Ian Somerhalder Channeling the Agony of “People That Are Starving” to Prepare for His ‘The Vampire Diaries’ Role Will Leave You Bewildered
Ian Somerhalder’s performance as Damon Salvatore has become a classic in the world of vampires, being a perfect example of a modern take on a dangerous creature. The Vampire Diaries does a great job of creating a balance between making an entertaining and attractive show and not getting rid of the darker sides of vampire lore.
Somerhalder’s Damon is the perfect example of this, being complicated in the eyes of the viewers, who accept him as a flawed creature who lives the morally grey life. While Damon is certainly a dramatic and dangerous character in the series, the same cannot be said for the actor.
With this, one can imagine that Somerhalder had to take some interesting approaches when trying to embody the older Salvatore brother’s essence, and some seem to be more extreme than others.
Ian Somerhalder had to embody a vampire’s hunger
For a major chunk of The Vampire Diaries, one of the biggest plot points surrounds the concept of hunger. Be it Damon’s endless trail of bodies or Stefan’s inability to resist biting necks, characters are constantly talking about how hungry they are. However, there is an evident difference in the kind of hunger that vampires feel compared to humans.
The hunger that vampires experience is a lot more primal and deep-rooted than a human’s simple urge to grab a snack. When Ian Somerhalder was starting his journey in the beloved series, he understood this aspect of his character. This also meant that the actor had to fully understand what Damon was feeling, without ever having truly experienced it himself.
With this in mind, Somerhalder talked to IESB (via Vampire Diaries Source) about how he was able to get this part of his character right while attending the Television Critics Association Winter Press Tour. Here, the actor revealed that he made as close of a correlation as he could between a vampire’s hunger and the real world.
While the approach is a very good one, the words that Somerhalder used to describe it are certainly peculiar.
Ian Somerhalder had a peculiar approach to playing Damon Salvatore
In the interview, Ian Somerhalder revealed that he had to work with what he knew. This meant that he thought of times when he was very hungry and did not have an opportunity to immediately satiate it. He started by taking examples of when he was on an airplane or simply did not have any food around him.
However, the actor then mentioned that he thought of the people who did not have access to food and were starving because of a lack of resources. Trying to emulate how they feel, the actor was able to deliver his iconic performance in the beloved series.
I actually don’t like blood. It freaks me out, a little bit. But, when you think about being hungry, and you think about a time when you were stuck on a plane or you were somewhere without food, or you see people that are starving in the world, and you think about how intense that is, and then you imagine being a vampire and having 160 years of life experience, and the knowledge of humanity, love, death and history, and on top of that your senses are heightened by 1,000 percent, it’s a very intense proposition.
Although one can imagine that Somerhalder meant no offense by his words, it is safe to say that they can easily be taken out of context.
The Vampire Diaries is available for streaming on Netflix.
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