THE ORIGINALS’ Daniel Gillies Reveals Season 3 is “The Darkest Season Yet”
The Originals has never been a lighthearted show — when you take the villains from The Vampire Diaries
and spin them off into their own show, you know exactly what you’re
getting. But when The CW’s vampire drama returns tonight for season
three, things are going to be darker than ever.
Nerdist got Daniel Gillies, aka the “noble” Original Elijah, to spill
all about what fans can expect from the game-changing third season of The Originals, and he didn’t disappoint. Check out all the scoop he dropped in our full Q&A below!
Nerdist: What are you most excited for viewers to see this season?
Daniel Gillies: This season we really find our own voice. Fans are going to be excited to see that we really step away from The Vampire Diaries
and become our own show like never before this season. That’s important
for us, to find our own uniqueness and voice. And it’s the darkest
season yet.
Lucien is going to be the first of the Trinity, aka the first
vampires sired by Klaus, Elijah and Rebekah, to come to New Orleans.
How does Elijah feel about him all these years later?
His presence there can only mean something troubling to Elijah. He
hasn’t seen any evidence of the Trinity in a very long time. If they’re
suddenly in our home territory it’s disturbing to say the least. For
Elijah, that can only spell that they are up to no good. Things are
going to be tense.
The Original siblings will quickly find out there’s a war brewing between their sire lines. How will Elijah react to that news?
The fact that the sire lines are trying to eliminate each other
altogether is really dark and cataclysmic news to Elijah. But he’s not
threatened by it. The only thing that can eliminate their species is by
knocking out one of the figureheads of the sire line, either Elijah or
Klaus, and I don’t think Eljiah lacks any confidence in the ability to
protect himself. You see that pretty definitively in the premiere.
Who is going to be the next of the Trinity to come to New Orleans? Did Elijah sire any of them?
Yes, there’s a magnificent actor by the name Oliver Ackland who plays
Tristan, and he’s the maniac who I first sired. He’s from the same era
as Lucien, and his sister Aurora rapidly follows suit, and they make up
the Trinity. We will meet him and it’s not pleasing to Elijah that he’s
back, let’s just say that.
How violent are we going to see Elijah get in regards to
protecting Hayley as she’s cursed to spend all her time in wolf form
except for the full moon?
Honestly, violence to him is just violence. For Elijah, who has been
around for thousands of years, he does what he has to do. He’s more
vicious than Klaus, and he’s scarier because of that. Just because he’s
the “noble” sibling, that doesn’t mean he won’t kill to protect the ones
he loves. He’ll do whatever it takes to keep her safe from new dangers
that present themselves in the premiere.
What is Elijah’s dynamic with Hayley going to look like this season, when she’s not stuck in wolf form?
Your guess is as good as mine. I haven’t had much to do with her so
far in filming the show. She’s trying to figure out this new dynamic
with her and Jackson while maintaining a relationship with Klaus so he
can be near his child, and there are so many balls in the air that I
don’t think we’re going to be able to see anything between Elijah and
her for a while. It’s been rather fleeting so far. But any time we share
a scene, there’s an electrically-charged atmosphere, and the writers
see it and I wouldn’t be surprised if we see more of them in the future.
Elijah and Klaus couldn’t be any further apart at the start
of the season. Are we going to see things get even worse between them?
These two are hopelessly committed to one another. They’ve
surrendered to the fact that they’re doomed long ago, and that’s the
fabric of the whole show. It’s the entire narrative. There’s a terrible
sadness that lingers around them. They can’t leave one another. Will it
get darker? If those two are sharing the same story, then you can bet on
it, unfortunately.
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