Image Credit: Bob Mahoney/The CWTonight’s episode of The Vampire Diaries (The CW, 8 p.m. ET) brings the moment we’ve been waiting for all season: Tyler’s first full moon transformation. “Moment” is deceptive — it’s such a long process that actor Michael Trevino was encouraged to watch videos of wolves feeding and howling and women giving birth to prepare for shooting it over two days. We caught up with Candice Accola, who, as his suddenly loyal friend Caroline, had a first row seat.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Watching Tyler and Caroline watch his uncle Mason’s video of his own first transformation was brutal last week. What was that like to film?
CANDICE ACCOLA: We didn’t watch the video, that was all filled in during post-[production]. So, yes, that made it very interesting. We were just staring at a blank screen. Trevino actually went in the day before and watched Taylor [Kinney] shoot the beginning of his transformation. In this week’s episode, Tyler goes through the transformation, and you will see everything. As an actor, and as a person, Trevino was put in a very vulnerable place. He’s not wearing a lot of clothes and he’s going through pain. It’s a very, very long process. The viewers just got a taste of it watching Uncle Mason transform. And Caroline’s focus this entire episode is to help Tyler get through the transformation alive, and help him so he’s not alone and so he doesn’t hurt anyone.

What was the hardest part for you filming it?
Just watching him. There are people — even last night over dinner, one of the women who works in wardrobe said, “Yeah, I just wanted to stop in and see how everything was going, and after one scene, I was out of there.” There’s a lovely parallel between Caroline and Tyler being friends and Caroline’s watching him go through this horrific experience, and as an actor and a friend, watching Trevino just really bare everything like that. The screaming and the crying –it’s the guttural screams that get you — it’s one of those things where you’re like, “That’s awesome. That’s great,” but it’s so emotionally and physically exhausting. Please make a note that all the chains that he wore when he’s walking around are real chains. For two days straight he had these pounds worth of chains literally weighing him down.

Did the two of you do anything to celebrate when filming was done?
[Laughs] He’s a cookie monster. He’s a total chocolate chip cookie-aholic. He’s shirtless for most of it, and boys being boys, they want to be extra, extra fit for those days. He skipped eating the chocolate chip cookies over and over at lunch. And finally, he was wrapping up that day, and we went to lunch and it was like sugar white chocolate cookies, and those are not the ones that he wanted. So I asked catering if they wouldn’t mind baking him his own chocolate chip cookies. So that was a good celebration. And then production got him a giant pepperoni pizza. Everyone just shoved warm yummy food toward his dressing room, very motherly.  READ FULL STORY »

Image Credit: Annette Brown/The CWToday, Ian Somerhalder turns 32, and he’s celebrating by doing some press for his new project, the habitat and biodiversity focused Ian Somerhalder Foundation, and The Vampire Diaries‘ Dec. 9 midseason finale before hitting the show’s set. Because we are Entertainment Weekly, we’ll start you off with the Vampire Diaries scoop. Then, we’ll help him save the world. So, what can he tease about Damon’s mindset after Thursday’s episode? ”Basically, Damon, as much as he fights it, is starting to feel. And that angers him. It scares him. It’s just different for him, and he doesn’t quite know how to deal with it,” he says. “I was talking to my father, and his dog, our family dog, is a rural country dog. She’s never been on a leash, this animal. We’re taking her this winter to our house in the mountains where we’re gonna spend Christmas. We’re gonna bring her. We want our dog with us. My dad is gonna drive across country, and he said [Laughs] he tried to teach her how to walk on a leash, and she flipped out. The dog’s 10 years old. It’s so difficult teaching an old dog new tricks, and Damon is unbelievably uncomfortable on that metaphorical leash of humanity. It’s been so long since he felt like this that it’s freaking him out. Another element shows up to Mystic Falls that again compromises and endangers what he started to love, and so the stakes get raised again. At the end of this episode, it’s pretty heavy for him.”

What can he tell us about the Salvatore Brothers’ relationship in this episode? ”Stefan is locked in that cave. In all actuality, it’s kind of what Damon’s been dreaming about. But truthfully, Damon wants to get his brother out of there. He’s gonna try really hard, once he works out what he needs to work out. As much as he wants to kill his brother sometimes, he loves him. Damon can’t imagine being stuck in that cave with Katherine. That would just suck. There’s such a commonality of pain between these two guys. They’re in love with the same two women. Two of them — it’s absurd. [Laughs] And the protagonists that have come to town, they mean business. They’re gonna wreak some havoc, and they’re gonna cause some problems for us, that’s for sure.”

The show will return with new episodes in late January. It sounds like it’ll be an interesting time for Damon, having the Originals (and werewolves) come into the picture just when he’s finding his humanity. “You’re exactly right. It’s like, Come on. Really? Now I’ve got to be Mr. Brutal Vampire and protect everybody, and I’m gonna have to hurt people. But now I’m feeling the most vulnerable and human I’ve ever felt. He’s probably just thinking This is total bulls—.”

While Damon tries to save Mystic Falls, Somerhalder himself is thinking globally with the Ian Somerhalder Foundation. (How’d you like that segue?) ”In the wake of the BP spill,” says the Louisiana native, “there needs to be more organization to team up with the smartest guys in the room and fix and solve problems. Half the species on earth are facing extinction. What this foundation is gonna do is partner with other organizations around the world — who are the smartest guys in the room — and it’s going to focus on flora and fauna, the two-legged creatures to the 50-legged creatures. Our habitat is being destroyed. We are dealing with gaps in education. The educational component is to basically empower youth to know the future lies in their hands.” Somerhalder, who’s set to speak at Deepak Chopra’s second annual Sages and Scientists conference in February, expects the foundation to partner on lectures that can be televised into classrooms via closed-circuit television, as well as on educational trips and contests. “Maybe it’s going to Sony and saying, ‘Hey, can we have 100 cameras,’ and we send them to two schools per state. We set in motion contests to shoot environmental communal documentaries, and start to get not only corporate America involved but small-town schools. Get kids to understand that whether they’re in super urban or super rural areas, it’s all the same. We will be doing really cool contests like that and allowing kids to travel all over the world.” READ FULL STORY »