Was 'Vampire Diaries' Set a Toxic Place to Work?
by EG
The Vampire Diaries is gone now, but while the show was still running, the set was not a happy place, at least according to one former writer. The writer says she and others were regularly subjected to abuse and harassment from one of those show's directors, but that she got support from the show's creator, Julie Plec.
I'm three minutes into a rehearsal on the first day of my episode of The Vampire Diaries when I notice an actor is missing. I immediately know something is wrong. Rehearsals simply don't go on without actors, and this one in particular is never late, never unprepared.
I stand quietly for a moment considering my next move. I'm the writer and on-set producer of this episode, so I know it's up to me to discreetly pull the director aside to carefully try and correct this mistake. I want to tell him straight out: "You forgot to include an actor in this scene. And he has to be here."
But I'm a low-level writer. I don't have the experience or guts to be so direct. Instead, I look at my script, bite my lip and walk a tightrope with every word I choose: "Can we include all the actors in the scene as scripted please? Maybe you have different plans I'm not familiar with, but I worry the plot won't make sense without him. ..."
The director's face turns crimson with rage, his eyes dart around the room, quickly assessing how he can use the private space I've put us in to his advantage. I immediately assume I've made some career-ending mistake, and I try to buy it back by apologizing. But he stares me down, spit forming in the corners of his mouth as he screams: "If I wanted to talk to a nagging cunt, I'd go home to my wife."
My arms instantly go numb; my feet feel nailed to the floor as that sentence hangs between us. Then he smiles, gently brushing his hand down my cheek and pinching it. Hard. He walks away, cool and collected as he asks his assistant to invite the missing actor to set. "Anything for our Finchie," he laughs.
And I laugh back. I laugh for every damn day of that shoot. Laugh through his lewd jokes about actresses' bodies and lingering hugs and clammy hands on the back of my neck, giving me massages I never want but allow anyway. I laugh and allow it because I don't want the reputation of being "that girl," because surely other people have it much worse so I should be able to handle this, because maybe just maybe my plaintive smiles give him permission, because somewhere along the way I internalized the misguided notion that this is "the price you pay" — because of a million reasons that all boil down to: I worked my ass off to get this job. I don't want to lose it. So I keep my mouth shut.
Get the rest of the story at The Hollywood Reporter.
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