Paul Wesley: Stefan, Stefussy & The Salvatore Brotherhood

**Alex Cooper** (0:11)
Paul Wesley, welcome to Call Her Daddy.

**Paul Wesley** (0:13)
Thank you so much for having me.

**Alex Cooper** (0:15)
Okay, actor, advocate, director, bourbon connoisseur, father of Greg, best friend of Ian Somerhalder. I mean, it is such an honor and a pleasure to be sitting down with you today, Paul.

**Paul Wesley** (0:28)
So sweet, thank you.

**Alex Cooper** (0:30)
Obviously, you were on one of the most iconic shows of all time, in my opinion, The Vampire Diaries.
And I've always been obsessed. I remember when I started watching it, I've rewatched it. I've told you and Nina that I am a fan multiple times. You're like, Alex, we get it. And so it feels really full circle because now you, me and Nina are going to be doing a television show together, which is very exciting.

**Paul Wesley** (0:55)
How awesome.

**Alex Cooper** (0:56)
You deserve to know the fact that you and Nina are going to be back on screen together. It feels like we're healing something within the world.
How long has it been since you guys have worked together?

**Paul Wesley** (1:09)
Oh my goodness. Well, I mean, I, gosh, let's see if my math skills are any good. So I guess the show ended in 2017
Nina left two years prior to that, but she came back for the finale. So I guess theoretically 2017, we're in 2026, so it's been nine years since we've actually been on, so it's almost a decade.

**Alex Cooper** (1:29)
By the time our show comes out, it will literally be a decade.

**Paul Wesley** (1:32)
By the time we're filming and by the time it comes out, maybe, yeah, a decade over a decade.

**Alex Cooper** (1:36)
Okay, I don't like that because that makes me feel old, but also I like it because everyone rewatches Vampire Diaries every five seconds. So what feels nice is it feels like we haven't missed you guys too much.

**Paul Wesley** (1:48)
It's such a strange thing, isn't it? It's the weirdest thing because like, once a show goes off the air, typically you're like, okay, it fizzles out and like, you know, whatever. And it's so funny because there are, Ian and I will do like, conventions, right? And I'll have someone show up with their teenage daughter and they'll show up and make me feel old. I grew up watching you and now my daughter's watching you. And it's like the weirdest, it's this generational thing because of streaming, and it never ends.
It's like a vampire, it's eternal.

**Alex Cooper** (2:21)
Paul, it's like we're still in Mystic Falls.

**Paul Wesley** (2:24)
We're still in Mystic Falls, we never left. I've never left. I feel like it'll never leave me.

**Alex Cooper** (2:30)
Oh, I love that so much. Also, I was thinking about it. You leave the show, obviously, and your life did eventually move on. But like, did you and Nina know that you wanted to work together immediately after the show or did it take a little second to get the itch to be like, should we do something?

**Paul Wesley** (2:46)
Look, so it's like, it's very public that Nina and I had this very fun kind of back and forth relationship in the sense that what I mean by that is in the beginning, we didn't get along. And that's highly publicized. That's something she's spoken about, I've spoken about it, so it's not like it's breaking news.
And now we're like, we're such good friends and I absolutely adore her. And it's one of these things that like, it's not like the show ended and we're like, let's do something together. It's just sort of like, we would see each other, we would stay in touch and then enough time went on where I was like, you know, I don't know whose idea it was, but we kept saying we should do something, you know, and let's make it special. Like, let's really make it great. And so we, you know, we were trying to find something for years. And then we would not talk about it for two years. And then another we, oh, we should do this. And then until finally, you deserve to know came about and we're like, I think, yeah, this is it. Let's do this.

**Alex Cooper** (3:41)
Is Ian jealous? Do we need to write him in?

**Paul Wesley** (3:43)
We need to, maybe we need to like call a friend and ask him if he's jealous right now.

**Alex Cooper** (3:48)
Ian, do you want us to write you in? There's still time. He's like, please stop.

**Paul Wesley** (3:52)
He'll pretend to know, but deep down inside, you know, he wants to be written in.