Paul Wesley: Stefan, Stefussy & The Salvatore Brotherhood
with Paul Wesley
22 Jul 20264 min read1h 12m
TL;DR
Paul Wesley reveals he and Nina Dobrev deliberately chose NOT to play romantic partners in their new show You Deserve to Know — to avoid overshadowing the iconic Stefan-Elena relationship from Vampire Diaries. He also opens up about his Polish immigrant roots, his secret Jersey Shore era of spray tans and fistfights, and the viral moment he thought Madison Beer was a type of beer.
Key Moments
Paul Wesley
“it's like a vampire. It's eternal.”
Paul reflecting on how Vampire Diaries keeps finding new generational audiences through streaming, with fans bringing their teenage daughters to conventions
“Jaylen's doing this for Elena, isn't he? I know he is.”
Paul joking that NBA star Jaylen Brunson — a huge Vampire Diaries fan — blew out the opposing team by 50 points the night Paul brought Nina Dobrev to the Knicks game
“the Stefan and Elena thing is so iconic and so perfect and in a weird way, we don't want to like I not ruin it, but like have a comparison, you know?”
Paul explaining why he and Nina Dobrev decided not to play romantic partners in their new show You Deserve to Know
“I remember I was on like a fire escape in New York City and I was having this conversation with this girl and I looked at her I was like can I kiss you and she just goes no.”
Paul sharing his most embarrassing rejected shot, warning guys never to ask for permission that way
“a fan asked me if um I liked Madison beer and I thought it was I thought that was a type of beer and I said I've never had that kind of beer before and I was like I don't I've never had Madison beer.”
Paul describing the viral TikTok moment where he genuinely confused pop star Madison Beer for a brand of beer
Paul Wesley is a Polish-American actor, director, and producer best known for playing Stefan Salvatore on The Vampire Diaries, which ran from 2009 to 2017. Born Paweł Wasilewski in New Jersey to Polish immigrant parents, he began his acting career at 16 on the soap opera Guiding Light before landing his iconic vampire role. He is also a bourbon entrepreneur and is currently reuniting with his Vampire Diaries co-star Nina Dobrev on a new TV project called You Deserve to Know.
Takeaways
1
Protect iconic chemistry by not repeating it Paul and Nina Dobrev specifically decided not to play a romantic couple in You Deserve to Know because any new onscreen romance would be compared unfavorably to Stefan and Elena. Instead Paul plays Nina's husband's murder suspect. The lesson: when a creative pairing is culturally loaded, subverting the expectation entirely is smarter than trying to replicate it.
2
Streaming makes cult shows genuinely eternal Paul notes that Vampire Diaries fans now bring their teenage daughters to conventions, saying 'I grew up watching you and now my daughter's watching you.' Unlike pre-streaming cancellations that fizzled out, algorithmic libraries create multi-generational fandoms that keep IP valuable for decades. For content creators, this changes how you value catalog rights.
3
Stage names are sometimes purely arbitrary Paul Wesley's real name is Paweł Wasilewski — he picked 'Wesley' by literally writing down random last names that started with W and ended with an E sound until one felt right. He never legally changed it. For anyone building a public-facing brand, this is a reminder that the story behind a name matters less than how it sounds and sticks.
4
Supportive parents enable creative careers more than talent alone Paul credits his Polish immigrant parents — his father a Columbia-trained engineer, his mother with a psychology masters — for enrolling him in Manhattan acting classes and letting him move to the city at 16 when an agent spotted him. In a highly educated family where his sister became a lawyer, their willingness to prioritize his happiness over a conventional path was the structural enabler of his career.
5
Fame flushes out fair-weather people immediately Within weeks of Vampire Diaries premiering, high school bullies and girls who ignored Paul were suddenly reaching out asking for favors. His response was simply to say no — a quiet but deliberate form of boundary-setting he describes as his one petty phase before defaulting to 'kill them with kindness.' Fame is a fast, reliable filter for who was genuinely in your corner.