Paul Wesley Says The Vampire Diaries Reboot Would Be a "Hard Pass"

Paul Wesley has no desire to be part of a The Vampire Diaries reboot. In a recent interview with InStyle (via Entertainment Weekly) the actor, who played Stefan Salvatore for all eight seasons of the hit The CW Series, revealed that not only does he not miss the beloved vampire, but he won't ever play another vampire again in the future — and that any Vampire Diaries related project, including future reboots or revivals would be a "hard pass" for him as an actor.

"I don't really miss anything about playing him, and I don't mean that in a [negative way]," Wesley said. "Eight years is a long time, and I'm so glad to put that to rest. Eight seasons."

"Because the show ran for such a long time, in order for it to not become monotonous, ever season, he sort of had a different arc," he said. "At one point he was pure evil, and he started out as the good guy and then he ended as the good guy. But I liked the challenge of trying to keep the character fresh."

Wesley currently is playing something far from a vampire. The actor stars as Captain James Tiberius Kirk in the second season of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds on Paramount+.

"In the season 1 finale, it's actually a Kirk that we've never seen because he doesn't really exist," Wesley tells Entertainment Weekly. "It's an alternate projected timeline of something. If Pike hadn't died and he was still commanding the Enterprise, what would this world look like? Of course, it doesn't exist. It's just in his mind. So, he meets Kirk, and Kirk is not captain of the Enterprise. Kirk is captain of the Farragut. Kirk has never met Spock, he's never met Uhura, he hasn't gone through all the things that the original Kirk had gone through. So, in a way, it allowed me to... I'm not gonna say whatever I wanted, but it's a looser interpretation, right? We're not sticking to a regiment. So, it was a little liberating because I didn't have as much pressure. I can't talk about season 2 too much, but it's a little bit more in line with a Kirk that we know, but it's pre-Enterprise. The most important thing is, to answer your question, is to maintain that sense of Kirk having this incredible gut instinct that he relies on, that is preternaturally accurate in a way, a morality, courage, charm, humor. We don't get to see as much of that humor in the season 1 finale because there's something very intense happening. Season 2, we get to explore a little bit more of Kirk."

Will The Vampire Diaries Universe Continue?

Last summer, the third series in The Vampire Diaries Universe, Legacies, came to an end after four seasons on The CW and seemingly marked the end of the franchise especially with the network undergoing major changes as it came under the ownership of Nexstar. However, at the time, series creator Julie Plec said that there were plans to keep the franchise going forward — though nothing had been put to page.

"We had a plan to keep the franchise on the air until the next installment, which exists in our brains, but not on the page yet," Plec said at the time. "There will be another one. We're a little sad, we're going to take a beat, but yeah, there's more ideas. There's more to do."