The Vampire Diaries Co-Creator Julie Plec Says Door Will Always be Open for Kat Graham to Return

Thursday night saw what seemed to be the end of an era for The CW with the series finale of Legacies concluding the run of the spinoff of both The Vampire Diaries and The Originals, but The Vampire Diaries co-creator Julie Plec says she still has more stories to tell within that universe and that the door will always be open for the return of beloved actors — including Kat Graham. Plec told Deadline that the door is always open for Graham, who played Bonnie Bennett on The Vampire Diaries.

“We’ve reached out to Kat plenty of times through the years for different The Vampire Diaries-related things and she’s always been very gracious,” Plec said. “She’s very kind as she kindly passes. She feels like she has completed her journey as Bonnie, taken the good parts of that journey with her, and put the less good parts behind her to step into the next phase of her career. She’s been growing and doing so well with her music, her appearances, and her acting.”

Plec continued, “The door will always be open for Bonnie Bennett, whether it’s for a spinoff or an appearance—whatever. But I know Kat has a really strong point of view about what she wants for her career to be and where Bonnie fits in that and I respect that completely.” Plec’s comments come after Graham recently expressed that for her, The Vampire Diaries door is closed.

“I mean, eight years, you know eight years of my life,” Graham said. “I feel like I spent more time as a character than I spent as myself!”

She continued, “I feel like I gave that show, and hopefully the fans that watch it, eight years of my life and poured so much into it and sacrificed a lot of time with my family, even time doing work with the UN refugee agency, doing my activism — so much of that has to get put on hold when you’re a twenty-two-episode series for eight years. So, as grateful, and I mean grateful because I grew from that show, I became who I really am in my twenties from that show, for me, yeah, the door is closed.”

As for the franchise itself, according to Plec, that door remains open. Plec explained to Entertainment Weekly that while they didn’t plan for Legacies to end before the next series debuted, there is another installment in the works — at least in the creative stages.

“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. “There will be another one. We’re a little sad, we’re going to take a beat, but year, there’s more ideas. There’s more to do.”

Legacies ended its four-season run on Thursday. The series followed Hope Mikaelson, the daughter of Klaus Mikaelson and Hayley Marshall, who is descended from some of the most powerful vampire, werewolf, and witch bloodlines. Two years after the events of The Originals, 17-year-old Hope attends the Salvatore School for the Young and Gifted. The school provides a haven where supernatural beings can learn to control their abilities and impulses. In addition to Russell, the cast of Legacies also includes Aria Shahghasemi, Kaylee Bryant, Jenny Boyd, Quincy Fouse, Peyton Alex Smith, Matt Davis, Chris Lee, Ben Levin, Leo Howard, and Omono Okojie.

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