You’re using an April episode of The Vampire Diaries as a backdoor pilot for a spinoff centered on the Originals. Do you have a grand plan for Vampire Diaries in terms of how many seasons it will go and how it will end?
Kevin and I, early in season 2 in fact, were sitting in a mall in Atlanta drinking Diet Coke, missing a deadline, and writing in the public area because it had Internet, and we came up with the way we see the series ending. I think the question in a show like The Vampire Diaries is really how Damon, Elena, and Stefan’s journey ends. We know how we want Elena’s journey to end as it relates to both her character and her relationship with the two brothers, and how we want the brothers’ relationship with each other to end. So that could come in year 6, if [the actors] decided they were ready to move on, or it could come in year 10, you never know.