Latest news with #NinaDobrev
Yahoo
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
'The Vampire Diaries' Fans Applaud 'Genius' Surprise Reunion 8 Years Later
'The Vampire Diaries' Fans Applaud 'Genius' Surprise Reunion 8 Years Later originally appeared on Parade. They're back! The Vampire Diaries fans are freaking out on July 23, 2025, after Nina Dobrev dusted off her old characters, Elena Gilbert and Katherine Pierce, a.k.a the Petrova Doppelgängers, from the hit series. Dobrev took on a social media trend called the "twin telepathy challenge" using the two characters, who are technically not twins but share lineage from Amara in the show, which makes them look identical. The challenge involves calling out a series of instructions and seeing which ones the "twins" complete the same way, even without seeing each other. 🎬 SIGN UP for Parade's Daily newsletter to get the latest pop culture news & celebrity interviews delivered right to your inbox 🎬 Of course, the best part of Dobrev's video, for fans, was seeing her take on both the cunning and manipulative sass of Katherine and the compassionate bubbliness of Elena side-by-side for the first time since the series ended in 2017. She dressed the part, too, with Katherine in a chic all-black, skin-tight outfit, a full glam makeup look, and sky-high stiletto heels, while the Elena character had a more basic makeup look, casual jeans and sneakers, and a black leather jacket. "This is making my TVD heart so happy," said one fan, with another adding, "I've never screamed so hard!!! Welcome back Elena & Katherine." A third applauded Dobrev's acting abilities, adding, "She still got it!" and a fourth simply wrote, "Genius." Others were feeling called to rewatch the series, which ran from September 10, 2009, to March 10, 2017, on The CW, for a grand total of 8 seasons and 171 episodes. Dobrev played Elena from the very beginning, alongside Paul Wesley's Stefan Salvatore and Ian Somerhalder's Damon Salvatore, until leaving the show during its sixth season and only appearing as a guest for the final two. 'The Vampire Diaries' Fans Applaud 'Genius' Surprise Reunion 8 Years Later first appeared on Parade on Jul 23, 2025 This story was originally reported by Parade on Jul 23, 2025, where it first appeared. Solve the daily Crossword
New York Post
16-07-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Post
‘The Summer I Turned Pretty' isn't the first to explore love triangles — Why do these romantic trysts endure in pop culture?
Love is a battlefield. Buffy was torn between Angel and Spike. 'Twilight' had warring camps of 'Team Edward' and 'Team Jacob.' Now, the popular Prime Video show, 'The Summer I Turned Pretty' is back for its third and final season, following Isabel 'Belly' Conklin (Lola Tung), a teen girl torn between brothers Jeremiah (Gavin Casalegno) and Conrad (Christopher Briney). Trends come and go, but love triangles are a pop culture staple. Jennifer Prokop, a romance expert who analyzes the genre on 'Fated Mates' podcast, told The Post that most love triangles are about the main character – usually a young woman – deciding on a life path. Often, she explained, the choice between love interests is, ''I could go to a place of safety and security, or risk.' Especially when we're talking about young people, the work of young adult romance is identity development. And so, you're deciding who you want to be.' 13 Christopher Briney, Lola Tung, and Gavin Casalegno in 'The Summer I Turned Pretty.' Prime 13 Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, and Taylor Lautner in 'The Twilight Saga: Eclipse.' Summit Entertainment Prokop added, 'A really important thing about identity development is learning how to take risks.' So, when a heroine ends up with the love interest who seemed like 'the bad boy,' that message might be, 'It's okay to take a risk. Like, yeah, you might break your heart. But so what – you'll live,' she said. That's why the trope is most common in stories about young adults coming of age, such as 'The Vampire Diaries,' 'The Summer I Turned Pretty,' 'The Hunger Games,' 'Twilight,' 'Buffy The Vampire Slayer' and 'Dawson's Creek.' 13 Paul Wesley, Nina Dobrev and Ian Somerhalder on 'The Vampire Diaries.' ©CW Network/Courtesy Everett Collection 13 Paul Wesley, Nina Dobrev and Ian Somerhalder on 'The Vampire Diaries.' ©CW Network/Courtesy Everett Collection 'The Vampire Diaries' creator Julie Plec, who presided over an iconic love triangle – Elena (Nina Dobrev), who was torn between brooding good guy vampire Stefan (Paul Wesley) and his snarky bad boy brother, Damon (Ian Somerhalder) – told The Post that the most challenging part of a love triangle is, 'its almost impossible to predict at the casting stage what you're going to get, in terms of chemistry.' Plec said that a good love triangle shouldn't be set in stone, especially in a TV show. 'When you're dealing with a show that has an infinite amount of years ahead of it, your best bet is to keep your options open,' she explained. 'You can have all the intentions in the world for a relationship, but that just doesn't show up onscreen.' 13 Ian Somerhalder, Nina Dobrev and Paul Wesley in 'The Vampire Diaries.' ©CW Network/Courtesy Everett Collection Citing another 'Vampire Diaries' love triangle of Caroline (Candice King), who was torn between her werewolf boyfriend, Tyler (Michael Trevino), and the sparks she felt with the villainous Klaus (Joseph Morgan), Plec said that Caroline's chemistry with Klaus was unplanned. 'There can be surprises where something hits you out of nowhere. As a storyteller, you want to be prepared for all those things,' she said. In a love triangle plot, 'best laid plans can be fluid – if something works that you didn't expect, or if, frankly, it doesn't work that you really were hoping would work,' said Plec. Because most love triangles are about teens and twentysomethings, audiences have less patience when stories are about older characters, Prokop said. 13 Ian Somerhalder, Nina Dobrev and Paul Wesley in 'The Vampire Diaries.' ©CW Network/Courtesy Everett Collection 13 Katherine Heigl as Stephanie Plum in 'One For the Money.' ©Lions Gate/Courtesy Everett Collection For example, she cited the 'Stephanie Plum' book series, which was adapted into the 2012 movie 'One For The Money' starring Katherine Heigl. In that story, the 30-year-old heroine is torn between two men. The love triangle in the book series is drawn out across more than twenty books, and 'people tire of that,' Prokop told The Post. 'I think [love triangles] are really hard [for older characters], because adult viewers will see that as a stalling technique, rather than an identity development kind of technique. It could be dangerous,' said Prokop. 13 David Boreanaz as Angel and Sarah Michelle Gellar as Buffy on 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer.' ©20thCentFox/Courtesy Everett Collection 13 Sarah Michelle Gellar as Buffy and James Marsters as Spike on 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer.' ©20thCentFox/Courtesy Everett Collection Bridget Chun, who hosts the podcast 'Romance at a Glance,' told The Post that in most fandoms with a love triangle, some viewers 'will always latch onto one character.' 'Now, there might be something where they cheat on [their love interest] in Season 3. Or, you have to do something devastating to get someone who's rooting for someone to change their mind,' she said. 'I think the important thing is that both [options in a love triangle] be feasible options — especially in the beginning.' Plec had firsthand experience with trying to orchestrate audience expectations. 'When you're planning a long-running show and a long-running love triangle, you want to wait as long as humanly possible before you get the second half of the couple together,' she explained. 13 James Van Der Beek, Katie Holmes, and Joshua Jackson on 'Dawson's Creek.' Courtesy Everett Collection However, 'TVD' fans who were rooting for Elena and Damon to be together had such 'powerful intensity….we kept having to make choices trying to change their minds about wanting it so quickly.' But, it didn't work, because, 'Each choice we made just further cemented their desire to have it.' 'We were having Damon do really terrible things that had catastrophic consequences for all the other characters,' she explained. 'In our efforts to slow down the freight train of Elena and Damon…a lot of people had to die.' Chun, meanwhile, recalled watching the 'Dawson's Creek' finale in high school with her soccer team. On that show, the ending resolved the love triangle between Joey (Katie Holmes), Dawson (James Van Der Beek) and Pacey (Joshua Jackson). 13 Josh Hutcherson and Jennifer Lawrence in 'The Hunger Games.' Lionsgate/Kobal/Shutterstock 'I was like, 'If she doesn't choose Pacey at the end of this episode, I'm going to flip a ping pong table over!'' she recalled. Years after 'Dawson's Creek,' Chun is now a fan of 'The Summer I Turned Pretty' — and is rooting for Belly to end up with Jeremiah. 'I think you can find 'evidence' for your side, especially in a good show.…having that chat is so fun,' she told The Post. 'I mean, it can be so toxic. It can be crazy. People [in fandoms] go way too far, I think.' Case in point: the official social media accounts for 'The Summer I Turned Pretty' put out a message imploring fans to be 'kind' and reminding them against 'bullying,' ahead of the Season 3 premiere (now streaming). 13 Lola Tung, Christopher Briney and Gavin Casalegno in 'The Summer I Turned Pretty.' ©Amazon/Courtesy Everett Collection Plec recalled that at the height of 'The Vampire Diaries' popularity, some of the 'volume of response' of the fandom feedback on social media could get, 'legitimately scary.' But, Chun said there's an upside to the fandoms rooting for different 'teams' of a love triangle, too. 'It can definitely bond you together,' Chun noted. 'If you find a group of friends and you're like, 'Oh my God, you guys love [this relationship] too?' I have one friend where, we're going to watch the show together when it premieres. But she's rooting for Conrad. So it'll be fun for us to both be like, 'No! That's terrible!'' 13 Jennifer Lawrence and Liam Hemsworth in 'The Hunger Games.' Lionsgate/Kobal/Shutterstock Prokop suggested that love triangles are especially rooted in American culture. 'There's nothing more American than the idea that if you make the right series of choices, things will turn out right for you. And, for a lot of people, that includes who they marry or [end up with].' 'So I think maybe it has to do with a very particular kind of belief that we're a series of choices,' as opposed to how some other cultures believe, 'we're a series of coincidences. Or, we're a series of community building activities.' When asked if creators of love triangles feel stressed out about the possibility of disappointing half the audience, Plec laughed and said, 'Yes – exclamation point!'
BreakingNews.ie
12-07-2025
- Entertainment
- BreakingNews.ie
Vanessa Hudgens announces she is pregnant with second child
High School Musical star Vanessa Hudgens has announced she is pregnant with her second child. The US actress and singer gave birth to her first child with husband Cole Tucker last year. Advertisement On Saturday, Hudgens (36) shared photos to Instagram captioned 'round two!!!!' that showed her and Tucker pointing at her pregnancy bump. View this post on Instagram A post shared by 🔮Vanessa Hudgens🔮 (@vanessahudgens) The Suite Life Of Zack And Cody star Brenda Song, The Vampire Diaries star Nina Dobrev, Pitch Perfect actress Brittany Snow, Burlesque's Julianne Hough and Step Up star Jenna Dewan were among those congratulating the couple in the comments section. Hudgens married former US baseball player Tucker in a ceremony in Mexico 2023. She debuted her first pregnancy on the red carpet of the Academy Awards in 2024, before co-hosting the official Oscars red carpet alongside Hough. Advertisement She was previously in a long-term relationship with Elvis and Dune: Part Two star Austin Butler. Hudgens rose to international fame starring in the original High School Musical released in 2006, alongside co-star Zac Efron, whom she dated between 2005 and 2010. Alongside the Disney film series, she has starred in films including Beastly, Spring Breakers, Bad Boys For Life and Tick, Tick… Boom!. She has also released two studio albums; V and Identified, in 2006 and 2008 respectively. Advertisement
Evening Standard
12-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Evening Standard
Vanessa Hudgens announces she is pregnant with second child
The Suite Life Of Zack And Cody star Brenda Song, The Vampire Diaries star Nina Dobrev, Pitch Perfect actress Brittany Snow, Burlesque's Julianne Hough and Step Up star Jenna Dewan were among those congratulating the couple in the comments section.
Yahoo
11-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Candice King Says a Vampire Diaries Comeback Might Be Hard — But 'Anything Can Happen'
Candice King Says a Vampire Diaries Comeback Might Be Hard — But 'Anything Can Happen' originally appeared on Parade. It's been a long seven years since The Vampire Diaries aired their final episode, but fans still have their fingers crossed for a revival or a reunion of some sorts. However, recently pointed out that it would be pretty hard to make that happen. 'There are a lot of characters who are so dead — like, very dead — so that would be tough. Everyone came back at one point and was alive. I do like when a story has an ending,' King said in a sneak peek of Tommy DiDario's 'I've Never Said This Before' podcast June 24 episode shared by Us Weekly on June 23. 'But I don't know what will happen with that trilogy of shows. It was really this gift that kept on giving. I appreciate that [my character] Caroline Forbes made it to the very end. But who knows? Anything can happen. Never say never.' However, despite that one little obstacle, King said she 'wouldn't be surprised if it happened.' 'No matter what, this is an industry that sees something that has worked and has been successful so it wants it to stay in the zeitgeist or remake it,' King continued. 'By any means, I don't think that would have anything to do with us as a cast, but who knows?' The hit CW series had fans hooked from the moment it premiered in 2009, and it remains popular on streaming platforms like Peacock and Hulu. The show starred Nina Dobrev, Paul Wesley and Ian Somerhalder and centered on a supernatural love triangle. (To this day, TVD fans are staunchly Team Damon or Team Stefan.) Over time, other characters gained followings of their own. The Vampire Diaries eventually led to two spinoffs with The Originals, which followed Klaus Mikaelson (Joseph Morgan) and his family's move to New Orleans. After The Originals ended in 2018, Legacies premiered on the CW and focused on Klaus' daughter, Hope. Legacies wrapped up in 2022. Candice King Says a Vampire Diaries Comeback Might Be Hard — But 'Anything Can Happen' first appeared on Parade on Jun 23, 2025 This story was originally reported by Parade on Jun 23, 2025, where it first appeared.
