Photo Credit: CW

LJ Smith’s popular book ‘The Vampire Diaries’ will be premiering as a TV series this fall on the CW. Yesterday (Aug 4th) some of the cast & crew spoke to the Television Critics Association and addressed the ‘Twilight’ comparisons. Hit Fix was there and here’s an excerpt from their report:

With much of the cast off filming in Atlanta, stars Paul Wesley, Nina Dobrev and Katerina Graham, plus co-creators Kevin Williamson and Julie Plec faced the comparisons.

Wesley, who has previously played werewolves and fallen angels, got the first query, regarding the influence of Robert Pattinson when it comes to brooding teen vampire archetypes.

“Well, prior to shooting the pilot, I had never seen ‘Twilight,’” Wesley noted. “And I specifically went out of my way to not watch ‘Twilight’ because I didn’t want it to in any way influence me because I knew that it was a similar subject matter. And now, I’ve actually never watched the movie in its entirety, but I’ve seen parts of it. And, you know, I don’t think that it would be wise for any actor to make any judgments on their character or decisions based on anyone else. I think if there are similarities to Robert Pattinson’s character in ‘Twilight,’ so be it. I take the scripts that Kevin and Julie write, and I do my honest, best portrayal. And then anything else — any, like, similarities, that’s sort of an aftereffect.”

Lest you think Wesley is diminishing “Twilight,” the “Everwood” and “24″ and “Wolf Lake” veteran added, “I was impressed because it has this — not to make this about ‘Twilight,’ but it has this super sort of youthful following. And I found it pretty engaging, so I was kind of relatively surprised. You know what I mean? I didn’t think — I thought it would be a lot campier. I actually liked it, what I saw.”

Read the full report HERE.

Do you plan to watch ‘The Vampire Diaries’ this fall? Have you read the book? Let us know in the comments.

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3. The Twilight Crew Talk Twilight, Surprisingly; We speak to the cast and crew of Eclipse…
4. Maria, The Vampire Who Turned Jasper, Has Been Cast
5. Paul Wesley Talks Twilight Comparisons

It cracks me up that they don’t want to be compared to Twilight but then the pic is very Edward like. They couldn’t have made the pic more Edward like! lol!