As you probably know by now, we were fortunate to visit The Vampire Diaries set in Atlanta, Ga., earlier this spring, and sit down for exclusive talks with the talented cast.

If you missed them (or just want to re-watch), be sure to check out TV Fanatic’s interviews with Ian Somerhalder, Katerina Graham, Paul Wesley and Steven R. McQueen.

Read more: http://www.tvfanatic.com/2011/04/exclusive-video-interview-the-vampire-diaries-sara-canning-speak/#ixzz1K7ak2muh

This girls intense, seductive smoky eyes will lure you to May’s issue of Avenue Canada. With strategically tousled hair, a stern pout and a pose that screams “I’m ready for anything,” actress Sara Canning is letting everyone know she has arrived. In a telling interview, she dives into discussing her quick rise to fame, no-failure attitude and obsession with the paranormal.

The undead might scare some people away but not Sara, which is why there couldn’t have been a better show to have catapulted her to fame than The CW’s “The Vampire Diaries.” Sara plays Jenna Sommers, the aunt and legal guardian of Jeremy and Elena, who all exist in a world where vampires and humans are entangled in one another’s lives (and sometimes just each other). But if you think her relationship with the undead is a new found hobby, think again. She laughingly recalled to the mag of her childhood, “I would creep into the living room and hide behind the couch to watch ['The X-Files']. I would scare myself. I had a really overactive imagination.”

Before her success on “Vampire Diaries,” Sara called Sherwood Park in Canada home. Starring in some middle school stage productions, she was bitten by the infamous acting bug. Later, this same bug caused her to leave the university she was attending to move to Vancouver and pursue acting: one passion Sara knew she needed to cultivate. “Nothing really fueled my fire the way performing did. So I [asked myself], ‘why can’t I do this?’”

While in Vancouver, she landed the role of Nicky Hilton in “Paparazzi Princess: The Paris Hilton Story,” a theme she’s now become familiar with herself. Sara’s quickly learned about how vicious paparazzi and tabloids can be with any scandal. During a “Vampire Diaries” photo shoot with her female costars on top of a bridge, motorists made phone calls claiming unruly girls were hanging out on the bridge, flashing people. Although all charges were dismissed, the story hit the tabloids full force. Sara just brushes it off though, “My friends and family all automatically called me, laughing, because they know I’m the last person in the world who would do something like that.”

And what type of person is Sara exactly? She still cares about her hometown, sending autographs to her former high school for their silent auction. And she’s also incredibly driven about going after her dreams. She confided to the magazine, “When I moved away from home … there was no thought in my head of maybe this is going to work out. I was always really adamant about making this happen.”

Check out the full article in Avenue complete with edgy photos and a list of five things Sara loves about her hometown (Spoiler: #4 is the sky)!

Sara Canning has her pick of hot dudes on the set of “The Vampire Diaries” (Paul Wesley, Ian Somerhalder, Zach Roerig… do we need to go on?), but the 22-year-old actress, who plays Elena and Jeremy’s Aunt Jenna on the show (we know! She’s so young!), told Betty Confidential that she wouldn’t actually date any of them. “The guys are nice, smart, and easy on the eyes, but they’re family to me,” she said.

She couldn’t even decide on which fictional man she’d choose, instead opting for a fusion of several. “In reality, I definitely go for a guy who is driven and has a good soul, but is also funny and bold,” Sara said. “And he’s gotta be able to keep me on my toes and challenge me. Doesn’t that sound like a mixture of Matt, Stefan, and Damon?”

On the show, Sara’s character, Jenna, is dating history teacher Alaric, played by Matt Davis, whom Sara said she gets along with well. “Matt’s so fun to work with,” she said, “a total goof with a big heart. We have the same sense of humor, and he keeps me laughing all the time on set.”

The cast members laugh together off-set too. Sara echoed what we’ve heard previously from “VD” stars Katerina Graham and Steven McQueen — that the cast really does like to spend their free time together. “We love to hang out as a cast, but we typically keep things low-key. Unless we’re all flying to Vegas to celebrate Nina’s 21st birthday. But if we’re all here [in Atlanta] on a weekend, we’ll go out to dinner and play pool. Last summer we spent a lot of time at a lake, tubing and jet skiing. We’re all adventurous, but very laid-back.”

The cast gets along so well, in fact, that some of them live together. Sara said she and Nina Dobrev are roomies, and they get along great. “Nina is such a great roommate. We have our own bathrooms, so it’s never an issue if one of us wants to take a long shower. And we both make grocery trips whenever we have time, and just share everything. We’re both really easy-going. We try to help each other stay healthy, but I usually cave and bring chocolate into the apartment.”

If you had to pick one of the many men of “VD” to date, could you choose?

Source MTV

At last, The Vampire Diaries returns tonight (The CW, 8 p.m. EST)! To get us through the last leather jacket-less month, we phoned costume designer Jennifer Bryan as she was out and about in Atlanta looking for pumps to talk about all the shirtlessness we were missing, the secret to buying a leather jacket (one of the excellent reader questions submitted for her), and what we have to look forward to next (Damon on a bender!).

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Let’s just get right to it. The shirtlessness: Is that something that’s usually in the script, or something you negotiate with the actors?

JENNIFER BRYAN: There’s a couple of ways that it has evolved. I would say almost all the time, the writers put it in. But they dole it out in small measures. If the story calls for it, that’s what happens. But I don’t think they had expected such a strong positive reaction, like, “More! More!”

Do the actors embrace it? What’s their reaction?

It’s middle-of-the-road. Paul [Wesley] and Ian [Somerhalder] take what they do really seriously, so we really try to not be gratuitous.

There was that one episode when Stefan was putting on his shirt as he walked into his bedroom. I’m not complaining, but I was like, he had to do that right then? He couldn’t have done that in the hallway on the way to his room, off-camera?

It gave him something to do. It’s almost like we used it as a connector because we needed him to work into another scene where his shirt was on. So we had to make the shirt exist. I’m puttin’ it on, and I’m walking into the room, so the next time you see him, it wouldn’t seem like a continuity mistake.

Read Entire Interview

In honor of the hit show The Vampire Diaries returning with new episodes on the CW tonight (8 p.m. EST), BettyConfidential caught up with star Sara Canning, who dishes about who she’ll be hooking up with (onscreen and off!), her celeb roomie, and who she’d most want to be stranded on a deserted island with.

–Patty Adams

With Twilight’s Kristen Stewart and Rob Pattinson are a (not-so) secret item, and True Blood’s Anna Paquin and Stephen Moyer engaged off-screen, it’s hard to believe there’s no coupling up on the equally steamy set of The Vampire Diaries. But Sara Canning, who plays Jenna, the cool, but sometimes-clueless guardian, tells BettyConfidential that she’s not actually tempted to get together with any of her hot co-stars. “The guys are nice, smart, and easy on the eyes, but they’re family to me!” swears Sara, 22, who has never even dated another actor. The Canadian, who now calls Atlanta home thanks to filming the show there, would rather just go to dinner and play pool with the likes of Paul Wesley, Ian Somerhalder, Zach Roerig and Matt Davis. All the perks without any of the drama—smart girl!

Read Entire Interview

Source LA Times