Ian Somerhalder: “Chelsea Lately heute Abend zu sehen hat mich erröten lassen”
11. Mai 2012 um 11:19
Photo Credit: David Gabber / PR Photos
Während Nina Dobrev zu Gast bei Conan O’Brien war, durfte sich ihr Freund (zwar noch nicht offiziell bestätigt, aber Bilder sagen ja oft mehr als tausend Worte) Ian Somerhalder in der Late Night Talkshow “Chelsea Lately” mit der Moderatorin Chelsea Handler amüsieren. Und das nahm der “The Vampire Diaries“-Star wörtlich, denn die beiden führten ein sehr feuriges, sowie lustiges Interview, was ihm beim Anschauen später die Röte ins Gesicht trieb.
“Chelsea Lately heute Abend zu sehen hat mich erröten lassen” schrieb er via Twitter, ganz so “schlimm” war es dann aber doch nicht. Sehr charismatisch und einfach extrem sympathisch -hach… Zu Anfang überhäufte er die Talkshowmasterin sogleich mit Komplimenten, wie gut sie bei der Met Gala 2012 ausgesehen habe. Das Event an sich jedoch war wohl eher nicht so nach seinem Geschmack. “Jede Person dort, ist nicht nur ein Gesicht, welches du kennst. Es ist ein Gesicht, welches du schon seit Ewigkeiten von riesigen Plakaten her kennst. Und du wirst zwischen ihnen zerquetscht und alle sind so verschwitzt” so die Einschätzung des 33-Jährigen.
Außerdem ging es auch um die Romanverfilmung “Fifty Shades of Grey”, an dessen Hauptrolle Ian ziemlich interessiert ist. Allerdings sind das bisher alles nur Wunschträume, wobei wir ihn uns ziemlich gut in der Rolle von Christian Grey vorstellen könnten. Außerdem gab es für die Zuschauer der Late Night Show noch ein schlüpfriges Detail aus seinem Liebesleben. Das Gespräch kam nämlich auf SM und Chelsea wollte von ihm wissen, ober er schon einmal von einer Frau beim Sex geschlagen wurde. Er bejahte dies, allerdings geschah das in einem Auto von daher war es wohl unumgänglich … Ein wirklich tolles Interview, dass ihr euch mal anschauen sollte!
Photography by Mr Paul Jasmin | Styling by Mr Dan May Words by Mr Sanjiv Bhattacharya
Sitting in front of a tall mirror in a swish Beverly Hills home, Mr Somerhalder squints at his reflection and musses his hair while a make-up guy called Charles dabs around his eyes.
"Oh the tattoo?" he says, pointing at the inscription on his forearm: Hic et nunc. "It means 'I am hung' in Latin. Ha ha! No, I'm kidding. It means 'here and now'. But I've said that to people, and they believed me."
He's best known as Damon Salvatore from The Vampire Diaries, a raging hit among panting teenage girls (who call him "Smolderholder" on their blogs). The rest of us may recognise him from Lost.
Today, however, he is "the talent" on a photoshoot, a role that he embraces. Despite the hubbub of a full crew setting up for the shoot, only one voice cuts through it all - he's the loudest and most confident person in the room. And he doesn't stop talking. Some stars might retreat behind their handlers, but Mr Somerhalder would rather introduce his handlers to everyone in person.
"This will revitalise it," he says, pointing to a tub of hair product. He turns his head, examining his reflection. "It won't make it greasy, it'll give you a great base."
Charles checks the label. "Yeah, this gets right into the hair."
"OK use it. Go for it baby."
All actors are familiar with the make-up chair, but few are quite this comfortable. Mr Somerhalder, however, has been modelling since he was 10. He spent his teens travelling the world and "working it" for the cameras, an extraordinary life by any standard. But the way he tells it, he's just a simple boy from the South - specifically, a small town called Covington near New Orleans, Louisiana. His mum was a massage therapist and his dad a building contractor. They didn't have much, but life was idyllic nonetheless.
The mid-1990s were like this total Dionysian, promiscuous time in the fashion business. An amazing time to be young and not have any responsibility
"Dude, look." He starts scrolling through shots on his iPhone of the bayou near his family home. "That's my nephew on the boat. We're teaching him how to paddle. I did exactly the same thing at his age. Total Louisiana stereotype, with the crawfish boiling in the pot, you know? We had a rope swing and we'd jump off right into the water."
There's not a drop of gumbo in his accent through. You'd never peg him for a Southerner. His mum knew he'd be an actor, and a drawl wouldn't help him, so she "used every dollar we had to put me into acting classes," he says. "Losing the accent takes away that first initial... People are extraordinarily judgmental."
He soon escaped the conservative South for New York, where he has lived since the early 1990s. As a young model, he and his mother would visit the big city for the summer, renting a tiny apartment that "cost more per month than any house we ever lived in". But even at the age of 11, he was earning a proper wage. And on his 16th birthday - on 8 December 1994 - it became a lot more proper. The photographer Mr Steven Meisel saw a Polaroid of his and decided to put him in a 12-page story in L'Uomo Vogue. Pretty soon photographers such as Mr Bruce Weber were calling. And within a year, he was living between Milan, Paris and New York.
"Yeah, it was nuts," he says. "The mid-1990s were like this total Dionysian, promiscuous time in the fashion business. An amazing time to be young and not have any responsibility.
Lost
The actor in season six of the TV series, with on-screen stepsister played by Ms Maggie Grace
Ultimately, though, he found fashion unfulfilling, and turned to acting. And when the big break came with Lost, it was snatched away almost as suddenly as it arrived. He was the first to be cast and the first to be killed off. He'd been on the show for a year when he received the call from the show creators.
"It was brutal. Not only are you losing this amazing job, but you're losing this family on set. Luckily, I was in wine country!"
A girl called Jessica arrives with a draft of a press release for his approval. It's something about an award, but lately, Mr Somerhalder has had a lot of those, mostly from the Teen Choice people - he was recently voted Choice Male Hottie, for instance.
But this is different. Jessica is reading phrases such as "empowering and educating" and "sustainable agriculture". Apparently, when this shoot is over, he will be whisked off to the Environmental Media Association awards to be honored for the Ian Somerhalder Foundation that promotes environmental and animal rights causes.
"I started it in 2010 in response to the BP oil spill," he says. "I remember watching President Obama just step aside and let BP do whatever it wanted because it was a big contributor to his campaign. And I felt so powerless, I realised I never wanted to feel that way again."
With the support of his mentor Mr Deepak Chopra, among others, the foundation was born. He's presently in the throes of buying a farm in Louisiana that he wants to turn into an animal sanctuary.
But first, he has the fourth season of The Vampire Diaries to shoot. So after the awards show, he'll be back on a plane to the set in Atlanta. And beyond that? Well, there are all these rumours whirling about Fifty Shades of Grey. Apparently, his name is one of those under consideration for the role of Christian Grey, the billionaire bondage-master.
"Oh man, there's nothing official," he shrugs. "It's just talk."
So has he been getting into a bit of S&M in the meantime, just in case he gets the call?
"Yeah, there's a website you can go to where you can just outfit your basement as a dungeon," he says, springing out of his chair and giving his reflection one last check. "So, you know, I thought I'd get prepared, just in case."
He's turning his basement into a dungeon?
He grins. "Totally. I think a lot of people are doing that right now!"
And with a high five, he's out of there. Ready to shoot.
The Vampire Diaries Exclusive: Ian Somerhalder on Missing Alaric, Loving Elena and Finding Compassion
October 17th, 2012 10:39 AM by Matt Richenthal
Damon Salvatore misses his best friend. That much is evident in this Vampire Diaries clip from tomorrow night's "Memorial."
And the character isn't alone.
"F-ck Damon. I miss Alaric," Ian Somerhalder told me over the phone yesterday. "I miss Matt Davis in my life."
The second (TERRIFIC!) episode of The Vampire Diaries Season 4 will give viewers multiple opportunities to see how his drinking buddy's passing affects Damon, but Somerhalder says the loss goes beyond a lack of someone to meet at the Grill.
"Losing Alaric signifies something bigger, it raises much bigger questions in Damon's world," the actor explains. "He wonders: 'Why are you dead? What did I do to contribute to it?'"
And it sets Damon off on a dark, lonely path.
"He's missing his best bro, but he's also telling those around him: 'I tried so hard to make you guys see my point of view. And now what's happened? Alaric is dead. Elena is dead.' Damon was right. And now he's saying: 'This is who I am. I tried to play nice and know what? It didn't work.'"
Yes, it's a return to the cynical side ("This is me. Take it or leave it," Somerhalder describes his character's current outlook) of Damon Salvatore, which the star has made clear over the years is his preferred role to play.
"You can't just be a cool lunatic all the time, I understand that. You need to grow and change and evolve," Somerhalder says of the journey Damon has taken. "Still, you are who you are at your core."
And who is that person?
Damon has always had "ill intentions, but he had them for righteous reasons," Somerhalder says. "He believes in what he's doing and he enjoys it so much… whether he's ripping your throat out or saving a kitten from a tree, Damon has that same smile on his face. It's sadistic but true. And the only person he isn't that way around is Elena."
So does that mean Somerhalder is glad he didn't get the girl? Wouldn't a relationship with Elena set Damon down a much lighter path? Somerhalder needed a moment to contemplate that question.
"If you look at why Damon came back to Mystic Falls, it was for love. Even being a sort of maniacal kind of killer at times, he wants what we all want: to be loved."
In his personal life, meanwhile, Somerhalder has found a different sort of love. As most fans know, he's deeply involved in charity work. His latest "ginormous undertaking" is the building of an animal sanctuary in Louisiana.
His goal is to create a safe haven to house neglected animals and introduce them to similarly-mistreated teenagers.
"It's all about compassion," Somerhalder says of his vision to combine troubled animals with young bullies. "I can't sleep at night thinking about all these kids we're losing [to suicide due to bullying]. Aside from them being sons and daughters and nephews and nieces, of course, they could be the next President... It's absolutely insane."
Overall, with the global population over seven billion and resources being stretched thin, Somerhalder believes more than ever that "we need innovators, we need educators and we need compassion. They all go hand in hand."
The Vampire Diaries’ bad boy Ian Somerhalder returns to his New York modeling roots in spring’s sharpest looks
PHOTOGRAPHY BY ALICE + CHRIS
STYLING BY CHRISTOPHER
Jennifer Goddard Huete
For a man who spends most of his time thinking about conservation, Ian Somerhalder expends an awful lot of energy. Like, nuclear amounts of it. It’s as impossible to ignore as his eyes, the most striking blues this side of Sinatra. He radiates passion and infectious positivity, and before I know it, a cynical writer is confessing long-forgotten passion and positivity to one of The CW’s hottest young stars over a bottle of Barolo at Gemma restaurant in The Bowery, Manhattan’s last remaining nabe where Ian Somerhalder exists in the wild. “I never go above 14th Street,” he confesses, smoldering with that knowing look that the incomparable Damon Salvatore, vampire extraordinaire, also flashes, charming millions of Vampire Diaries viewers over the past five seasons. If I didn’t know any better, I’d swear I, too, was being compelled.
Fresh from a shoot in trendy Noho for Watch!, Somerhalder looks the part in his downtown uniform: black leather jacket, skinny jeans and his trademark hat, tilted at an effortlessly cool angle. The jacket comes complete with a bullet pocketed during a recent retreat to 1,000 acres he keeps in rural Georgia, where the cozy confines of an Airstream trailer offer respite from a hectic filming schedule in nearby Covington. The bullet has followed him all the way to Gemma, where it’s discovered in a room illuminated by candlelight and mirrors—the perfect setting for “Smoldy,” as Nina Dobrev, his Vampire Diaries co-star, calls him.
On the cusp of turning 35, the actor doesn’t look a day beyond the 23-year-old he plays on the show. His vampire persona and ageless energy are partly thanks to a strict regimen of healthy food, boxes of vitamins and supplements, meditation and a medical spa he recently built in the 1,900-square-foot townhouse he shares in Atlanta with six dogs and two cats. And, he keeps the 1987 vampire flick The Lost Boys on repeat.
“I feel like I’ve lived 100 lives. I am a vampire,” the Louisiana native says between bites, thinking back to his boyhood growing up on the swampy shores of Lake Pontchartrain. “When you look out over the lake, you can see the city twinkling in the distance. I would think, ‘I’m safe ’cause I know that they’re over there.’ I associated New Orleans with vampires, always. My mom was a huge fan of Anne Rice and I knew all about the whole folklore with Marie Laveau, voodoo and vampires.”
In this latest lifetime, Somerhalder plays bad boy bloodsucker Damon Salvatore on The Vampire Diaries, a role he seems preternaturally suited for. And yet, his résumé (and Twitter feed) reads more like a Boy Scout’s Eagle Award project than a model-turned-actor starring on a hit show that recently taped its 100th episode. No stranger to the city’s hungry streets, Somerhalder savors another sip before recalling how he first came to New York a quarter-century ago.
“My mom used every dollar we had to send me to acting and modeling classes when I was 10. And then we would come live here for the summers. It was incredible, man.” Working two to three jobs a day for the likes of Ralph Lauren, The Gap, Calvin Klein, Dolce & Gabbana, Gucci, Versace and Guess (which he served as the face of for two fall seasons), it wasn’t long before the 16-year-old model was living on his own uptown, traveling the world for jobs in Paris, Milan, London, Madrid and Barcelona. He also quickly realized that being in front of the camera was a means to a much bigger end.
“In the fashion business, if you’re a creative director or you’re a designer, it’s a very creative business and you can drive it,” Somerhalder explains. “As talent in the fashion world, it’s significantly more vapid.”
At 19, he quit modeling and turned his attention to acting classes, earning roles in 2002’s The Rules of Attraction alongside Jessica Biel and Kate Bosworth, and later as Boone Carlyle on Lost (2004) until ultimately landing his current spot on The Vampire Diaries in 2009. Meanwhile, he earned a self-guided degree in humanity. “You don’t have to be in an institution to study. The world has been a really cool classroom that we’re all in together, sort of bouncing around, learning, failing often, and passing sometimes. And just like in school, the kids who are nice make the experience a lot better. The kids who are bullies and assholes make the experience not as wonderful. The thing we’re lacking the most in the world, and yet what everyone wishes for, is compassion. My mom, Edna, is the one who instilled all of this in me at a young age.”
“My mom used every dollar we had to send me to acting and modeling classes when I was 10. And then we would come live here for the summers. It was incredible, man.” Working two to three jobs a day for the likes of Ralph Lauren, The Gap, Calvin Klein, Dolce & Gabbana, Gucci, Versace and Guess (which he served as the face of for two fall seasons), it wasn’t long before the 16-year-old model was living on his own uptown, traveling the world for jobs in Paris, Milan, London, Madrid and Barcelona. He also quickly realized that being in front of the camera was a means to a much bigger end.
“In the fashion business, if you’re a creative director or you’re a designer, it’s a very creative business and you can drive it,” Somerhalder explains. “As talent in the fashion world, it’s significantly more vapid.”
At 19, he quit modeling and turned his attention to acting classes, earning roles in 2002’s The Rules of Attraction alongside Jessica Biel and Kate Bosworth, and later as Boone Carlyle on Lost (2004) until ultimately landing his current spot on The Vampire Diaries in 2009. Meanwhile, he earned a self-guided degree in humanity. “You don’t have to be in an institution to study. The world has been a really cool classroom that we’re all in together, sort of bouncing around, learning, failing often, and passing sometimes. And just like in school, the kids who are nice make the experience a lot better. The kids who are bullies and assholes make the experience not as wonderful. The thing we’re lacking the most in the world, and yet what everyone wishes for, is compassion. My mom, Edna, is the one who instilled all of this in me at a young age.”
Once instilled, British Petroleum’s Deepwater Horizon oil spill in April 2010 was the catalyst for unleashing it. “I just felt so helpless, so angry. When you’re from southeast Louisiana where everything is a microcosm that’s only indicative of that one place in the world—the biodiversity, and the interconnectivity between humanity and the environment is so closed-looped, it’s scary. Both of my parents made me understand that the balance is what you have to protect your whole life.”
In December 2010, he created the Ian Somerhalder Foundation (ISF), a nonprofit that brings about change by empowering the next generation to solve global problems. Ever since, the actor has been a constant presence on the green carpet as a tireless advocate for everything from conservation, habitat preservation and green energy to animal sanctuaries, youth development, charter schools and the eradication of poverty. As head of the ISF and founder of five other companies, including Go Green Mobile Power and Ryot.org, he spends the few moments between film and sleep building for-profit entities “that will feed the necessary nonprofit initiatives in ISF, which is my most favorite baby.”
Like I said, nuclear amounts of energy.
So how does a man focused on such a profound, bigger picture reconcile with the day-to-day of playing a vampire for tweens and their moms on TV? “Hollywood gives me access to 200 million people who can read these messages [on ISF’s site] and be inspired. Here’s the deal with me getting to interact with millions of girls who really wouldn’t otherwise care about what I’m saying: The fact that they actually go and they look at it and read it, they’re still getting the information. If that’s the conduit, so be it. As long as they see it.”
Teen girls aren’t the only ones paying attention to his message. In the summer of 2012, Somerhalder was invited to breakfast in Los Angeles with other members of young Hollywood for a talk with President Obama. Somerhalder quickly pulls up a photo on his iPhone of him speaking with the president next to an American flag. “He said, ‘What is it that you know that I don’t know?’ And he genuinely wanted to know. He said because of the access that I have to people, I have a pulse to what’s going on in the world. How awesome is that?”
His work as an actor/advocate also earned him a spot as a correspondent on this spring’s seven-part documentary, Years of Living Dangerously, premiering Sunday, April 13, at 10 p.m. ET/PT on Showtime. “Hands down it’s the most important thing I’ve ever worked on in my life,” he says, beaming. James Cameron and producer Jerry Weintraub send him and familiar faces such as Jessica Alba, Matt Damon, America Ferrera, Harrison Ford, Olivia Munn and Lesley Stahl to cover the most pressing environmental stories facing us today. “It’s basically 60 Minutes meets Homeland, but it’s true,” Somerhalder explains.
And if that weren’t enough, Somerhalder also serves as a designated goodwill ambassador to the United Nations’ environmental program alongside one of his Dangerously co-stars, Don Cheadle. “That’s pretty badass,” he laughs.
As the interview draws to a close, I notice a small tattoo on his right forearm. “It’s ‘here and now’ in Latin,” he explains, which comes as no surprise from someone doing so much right here, right now. And yet, it’s the future that keeps Somerhalder most inspired. “Create the future, ’cause you’re going to spend the rest of your life there,” he shares, leaning away from his now-empty glass and reflecting for a moment before dashing off into the cold night to join the city’s other vampires.
Sie sind vermutlich noch nicht im Forum angemeldet - Klicken Sie hier um sich kostenlos anzumelden
