Julie Plec Talks ‘The Vampire Diaries” Stefan Crossing Over To ‘The Originals’

It’s a big night
for The CW on Friday, as
Stefan Salvatore heads from “The Vampire
Diaries” to “The Originals” for a crossover.

Executive
Producer Julie Plec has three shows — “TVD,”
“The Originals,” and the upcoming outbreak drama “Containment” – on her plate, but she hopped on the
phone with Access Hollywood to answer many of our burning questions about
Friday’s double bill. We tackled all things crossover related with Stefan and
Klaus, what is really at stake for the Mikaelsons if the Strix break the sire
line, Caroline’s New Orleans-bound flash forward from last week’s episode, and more on the future-set Bonnie
and Enzo love story.

AccessHollywood.com:
First things first – I have to kind of clarify something… I need to know if
there’s any chance Enzo wasn’t telling the truth and that Elena is gone?
Julie Plec:
(Laughs) It
depends. Which one are you rooting for? Are you the
anti-Elena crowd, or would the news make you happy if she’s
still there? No, no, I can say that Enzo was being truthful whether that makes
you happy or angry.

Julie-Plec-Talks-The-Vampire-Diaries-Stefan-Crossing-Over-To-The-Originals
(The CW)

Access:
Secondly, I have to ask you, obviously in the future, Caroline is in the car
with her lil’ babies in the back and she said she was going to go to
New Orleans to visit mommy’s old friend. Please, tell me this is a love letter
to the Klaroline fans out there?

Julie Plec: (laughs) Well, it’s not a love letter to
a specific fandom, but it is paying off a relationship with a lot of history
that we in the writer’s room always quite liked.

Access: Awww… How
much of ‘The Vampire Diaries’ episode on Friday is going to – obviously [we
have had] little scenes at the beginning and ends of the episodes, but… are you
going to give us a little more this time?
Julie Plec: No we are not. We are not breaking
format. The three-years-in-the-future
story will have to satisfy
those in the small time it has, but there is some great stuff in present
day that people will enjoy who enjoy that relationship specifically.

Access: Are we
going to learn things about ‘The Originals’ via [the] time
jumps [on ‘The Vampire Diaries’]?
Julie Plec:
This is a one-off opportunity for us to say to anybody that watches ‘The Originals,’
as they’re watching ‘The Vampire Diaries,’ ‘By the way, there’s a pretty big
piece of information in this flash forward about what the status of New Orleans
is in three years, in regards to the Mikaelsons, so you might want to tune in.’

Access: I’ve
got to ask you how much control the Huntress [who is after a now-marked Stefan
Salvatore] has over her impulse to kill when she marks somebody? Is she solely
driven by that, and can’t stop herself?
Julie Plec: Yeah, she is
absolutely, fundamentally driven by the need to finish her task. When someone
has been marked she cannot stop until she takes them down, which
psychologically, she wishes she wasn’t plagued by this. She sometimes stumbles
across a vampire that she sort of doesn’t hate and wishes she didn’t have to
hunt them to the ends of the earth, but she does, and that’s… the
predicament that Stefan is in right now.

Access:
Obviously we got to see Caroline holding the babies, and oh my gosh, were those
adorable babies or what?
Julie Plec: They were so cute!

Access: What can
you hint at about
[what]
we’re going to see
with her and her maternal instincts because we know how that ends up with her
and her future romantically [with Alaric], but that was quite a touching scene
to see her holding the babies.
Julie Plec: Well, you can see
plenty of that tonight because she and Alaric have to hit the road with two
newborn babies, and talk about diving head first into parenting. A road trip is
not the easiest way to get started.

WATCH: ‘The Originals’: Danielle Campbell On Marcel & Her Drive To Bring Kol Back

Access: Over on ‘The Originals’ – Aya, do you see her as a baddie or do you see her as a driven person, trying to become independent?
Julie Plec:
 I actually have a lot of respect and admiration for Aya. She is a woman who was born and raised in a time when women were not encouraged to be smart, willful or powerful and over the 900-such years that she’s been alive, she has found herself in a place of extreme strength, and lives in the shadow of the legacy of her creator, Elijah Mikaelson, and the organization that he created with all the good intentions and then left behind, and in doing so, left her behind. And I like that she is take-charge. So, although she’s not necessarily always working in concert with our heroes, I think she’s a really vivid character.

Access: How high are the stakes? She’s the one that’s leading the charge to break this sire line. Will she try to do it at any cost?
Julie Plec: She will do it at any cost, in fact, she has several backup plans to her backup plans, which are going to make our heroes stopping her incredibly difficult.

Access: I’m just going to ask you a  yes or no question… will the sire line be broken for at least one of the Originals?
Julie Plec: I can’t tell you that!

Access: I know. I just really wanted to ask it.
Julie Plec: That’s good. That’s good … You know I can’t tell you that (laughs).

Access: If one were to be broken, how would change the family dynamics? Is that something that you guys have thought about in the writer’s room, in the many sort of conversations that you guys have? 
Julie Plec: Oh yes, absolutely. … If Elijah’s line were to be broken, then he is very vulnerable in the sire line war with Klaus’ ‘sirelings,’ as he calls them. Like there’s no reason to protect Elijah anymore and so all these people — these Strix that felt abandoned by him or feel like he is their spiritual enemy, there’s no reason for them not to come after him if they get the means to do so and there’s a lot of hard feelings in that group over the centuries. And then, if Klaus’ line were to go, I mean, my God, Klaus – his entire feeling of power is the fact that no one can lay a finger on him and if the opportunity is out there and there are no consequences for anyone else, he’s got a list of enemies a mile long that would come a calling and we all know that Klaus is not his best self when he’s paranoid.

Access: [Stefan and Klaus are reunited in ‘The Originals’]. We obviously see a brief moment with them in the trailer. … What’s the interaction going to be like?
Julie Plec: Well, I think Stefan wasn’t necessarily hoping to come face-to-face with Klaus Mikaelson for many reasons, but probably the largest of which is that Stefan’s current girlfriend is Klaus’ former object of affection, I guess, is the best way to put it. And Klaus is not the calmest guy when he’s jealous, so I think that when Klaus shows up at the bar next to him there’s some awkwardness and some tension that’s actually a bit fun to see.

Access: Did you get to break the news to Paul [Wesley, who plays Stefan] that he was going to be the one that was going to cross over? I have to know what that was like!
Julie Plec: Yeah. I was at dinner with Paul and some of the other actors and we’d had a nice dinner and we’d had a couple of glasses of wine, and we got out into the parking lot and I said, ‘Oh, by the way, we want Stefan to have scenes with Klaus. We want to do a crossover.’ And he’s like, ‘You’re kidding,’ and I said, ‘No, we’re totally — you’re going to go to New Orleans, you’re going to have all these great scenes, it’s going to be awesome!’ And he [said], ‘Oh my God, I’m so in,’ and he was genuinely excited, which I was pleased by. I thought either I did my job right by taking him to dinner first or he just really is that into the idea. I thought it might take a little bit more work to get him to agree, but he’s an actor who loves a challenge and he loves trying new things, and he always really liked working with Joe [Morgan, who plays Klaus] and so for him it was a no-brainer.

Access: I wanted to ask you when we’re going to get to see more of the romantic relationship start to build in present day between Bonnie and Enzo, who have so much chemistry.
Julie Plec: (laughs) Yes they do. You’re going to have to wait a little bit. It’s a slow build and there’s going to be a run of episodes that they’re not as involved in, but as we get towards the end of the season, we have some beautiful stuff to show about the time that they spent together, how they fell in love with each other, how they became a couple, what they meant to each other and how Enzo is truly the best boyfriend you would ever want to have.

“The Vampire Diaries” kicks off at 8/7c, followed by “The Originals” at 9/8c on The CW.

Jolie Lash

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