Television viewers of a certain age grew up with Nina Dobrev appearing on TV,
as she pivoted from roles in Degrassi to The Vampire Diaries.
Here's a peek into the successful and enduring professional life of the actress.
The actor well-known for portraying Elena Gilbert uses the name Nina Dobrev in a
professional capacity, but that's not the one she was born with. Born in Bulgaria,
her real, full name is Nikolina Konstantinova Dobreva, according to
Seventeen. When she was two years old, Dobrev's family emigrated to the Toronto area in Canada.
The actor told Harper's Bazaar,
"In the beginning, we lived with another family in a one-room apartment."
Dobrev developed an interest and skill for acting early,
and enrolled in an arts academy in suburban Toronto, according to ESPN.
Although for a time she was an elite gymnast, her body couldn't handle the intense regimen.
By the time she was a senior in high school, Dobrev was booking parts in Canadian movies,
including the acclaimed Away from Her. Just a year later, she began playing her breakthrough role as
Mia Jones on the mega-hit, widely syndicated teen drama, Degrassi: The Next Generation.
After three seasons, her character was written out of the show, while Dobrev moved on to college.
After studying sociology for a while at Toronto's Ryerson University, she withdrew,
seeking to further her acting career. By 2009, Dobrev had moved to the U.S. and landed the lead
role on The Vampire Diaries, the first new American show for which she ever auditioned.
Portraying Elena Gilbert on The Vampire Diaries made Nina Dobrev into one of the best-known stars
in young Hollywood. The role also netted her three People's Choice Awards and a whopping
eight Teen Choice Awards, including five in a row for Choice TV Actress in Fantasy and Sci-Fi. Yet,
after six seasons and all the fringe benefits, Dobrev decided that she'd had quite enough of
The Vampire Diaries, announcing on Instagram in April 2015 that she planned to leave the series.
She wrote in the post,
"I always knew I wanted Elena's story to be a six season adventure,
and within those six years I got the journey of a lifetime."
In 2017, Dobrev explained her exit to Rogue Magazine, saying,
"I've always wanted to take big risks. I started Vampire Diaries when I was 20, and I was playing
a young teenage girl. I grew with the show and I wanted to continue to grow outside of it."
Essentially, Dobrev was afraid of getting,
quote, "stuck playing younger roles," or getting typecast.
Nina Dobrev has been one-half of several highly visible and telegenic relationships,
often with other celebrities. When an actor is confined to a set of a regular TV show
for long shooting days, they don't have as many opportunities to meet people from outside their
industry. And so, in 2011, Dobrev revealed that she was dating a man she met at work — her
Vampire Diaries co-star, Ian Somerhalder — even though she didn't like the idea.
She told Seventeen,
"I didn't want to be dating one of my costars — my goal on the show was to be professional. But
sometimes you can't help who you have a connection with, and you can only fight it for so long."
According to Us Weekly, Dobrev and Somerhalder split up in 2013
and continued to act opposite each other on "The Vampire Diaries."
After a couple of very brief dalliances with Dancing With the Stars dancer Derek Hough and
actor Liam Hemsworth, Dobrev dated Scream Queens star Glen Powell and then actor Grant Mellon,
for slightly less than a year each, Us Weekly reported.
In early 2020, Nina Dobrev and snowboarder Shaun White posted nearly identical photos
of a South African vacation on social media, and the couple confirmed their relationship
in April of that year. Dobrev and White spent the coronavirus lockdown together, and by April 2021,
a source who knows the pair told Us Weekly that an engagement was possibly imminent.
Nina Dobrev is primarily known for her television roles, likely because she's made so much of it,
with long runs on small-screen hits like the Degrassi franchise and The Vampire Diaries.
But the actor has slowly carved out a film career, too. Her first major movie role after The Vampire
Diaries was Candace, supportive older sister to timid, clinically depressed teenager Charlie
in Stephen Chbosky's adaptation of his young adult novel, The Perks of Being a Wallflower.
Getting the role wasn't easy for Dobrev, who told MTV News that she was one of the last actors cast
before production began. She desperately wanted the part, but couldn't land a traditional tryout.
She told MTV,
"I was in Atlanta filming, [...] but I couldn't get to where Stephen was,
so we Skyped my audition."
As if that wasn't enough of a hassle,
Dobrev did her online tryout in brief breaks between filming scenes, saying,
"I was in between takes, and I kind of had to be like,
'Guys, I'm going to go to the bathroom. I just have to pee for five minutes.'"
Nina Dobrev is a very famous person, and celebrities need similarly famous friends
to whom they can relate. Fortunately, Dobrev found that BFF in Julianne Hough,
who's best known for her many years as a professional partner on Dancing With the Stars,
as well as her acting work in films like Paradise and Rock of Ages.
While they run in some high-profile circles, the pair met in a very old-fashioned way — through a
mutual friend. But in a very Hollywood twist, that shared friend was their hairstylist, Riawna Capri.
During a joint appearance on The Drew Barrymore Show in 2021,
Dobrev revealed that she and Hough have been friends for about a decade.
"Julianne and I were both going through life crisises at the time,
and we were using that mutual friend as a free therapist."
She went on,
"It got to a degree where she was so sick of hearing about our problems that were very
similar that she was like, 'Okay, I'm going to put you guys together, and then you guys
can use each other for therapy, and I can remove myself. And I feel like you'll be best friends.'"
According to People, the friends even started a business. They're principals in Fresh Vine,
a Napa, California-based wine business that produces an assortment of wine varieties that
are, as they point out, gluten free, and which contain as little sugar as possible.
While many Hollywood big-shots appear on social media to be pampered, privileged, city folk who
don't want to be far from the creature comforts afforded by their homes and abundant wealth,
Nina Dobrev is not among them. The actor loads her Instagram grid with photos and videos captured on
her many travel adventures and outdoor pursuits. At various times, Dobrev has shared footage of
herself in the midst of thrilling activities like rock climbing and parachuting out of a plane.
During a shooting break from The Vampire Diaries, at the peak of the show's global popularity,
Dobrev went backpacking through Europe and Asia alone — and didn't
book or plan anything beforehand. In the course of her long journey,
Dobrev reports that she was never once recognized or approached by fans, saying,
"Nobody imagines me to be by myself backpacking, so they just think, 'It can't be her.'"
Multiple actors may share a certain "type," either physically or in the
kind of projects in which they thrive or pull in huge audiences. For example,
the Marvel Cinematic Universe employs multiple affable and hunky guys named Chris — Evans, Pratt,
and Hemsworth, to be precise. However, no two performers are ever 100% alike,
although they may closely resemble each other and confuse the public by taking similar roles.
Such is the case for Nina Dobrev and Victoria Justice. They're about the same age and are
both conventionally attractive, dark-haired actors who first made a name for themselves
in the early 2010s on television geared toward teen viewers — Dobrev with The Vampire Diaries
and Justice on Victorious. But it's more than just a matter of having similar physical features and
playing similar roles — Dobrev and Justice look so similar that they could be twins.
In 2010, Justice — who once referred to Dobrev as, quote, "my doppelgänger" — recalled to MTV News,
"I met her and she was like, 'Everyone thinks I'm you!' And I was like,
'Everyone thinks I'm you!' We hugged it out, and it was all good."
In 2015, Justice and Dobrev at least proved that they were not the same
person when they posed for a Twitter picture together at a polo match.
As Glamour put it, it was the, quote, "ultimate celebrity twinning moment."
Nina Dobrev generates a lot of income, but she gives a lot of it right back to the world,
to people and organizations that can truly use it. According to Look to the Stars,
a website that reports celebrity giving, Dobrev has helped support the Elton John AIDS Foundation,
Free the Children — which helps young people in the developing world with basic needs,
and the educational foundation Communities in Schools.
She also has supported Glo Good Foundation, which provides dental care to underserved communities.
Additionally, in 2018, ocean and marine life preservation organization Oceana
named Dobrev an Ocean Ambassador, and cast the actor in a series of public
service announcements to call attention to the industrial decimation of sharks.
In a press release, Dobrev said,
"I've been fascinated by sharks for a while. The U.S. has a great opportunity to set a
positive example and help discourage the demand for shark fins around the world."
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