Vampire Academy's Daniela Nieves has admitted that Vampire Diaries star Marguerite MacIntyre heavily inspired her character Lissa Dragomir.
A master multitasker, MacIntyre (who played Sheriff Elizabeth Forbes) also happens to be the showrunner on Vampire Academy, as well as a former staff writer on Legacies and The Originals.
"This is so weird, and I've actually never [said] this, but sometimes I would look at Marguerite, she just has this energy about her that's so graceful and so effortless," Nieves exclusively tells Digital Spy.
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Related: How Vampire Diaries and Vampire Academy are connected
"I remember looking at her and being like, 'That's kind of reminding me of this'. Like she just has this energy about her, and I would sometimes watch her and try to see the way that... I don't know she responded to things, her mannerisms, her tone."
The actress went on to laugh: "I've never said it because I thought like maybe it would be kind of weird, maybe!
"I also thought about Princess Diana a little bit, how she was graceful and kind of soft-spoken but at the same time she very powerful and stood for what she believed in."
Related: Vampire Academy bosses detail 13-year fight for TV series adaptation
Meanwhile, showrunners MacIntyre and Julie Plec recently spoke to DS and other press about how the two Vampire shows differ, admitting there is crossover in terms of emotional aspects.
"There's not much overlap except for the emotional stuff – building a show around family/ friends, filling your soul, that's just how I write," Plec said. "This looks very different to [The Vampire Diaries] – in a Spanish castle, the opulence dialled up."
MacIntyre added: "And with the Dhampir action there's this whole class of vampires with different combinations of fighting styles."
Vampire Academy launched 16 September via Peacock in the US, and on Peacock on Sky and Now in the UK, and airs weekly.
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