The CWThe accent. The hair. The honor. The inability to stay dead.
These are just a few of our favorite things about The Vampire Diaries' Original vampire Elijah, he who is so masterfully played by Daniel Gillies. Seriously, he turned a character who was meant to be the standard three-episode villain into one of the series' most beloved characters, with fans promising to boycott the show should he be killed yet again. (That would be death No. 5 on the show, thankyouverymuch!)
We caught up with Mr. Gillies in the E! News studio to discuss tonight's episode, his fate on the show, the possibility of an Elijah and Elena (Nina Dobrev) hookup, his infamous hair and so much more!
Siblings vs. Mommy Dearest: While Gillies was coy about what's going down in tonight's episode, in which his mother is attempting to kill Elijah and his siblings (and you thought your mom was bad!), he does tell us, "I would say so!" when we ask if the Originals will be facing off against each other. And though Klaus (Joseph Morgan) has killed and betrayed him, Gillies says the brothers will put their differences aside. "Now they seem like they'll have a common foe, though, in their mother. They're going to need to unite to overcome any adversaries."
Gillies says he's been enjoying the scenes involving all of the Original siblings together, despite the fact that there hasn't been many of them...and there might not be much more to come.
"How long all of us survive is up to Julie Plec and her ruthless pen," he teases. As for Elena's betrayal, Gillies teases, "I can imagine that if he were to find out that Elena had betrayed him, he wouldn't be too happy." Understatement of the century much?
Wishful Thinking: Esther (Alice Evans) wants to kill her family. Klaus wants to reunite the family. Rebekah (Claire Holt) just wants to be a high school cheerleader and date the quarterback. But what does Elijah want? "That's such a good question. I think Elijah wants some kind of unity with the family," Gillies says. "He probably sees the potential of what they could be in the world being immortals. He would want to harness that. He's certainly not hungry for power. I think he'd be hungry to use the opportunity of immortality."
Elejah?! Gillies is well aware that there are a lot of fans rooting for an Elena and Elijah romance on the show, but he says, "I don't see it happening from a writer's perspective. Do I see its potential for it happening? Absolutely. I can definitely see Elena and Elijah having some sort of romantic thing, but I've got to get in a line about five miles deep."
He's also well aware of the shippers who would like to see him with some of the other ladies in town. "People are always angry at me as an actor, saying that, to me, [Elena] seems like the most likely candidate. I'm saying that also because, not only does she represent this nobility, she's also the only one of that group that he knows," Gillies explains. "He doesn't really socialize with any of the other creatures. He's got a narrow window of options. A lot of the fans are looking at the show and thinking, Aren't there any other girls in this town? Why is everybody falling in love with this girl? I think it's the whole point. It's kind of Shakespearean like that."
Pulling a Felicity: Sure, fans were thrilled to see Elijah finally return on the show, but that didn't stop them from complaining about his new haircut. And yes, Gillies has read all of your tweets about his hair and wants to set the record straight: "The reason I got a haircut was because I didn't know when I was coming back to the show. For all intents and purposes I was unemployed and I had a terrible haircut, so I changed it." While he hated the haircut, he says, "I chose it for Elijah. I did it deliberately. I wanted him to look nothing like the other boys on the show. I wanted him to look like he came from another time."
He also tells us people really hated his Elijah hair when he first joined the show. "I got, 'You look like a young Republican. It looks sort of like a choir boy. This is the year 2012, it's not 1993. What the f--k is wrong with you?' And then suddenly because he was just so malevolent, they did a 180 on it."
The Vampire Diaries airs tonight at 8 p.m. on the CW.
To hear more from Gillies, watch our interview with him above and then head on over to the comments to tell us if you'd like to see an Elijah and Elena romance. Plus, do you think all the Originals will survive tonight's episode?