Nina Dobrev

**Notice:** This **article** uses content directly taken from the Nina Dobrev **article** at the Vampire Diaries Wiki, and is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike License.

## Biographical Information

### Born

January 9, 1989
Sofia, Bulgaria

## Career Information

### Played

Elena Gilbert • Katherine Pierce • Amara • Tatia • Silas • Sybil

### Status

The Vampire Diaries: Starring, Guest Starring
The Originals: Special Guest Star, Co-Starring

### Seasons

The Vampire Diaries: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8
The Originals: 2, 5

**Nikolina Konstantinova Dobreva** (**Bulgarian**: *Николина Константинова Добрева*), more commonly known as **Nina Dobrev**, is a Bulgarian-Canadian actress who portrays Elena Gilbert, Katherine Pierce, and Amara in *The Vampire Diaries* and Tatia in *The Originals.* She is perhaps best known for her role as Mia Jones in *Degrassi: The Next Generation*. Dobrev has also been featured in movies.

## Biography

Nina Dobrev was born on January 9, 1989, in Sofia, Bulgaria as Nikolina Konstantinova Dobreva (Bulgarian: Николина Константинова Добрева). Her father Konstantin is a computer specialist and her mother Michaela is an artist. She has an older brother, Alexander. Her cousin, Jeny Nikolova, is a model in Canada. Nina moved to Canada at the age of two and has lived in Toronto, Ontario until 2009.

From a very young age, she showed great enthusiasm and talent for the arts of dance, gymnastics, theater, music, visual arts, and acting. Modeling jobs led to commercials, which then turned into film auditions. Shortly after, she had roles in the feature films *Fugitive Pieces* and *Away From Her* as well as the popular television series *Degrassi: The Next Generation* on CTV.

Nina loves to travel and has often visited Europe both for pleasure, as well as competing internationally representing Canada in Aesthetic gymnastics. She enjoys playing volleyball, soccer, swimming, rock climbing, wakeboarding, snowboarding, and horseback riding. But above all acting is her passion, and she sees it as an adventure that has just begun; she believes that the journey and the characters we create along the way will help us understand ourselves.

## Personal Life

Nina dated her co-star Ian Somerhalder, who portrays Damon Salvatore, for three years. The two officially broke up in May 2013. Despite their breakup, the two remain friends. A few months later, Nina became romantically linked to *Dancing With The Stars* dancer Derek Hough. The two have been spotted holding hands and sharing various romantic tweets towards each other. Around October 2013 it was reported that Nina and Derek had broken up. In a May 2014 InStyle Magazine interview, Nina says that she's a bit of a Tom Boy and loves to skinny dip. Nina also admits to carrying a bikini with her, no matter where she goes so that if the urge strikes to go for a swim.

## Trivia

* Nina plays three characters on *The Vampire Diaries*: Elena Gilbert, Katherine Pierce, and Amara. She has also played Silas (In *Graduation*).
* Nina played Tatia in *Red Door*, an episode of *The Originals*' season two.
* Nina has become well-known for her nuanced and layered performances of the doppelgängers on *The Vampire Diaries*; each distinct and recognizable:
	+ Elena (as a human, a vampire, a vampire with no humanity, and a vampire with no humanity posing as Katherine).
	+ Katherine (as a human, a vampire, a vampire posing as Elena, a "cured" human, and a passenger in Elena's body).
	+ Amara (as a human, a immortal, and the anchor).
	+ Tatia (as a human widow and the lover of Elijah).
* Nina's nicknames are: Ninche, Ninjah, French Kote, Trouble, DoeDoe.
* Nina was born on January 9, 1989 in Sofia, Bulgaria.
* Nina is 3 years 5 months and 13 days older than the character Elena Gilbert that she plays in the series, as Elena was born on June 22, 1992.
* Nina was born in Sofia, Bulgaria and immigrated to Canada when she was 2.
* Nina said she got interested in acting at age 15. She started acting professionally at 17.
* Nina has been working as an actress for the last 9 years since 2006 with her role of Mia Jones on Degrassi according to her interview in the SELF magazine June 2015 issue.
* Nina has had her cat Lynx since she was 10, according to her to the June 2015 SELF Magazine Lynx is 18 years old.
* Nina's favorite period in history is the 1920s.
* Nina is a Capricorn.
* Nina is right-handed.
* Nina wears glasses.
* Nina snorts when she laughs hard according to a interview with People's Choice blog at the premiere of her movie *Let's Be Cops*.
* Nina considers herself a foodie.
* She doesn't like to drink beer, as she hates the taste of it.
* Nina doesn't date cops as she fears her date will arrest her for say for example jaywalking during the date. She also feels guilty even when she didn't do anything wrong when a cops around.
* Nina has no feeling in her right thumb do to being bitten by a friends pet monkey in Bali during her 2014 vacation. She also has a scar on her right wrist from the incident.
* Nina in the last year,2013-2014, vacationed for the first time by herself in her life. Which she said she was surprised to enjoying.
* On her August 5, 2014 appearance on The Tonight with Jimmy Fallon (who is also her friend), Nina said that in the past year she started saying "yes" to most things that she normally would've talked herself out of doing.
* She was mentioned in a song, "Coachella Girl", by the band, *Gentleman's Vibe*.
* Nina doesn't like to take or post  selfies by herself.
* Nina doesn't watch much TV.
* Nina says she's a klutz/accident prone by saying anything that bad can happen to her has.
* Nina has a fear of spiders, saying she doesn't like anything that can crawl in your mouth while sleeping or anything with more than 4 legs. Except her cat Lynx.
* Nina is fan of friend/co-star Kat Graham's music, especially her song "Power".
* Nina is a certified scuba diver.
* Nina knows how to surf, ride horses and ride motorcycles.
* Her mother's name is Michaela (**Bulgarian**: *Михаела*), her father's is Nikolai (**Bulgarian**: *Николай*) and her brother's is Alexander (**Bulgarian**: *Александър*).
* She's a major fan of the *Harry Potter* series by J.K. Rowling.
* Nina attended Wexford Collegiate, an arts school in Toronto. In 2007, she began her post secondary studies at Ryerson University in Toronto, where she was majoring in Sociology. Nina also trained at the Dean Armstrong Acting Studio in Toronto, Ontario.
* Nina is tri-lingual. She is fluent in Bulgarian, French, and English.
	+ For her role as Bella in the World War II drama Fugitive Pieces, Nina had to learn Yiddish phonetically.
	+ Katherine Pierce, was born in Bulgaria and Nina speaks Bulgarian. For this reason, Katherine, who was German in the books, became Bulgarian in the series.
* Nina has competed internationally representing Canada in Aesthetic Group Gymnastics. In 2005, she joined both the Senior World Championships in Copenhagen, Denmark and the Junior World Championships in Plzen, Czech Republic.
* Nina is named after her grandmother.
* Her trademarks are her big brown eyes and long, dark hair.
* She is close friends with her Vampire Diaries co-stars.
* She dated her co-star Ian Somerhalder from mid-2010 to May 2013.
* Nina has never been a teenage mother, yet she has played a character who is or has been a teen mother twice. Mia Jones, her character on Degrassi was a teenage mother. Katerina Petrova (Katherine Pierce), her character in the series was a teenage mother who at 17 gave birth to a daughter Nadia in 1490 who was taken away from her by her father after she gave birth and given away so as not to bring any further shame on the family.
* Nina was never a cheerleader, yet she has played a character who is or has been a cheerleader at least twice.
	+ Mia Jones, Nina's character on Degrassi was a cheerleader who was later forced off of Degrassi's Spirit Squad by the team captain who resented her for being an unwed mother.
	+ Elena Gilbert, Nina's character on *The Vampire Diaries*, was a cheerleader who quit the squad before the beginning of the series as revealed in flashbacks. In the Season Four episode *Bring It On*, Elena briefly becomes a cheerleader again but eventually quits for the second time.
* Nina's favorite character on The Vampire Diaries is Katherine Pierce.
* Nina's favorite episode of *The Vampire Diaries* is *Lost Girls*.
* Is a fan of *Twilight*, and even auditioned for the role of Bella Swan, before landing the role of Elena Gilbert.
	+ Is also a fan of *True Blood* and watches it.
* In a July 21, 2014 live online StageIt chat with fans, Nina admitted to becoming a recent fan of the cancelled NBC series *Friday Night Lights* and was almost finished with season 1. In the same event Nina says she doesn't like to watch herself on TV or hear her own voice in voice mails.
* *The Vampire Diaries* producers wanted a blonde hair and blue eyed girl. But they liked Nina too much.
* All of her names have an "a" and an "o" in them (Nik**o**lin**a** K**o**nstantin**o**v**a** D**o**brev**a**).
* She spends a lot of her time doing yoga.
* Nina's favorite films are *Knocked Up*, *Juno*, *The Notebook*, and *Schindler's List*.
* Her favorite TV shows are *Gossip Girl*, *Grey's Anatomy*, and *House*.
	+ She is also best friends with *Gossip Girl* star, Jessica Shore.
* During her appearances in *Total Eclipse of the Heart* and *No Exit*, Nina portrayed only the role of Katherine Pierce, her secondary main role, marking the first and second episodes in which she does not portray Elena Gilbert, her primary main role.
* On Monday April 6, 2015, Nina announced her departure from the show via instagram and that season six would be her last.
	+ Though it's possible she could return as a guest star in season seven.
	+ She wrapped her last scene on the series, at the time, on Wednesday April 15, 2015.
* *The Vampire Diaries* is the longest that she has played a single character on TV as Elena Gilbert with a total of 133 episodes from *Pilot* to *I'm Thinking Of You All The While*.
	+ Before this was as Mia Jones for 52 episodes on *Degrassi: The Next Generation* was the longest that she ever played the same character on TV.
* After 6 years of living in Atlanta, Georgia, USA and even calling it her home Nina posted a photo of herself via her WhoSay account on Monday May 4, 2015 showing that she has been packing up her apartment to move her things and live in her new house in Los Angeles full time.
	+ In another WhoSay post that same day, she would be traveling cross country road trip after packing up her things. Implying she plans to both keep her car & drive it across the US to her new home in the Los Angeles area.
* Nina had been dating actor Austin Stowell from July 2015 to February 2016.
* She loves to play Ping Pong.
* Following her departure after Season Six, Nina said she'll be watching the seventh season of *The Vampire Diaries*.
* Nina is close friends with Paula Brancati from Degrassi.
* According to her Instagram, she is back on the TVD set and is returning in *I Was Feeling Epic*.