What makes The Vampire Diaries’ Nina Dobrev It-Girl material Story Grace Libero Photo courtesy of Solar TV There is indeed no better timing for 21-year-old Nina Dobrev to score her biggest role yet. Why, it’s a bloodsucker-crazy world right now, and she’s the lead star of The Vampire Diaries!		The chosen one As Elena Gilbert in this CW recreation of L.J. Smith’s young adult fiction series, Nina plays the role of a teen orphan who lost her parents in a car accident and has undead brothers Stefan (Paul Wesley) and Damon Salvatore (Ian Somerhalder) fighting over her soul. But before you think the show is some Twilight rip-off, Nina says, “We have the vampire guy who falls in love with a girl. That's just the pilot episode. I hope people will wait and stick it out because there's much more to it.” Admittedly a fan of Twilight and True Blood, Nina almost didn’t get the part, actually, with the casting auditions in LA coinciding with her filming of Chloe in Toronto. But perhaps fate really whipped it up for her, because although the leading lady is supposed to be blonde and blue-eyed as depicted in the books, Nina sealed the deal with her good acting skills. The promising actress Born in Sofia, Bulgaria on January 9, 1989, Nina and her family moved to Toronto, Canada when she was two. Growing up, she has displayed promise in acting, dancing, singing, gymnastics and visual arts. She attended the Armstrong Acting Studios, where she met agents and got modeling and commercial stints. Soon after, Nina’s working her charm more behind the camera, bagging parts in films like The Poet, Fugitive Pieces and Away From Her and lead roles in TV movies Too Young Too Marry, My Daughter’s Secret, Never Cry Werewolf and American Mall (which was also produced by the team behind Disney’s High School Musical). She also made a mark as Mia Jones, the single teen mom, since the sixth season of Degrassi: The Next Generation.
		The active teen “I think [my] dream was to be an actress, but I never really thought it was going to happen. Now that it's happening, it's incredible. But I do a lot of other things, too. I'm not stuck in this little world,” Nina quips. She’s petty athletic, too, as her hobbies include volleyball, soccer, swimming, wake boarding, snowboarding, rock climbing, horseback riding and Moksha yoga. And as if she isn’t busy enough, Nina is also into gymnastics. She has, in fact, represented Canada in Aesthetic Group Gymnastics in the 2005 Junior World Championships in Plzen, Czech Republic and in the 2005 Senior World Championships in Copenhagen, Denmark. “I'm pretty independent, and I take things as they are. I have a lot of aspirations. I'm very determined, but at the same time, if it doesn't work out, I'm not going to throw a fit over it,” she shares. Armed with such attitude, it looks like nothing’s stopping Nina from making waves in and even out of Hollywood in the years to come.