Evan Romano, Ted Stafford

For someone whos been a fixture on some of the biggest shows on TV for the better part of the last two decades, Ian Somerhalder has a relatively simple sense of style. Because life is so insane and I'm just a dude, he says, he mostly sticks to jeans and a T-shirt. It's just too complicated. The simpler the better.

But not just any T-shirtshe tends to buy them in bulk; his latest, a box of 75 Alternative Earth shirts that he wears over and over, until recycling them.

The star of LOST and The Vampire Diaries knows what TV success tastes likethe former show a genre-bending phenom, and the latter a massive favorite among its millions of devoted fans, especially online (Somerhalder has accumulated 16 million Instagram followers, for reference).

LOST was Somerhalder's first big TV hit. He played Boone Carlyle, one of the show's original cast members, and (spoiler alert!) the first of that main cast to die, proving that she the stakes were sky-high, and anyone could go at any point.

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The first season of LOST is in the midst of somehow celebrating its 15th anniversary (it debuted in September 2004), and Somerhalder looks back on the show fondly. "It was way ahead of its time," he says.

He shouts out a few names that might sound familiar, mentioning the "education" he received on set when working with the likes of J.J. Abrams (Star Wars), Damon Lindelof (Watchmen) and Carlton Cuse (Bates Motel, Netflix's upcoming Locke and Key )

"I mean, these are very serious names," he says. "It was an exceptional and incredible transformative time."

And logging onto IMDB.com isn't the only way for Somerhalder to remember that the show's turning 15, either, because he's got a much more significant reminderhis cat, which he found on the beach while filming in Hawaii. "He's 15 and he still thinks he's a kitten. But it is wild how quickly this time goes."

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That time has certainly flown by, but LOST has aged like fine wine. The show's much-debated ending withstanding, LOST is the show that ushered us into this age of streaming, obsessive television. Before streaming, people were buying, renting, and sharing their LOST DVD box sets. Before Reddit, people were sharing message board and blog links to theorize about what exactly was happening on that mysterious island. Bottom line? It was important.

"It set a different bar for television hands down, and I'm really grateful for it," he says, noting that he not only learned from his various castmates and collaborators on set, but draws from it now when trying to direct and produce his own television. "It taught me a lot."

His latest projectwhich he stars in, produces, and occasionally directsis V-Wars, which he calls a much more grounded take on the Vampire genre, and one that finds him on a side of the spectrum he's not particularly used to. Rather than playing a blood-sucker himself (his character on The Vampire Diaries, Damon, started the show as a villain and eventually transitioned into the show's hero), hes playing a doctor trying to help friends and society at risk of infection.

Somerhalder enjoyed the character he played on Diaries, but understood that people liked that character because of the edge he had ("He's kind of an asshole," he says. "He really was"). With V-Wars, he wanted to take the opportunity to not be the character that comes into the scene to rile things up, but instead serving as more of a stabilizing force.

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"Coming out of [Vampire Diaries], I just wanted to play a character whose superpower was just being a great dad," Somerhalder says. "The superpower was being a great scientist and a good husband, because honestly, to me, parents, good dads, scientists, good husbands, they are fucking superheroes because everything around them spreads in a positive manner."

Having seen the highs he's seen, Somerhalder's hopes for V-Wars (which was released in December) are sky high. Not to sound like a douche, he says, but the last two shows I was in were these tentpole watercooler shows. I've learned enough that I don't have any desire for the show to not have that same impact on an audience.

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Prop styling by Miako Katoh

Ian Somerhalder Is Doing a Different Kind of Vampire Show This Time

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Evan Romano, Ted Stafford

Articles written by the author

Ian Somerhalder Is Doing a Different Kind of Vampire Show This Time