plec have spoken about holding on to that mystery.

Those fans who are enamored by The Originals and would like to see more of them may have an ally in Gillies, who doesn’t directly say that he’d like an Originals spin-off, but seems to heavily imply it. “I always kind of want to see the adult version of this show,” he says. “I’ve said it like ten times in different things. I’m not trying to plant a seed, but I would in a heartbeat. I’d do anything that Julie Plec wants me to do. But if she and Kevin wanted to go and make something a little more adult with these characters, that would be really exciting to me. I do like the idea of getting him closer to this idea about them operating discretely within a contemporary world. I do like the idea of them being somewhere like New York, and operating out of there, and being almost Mafia-like. That, to me, is a really exciting idea. Trying to maintain the secrecy of their condition, but also trying to satiate this desire for power which they all seem to have.”

Be sure to watch Daniel Gillies in the “All My Children” episode of The Vampire Diaries, airing Thursday, February 16 at 8PM on The CW! Take a look at some images from the episode here! And come back to KSiteTV tomorrow for VIDEO of this interview!