Interview: Candice Accola From ‘The Vampire Diaries’

I visited the set of The Vampire Diaries a few weeks back, and had the opportunity to speak with several members of the cast about what the rest of the season had in store for our favorite characters. The second person I had the opportunity to speak was Candice Accola. It was my first time meeting Candice, and it’s amazing how she can light up a room. Her laugh is contagious, and you can’t help but smile when she’s smiling. She’s just the cool laid-back girl next door who happens to be gorgeous.

The question I received the most for Candice from TVD fans was about the ever developing love triangle between Caroline, Matt, and Tyler. When I asked Candice about it, she smiled and paused mentioning she was trying to find the right way to word it without directly answering the question, but I thought her response gave a decent amount of insight into what we can expect over the upcoming episodes.

“That’s what makes that type of circumstance really exciting is that you really don’t know what’s going to happen, and I don’t really know either because we’re only a couple episodes ahead. It’s really up to the writers at this point. If you really look at the relationship though, Matt is Caroline’s first love, but there are just certain things that they can’t relate on anymore. She’s gone through a very traumatic experience in her life, and that’s something that even though Caroline and Tyler aren’t alike in any ways, but that traumatic experience created such an unbreakable bond between them, and created a new friendship. A lot of adult relationships grow out of really wonderful friendships. So they’re two very different kinds of relationships, they’d be two very different romantic relationships as well.” Candice replied.

I smiled when Candice finished answering the question. “Nice,” I replied. “Yeah. None of that made sense did it. It’s just a lot of words.” Candice laughed.

I was curious if Candice considered Tyler a more challenging relationship than Matt, but Candice actually surprised me with her answer to my question of what relationship did she find the most challenging for her character.

“I think the most challenging relationship for Caroline right is the relationship with herself. What I love about her character is that – that is a very relatable thing for young women in their teens and their 20’s. And that continues on for a very long time. Really figuring out who you are, what you want, and your standards… what you expect out of other people and more importantly what you expect from yourself. Throughout the first season, she was just very big on any relationship with a guy, and it was purely based on you’re cute and sex [laughs]. And this is the first time seeing that Caroline is having real friendships with men, and it’s not about sex.” Candice replied.

One of the biggest game changers in the series so far has been Caroline’s transformation. Fans had tweeted me asking me to ask if Kevin or Julie teased her at all with the fact that her character would be dying.

“There was talk about it. Kevin (Williamson) teased me with it throughout the hiatus, but things change constantly on the show. So I received a call about a week before production on Season 2 began, and he told me that I would die at the end of the first episode, and that it would be for me to turn for the rest of the season. So I did know, and I was really, really excited.” Candice answered.

Caroline has had some awesome outfits on the show, so being a girl only a few years younger than myself, I figured Candice had to have a favorite outfit. I was right. Candice loves dressing up.

“My favorite I think was the green dress for the Miss Mystic Falls thing. I like doing the dress up stuff. I had so much fun with the 50’s dance. That… omigoodness… I could have just worn that hoop skirt for a long time. Those have been my two really fun ones. We also did a Halloween episode in Season 1, and they cut around it for time’s sake, so you never got to see my whole outfit… The wardrobe girls had made my skirt all black and purple feathered boas, so I had this boa mini-skirt with a corset on top. It was a pretty sassy witch costume, but it was just fun!” Candice smiled.

There are a very devoted group of fans that run fansites and message boards for the series and its cast members, and I asked Candice if she ever visited those sites or message boards to see what people were saying about the show and her character.

“I do. I do, because I’m curious. I’ll fully admit that. It’s fun to hear other people’s feedback. It’s water cooler talk. You get to sit in on other people’s conversations about your show. I’m such a TV junkie, so I love a good session of water cooler talk about what’s going on.” Candice replied.

So while all of us have our favorite must-see shows such as The Vampire Diaries, a lot of fans had written in asking if Candice had time to watch TV and if so what was her favorite shows. Candice told me she considered herself a TV junkie, so she had a list of her favorite shows to share.

“My must-see shows are 30 Rock, Modern Family, Walking Dead, Dexter, and I Survived… and The Soup – it’s my Saturday morning ritual. During hiatus, I actually got to go watch a taping of it. And it was last minute and I was going to bring a friend but she couldn’t make it, so I just went by myself. I was so nervous and so excited. I went and bought Joel McHale cupcakes. They were bundt cakes actually … it was a baker that had moved from Atlanta to LA, so I was trying to be like from ‘From Atlanta!’ [laughs] I know so cheesy. But on the bundt cakes I had them write out ‘You’re So Meaty’ for Chat Stew. Yeah, I am a super huge Soup fan, and so excited that Joel signed on for 2 more years. ” Candice answered.

I also wanted to ask Candice about her most memorable fan experiences. Over the last 4 years of doing interviews, I’ve gotten so insane answers to this question. However, Candice has only good and sane experiences so far, and she counts herself lucky.

“I’ve been very fortunate, in the fact that any time I have been approached by someone who is a fan of the show, they’ve been very respectful and kind with lovely sweet words to say either about the character or the show. So they’ve all been really wonderful. I get the same way, if I saw Dexter walking around, I know his name is Michael C. Hall, but I’d probably go ‘Omigod! That’s Dexter!’ You just get sucked into these little words week after week, so be a part of something that creates that kind of entertainment from someone else – it’s fun to be on the other end of it. I’m just as excited and jazzed to be a part of the show and watch the show and read these scripts that I get it.” Candice answered.

Has being on The Vampire Diaries made Candice a fan of the genre? I asked her how her tastes have evolved since joining the show, and she revealed that the series has definitely shifted her tastes into enjoying the genre a lot more.

“I was super into the first season of True Blood and continued to watch… and it got crazy. Yeah [laughs]. I’ve never really been a genre junky, and now the more I’m a part of it.. I never would have thought in a zillion years that I’d be like ‘Zombies! Yeah!’ Now I’m like a zombie enthusiast. I’ve got these paintings of little kids that have been turned into zombies, and instead of eating cookies – they’re eating flesh. It’s so dark and twisted, but I love them! It’s this really messed up version of Jack and Jill eating their flesh cookies [laughs]! So I think that my tastes have definitely shifted into enjoying the genre a lot more.” Candice replied with a smile.

Article/Interview By: Emma Loggins