The Vampire Diaries’ Paul Wesley, Nina Dobrev and Ian Somerhalder talk to the press at the 2010 Monte-Carlo Television Festival about their fans, social media, and period piece work within the show.

The CW’s breakout supernatural hit ‘The Vampire Diaries’ not only has a strong cult following in America but also in Europe, as TV Squad discovered when speaking with stars Paul Wesley, Nina Dobrev and Ian Somerhalder at the 2010 Monte-Carlo Television Festival.

Sitting down as a trio, the stars spoke to the press about social media, their adoring fans, their enjoyment of period piece work within the modern show and crossover potential. There’s plenty of life in this undead show, which returns this fall for a second season.

‘The Vampire Diaries’ has a very devout following. How much attention do you pay to social media and what a lot of the fans are talking about?
Ian Somerhalder: There’s a lot of it. It’s pretty phenomenal. We don’t get to view too much of it. It could actually be problematic to soak all that in. We tend to be saturated with the mythology in and of itself.
Paul Wesley: I think it’s a mistake to follow that too much. It’s good to be aware of it. I don’t know. To a certain extent, we’re in Atlanta, we’re excluded and we do our thing 14 hours a day, so we don’t have much exposure to it. That’s the truth and the reality of it.
Nina Dobrev: But also, minus the killing and the blood, we don’t sleep during the nighttime hours. We work at night and sleep during the day. Thankfully we don’t have a lot of time to go on the Internet and read all that stuff. Everyone has an opinion, and a lot of it is very positive, but there’s so much out there, and it’s hard to please everyone.
Wesley: I think initially when we shot the pilot, there was a huge thing about the fact that you had dark hair.
Dobrev: Elena in the books is blonde-haired and blue-eyed.
Wesley: At that point, it was just a hair color. But if you allow something like that to affect you …
Dobrev: That’s basically when I stopped reading them. I was reading them for a little bit.
Somerhalder: We all fall in love with characters and grow with them and become married to [their personalities], whether it’s a simple nuance or an aesthetic aspect, so I think it’s best for us to stay as far away as possible from that and live within the beautiful confines of whatever the story gives us.

You can read the entire interview here.