Fam Fatale

Nina Dobrev shows her killer instinct for comedy in FAM.

- John Griffiths

SHE MAY HAVE JUST SCORED ROCK STAR PARKING—OR IN HER CASE, TV-AND-MOVIE-STAR PARKING— but Nina Dobrev isn’t gloating. In fact, only five minutes into a catch-up at an outdoor café on L.A.’s fashionable West 3rd Street, the actress looks over at her humble SUV parked in front and realizes she’s forgotten to put money in the meter. “Sorry, two seconds,” she apologizes, excusing herself to make amends.

Life’s proverbial meter demands its own kind of change, another reality Dobrev isn’t one to ignore. Born in Bulgaria, the actress was 2 years old when her parents immigrated to Toronto with her and her older brother, Alexander. “We didn’t have money,” she says matter-of-factly, once resettled in her seat. “My parents didn’t speak English and they had two kids, so we weren’t, like, going to the movies all the time.”

As a child, Dobrev—whose full first name is Nikolina, after her maternal grandmother—was drawn to painting, dancing, drama classes, and competitive gymnastics. She settled on acting at 17 only after landing a role on the Canadian hit television series Degrassi: The Next Generation. Then, in 2009, at just 20, she achieved full-fledged stardom as Elena Gilbert, the stake-wielding hero of The CW’s fang-tastic drama The Vampire Diaries. She remained for six seasons before departing the show while it was still a sensation, eager for new adventures.