Nina Dobrev

Nina Dobrev (born Nina Konstantinova Dobreva; in Bulgarian, Нина Константинова Добрева; January 9, 1989)^[1] is a Bulgarian-Canadian actress. She played the role of Mia Jones, the single teenage mother, on Degrassi: The Next Generation, from the show's sixth to ninth season. She currently stars as Elena Gilbert and Katherine Pierce on The CW television teen drama The Vampire Diaries.

 

Early life

Dobrev was born in Sofia, Bulgaria and moved to Canada at the age of two, where she was raised in Toronto, Ontario. She speaks fluent French, English, and Bulgarian. Her mother is an artist, and her father is a computer scientist. She has one older brother. She attended J. B. Tyrrell Sr. Public School and Wexford Collegiate School for the Arts in Scarborough, Ontario. From a very young age, she showed great enthusiasm and talent for the arts—dance, gymnastics, theater, music, visual arts, and acting. Dobrev attended the Dean Armstrong Acting school where she was discovered by many different talent agencies in Toronto.^{[citation needed]}

 

Career

Modeling jobs led to commercials, which then turned into film auditions. Shortly thereafter, she booked roles in feature films, including Fugitive Pieces, Away from Her, Never Cry Werewolf, and the television series Degrassi: The Next Generation. She starred in a number of Lifetime original movies. She also was in an MTV movie called The American Mall on CTV. She is currently starring in The CW's drama The Vampire Diaries, playing the dual role of Katherine Pierce, a vampire that the same brothers each loved while they were still human during the American Civil War, and Katherine's doppelgänger Elena Gilbert, a human who is caught between the same two vampire brothers.^[2]
She also had a minor role in the erotic thriller Chloe, theatrically released by Sony Pictures Classics on March 26, 2010.^[3] The film grossed $3 million in the United States theatrically and became one of the higher-grossing specialty films in the United States in 2010^[3] (according to Variety, "$3 million is the new $10 million" for specialty films' box office in 2010).^[4]
In August 2010, Dobrev appeared in the opening sketch of the 62nd Primetime Emmy Awards.
In April 2011, she was cast as Candace in the film adaptation of The Perks of Being a Wallflower, alongside Logan Lerman, Emma Watson and Paul Rudd.^[5] Shooting has begun in May of that year in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

 

Personal life

Dobrev attended Wexford Collegiate School for the Arts in Toronto until her graduating year. She entered secondary studies at Ryerson University in Toronto, majoring in sociology, before dropping out in 2008 to pursue her acting career.^[6]

Filmography

Year	Film/Television	Role	Notes
2006	Repo! The Genetic Opera	Teenage Zydrate Addict
2006	Away from Her	Monica
2006	Playing House	Shania
2006-2009	Degrassi: The Next Generation	Mia Jones	2006–2009 (46 episodes)
2007	The Poet	Rachel
2007	Fugitive Pieces	Bella
2007	My Daughter's Secret	Justine
2007	Too Young to Marry	Jessica	Lifetime Movie
2008	Mookies Law	Rosebella	Short film
2008	The American Mall	Ally Shepherd	A singer, Keely Hawkes, sung for her as she had never had any previous vocal training
2008	Never Cry Werewolf	Loren Hansett
2008	The Border	Maia	Episodes: "Articles of Faith" and "Blowback"
2009	Chloe	Anna
2009	Degrassi Goes Hollywood	Mia Jones
2009	Eleventh Hour	Grace Dahl	Episode: "Eternal"
2009	Merry Madagascar	Cupid the Reindeer	Voice only
2009–present	The Vampire Diaries	Elena Gilbert/Katherine Pierce (Katerina Petrova)	Lead Role
2011	The Roommate	Maria	cameo
2011	The Killing Games		Post-production
2012	The Perks of Being a Wallflower	Candace	Post-production
2012	Perished	Jasmine Leon	Post-production

[edit] Awards and nominations

Year	Award	Category	Work	Result
2010	Teen Choice Awards	Breakout Star Female	The Vampire Diaries	Won
2010	Teen Choice Awards	Actress Fantasy/Sci-Fi	The Vampire Diaries	Won