On Season 7 of The CW television series The Vampire Diaries, the Salvatore brothers (played by Ian Somerhalder and Paul Wesley) have had a lot of dynamics changed with the return of their mother, Lily (Annie Wersching), and that reunion hasn’t necessarily been a happy one.
Both Stefan and Damon have different tactics on how to deal with Lily, especially in the wake of the return of the Julian character. Last week, we visited the Georgia sets of The Vampire Diaries and spoke with actor Ian Somerhalder about that Damon/Lily relationship.
“This ‘mommy’ relationship — well, I never hated my mom; I love my mom more than anything in the world, but even if you really do not like your mother or have insane amounts of disdain for her, if she has a s—-y boyfriend, you hate it even more. And Julian is that guy that comes into her life that they know is just really not a good guy, even though he’s super handsome, he has a great accent, and he’s a really good actor… he’s really not a good dude,” Ian explains.
“Where the real conflict comes in is that Stefan just says, ‘All right. Cool. Let’s just get rid of this guy, immediately.’ But Damon… Damon, in his sadistic mind, doesn’t want that. He wants to draw it out. Damon wants her to find that passion again, from this man. He wants her to experience true love again. And THEN, once she’s settled and happy and super-content, and living in my house, and schtupping this guy in my bed… when she’s at this sort of peak of happiness in six months, when she thinks everything’s okay, then Damon wants to swoop in and then hand-deliver [Julian]’s heart to her, and literally just crush her,” Somerhalder continues.
“This woman — and you see in the episodes following this one — you really see this character… you really see why he is the way he is. His mom screwed him up, and he has no bones about saying it, and he never goes back on his word. ‘I hate her, you destroyed me, you broke my heart, and I hate you, and I don’t want you to be happy, and furthermore – not only do I not want you to be happy, but I want to orchestrate how to make you the saddest you could possibly be’,” he plots.
“And he means it,” Ian continues. “I mean, this is the same guy who, in Season One and Two, we really learned that this guy was just a lot of fun, and he really believed in everything he did, even if it was ripping your throat out unannounced, and not provoked. Not warranted, not justified, which it very rarely is when you’re getting your throat ripped out, justified; but we all have been raised by parents. Some parents are amazing; some parents are not. I’m very grateful that I have incredible parents, but parents really screw up their kids, and these two boys – Stefan, luckily, weathered the storm so much better… Damon just never recovered. And the two women that he loved the most, which were Katherine and his mother, broke his heart. They pulverized it.”
And, of course, the one person who could probably talk Damon out of doing something too extreme is no longer present. “Without having Elena around to sort of soften his heart and talk sense into him, which actually is not anywhere near as fun, he is a wild card, and he really is hellbent on making Lily pay,” Somerhalder says.
You can watch video from our interview below. The Vampire Diaries airs Thursdays at 8PM (ET/PT) on The CW.
