Quotes

Looking back on high school, I just remember specific scenarios and thinking, "Wow, that was such a big deal at the time, but right now it feels like it never even happened". So I guess if I can give any advice, I would just say that everything will pass, and it'll feel like it was a big deal over nothing. Life goes on and then you change and other things happen, and everything feels like it's so much worse afterwards. It'll always get better.

I did Degrassi: The Next Generation (2001) for four years. It was my constant; no matter what movie I would go on hiatus or whatever I would do elsewhere, every year I would always go back to "Degrassi", to my family, and they really sort of taught me all the groundwork and got me started. Before that I was really green, I didn't know what I was doing, so it kind of helped ease my path into the whole industry.

[on working on The Vampire Diaries (2009)] There were daily challenges, there were yearly challenges, there were character challenges. The whole show was challenging in different ways throughout the six years. The multiple characters, the hours, creating characters, deaths. I was constantly crying, it felt like. But for that reason it kept me occupied, I was never bored, it never felt stale. I always came to work excited, and looking forward to the next thing I got to do. It was almost like actor boot camp, or a college experience. I started college in real life, but I never finished. I went to high school in real life, and then went to "Degrassi" high school, and then four years as Elena--12 years is a long time to go to school. I need to graduate! I'm ready now. I'm ready to go into the real world. I've literally grown up on this show. I was a baby when I started, and now I'm a woman. I feel like I've learned so much and have grown so much because of every single person, and every single character, and person I've worked with. They made me who I am, and I'm excited to apply that to the next chapter.

People aren't defined by their relationships. The whole point is being true to yourself and not losing yourself in relationships, whether romances or friendships.

I've reached a point where I'm comfortable in my own skin, and I do what I need to do, to feel good, but I'm built the way I am. The dancer's feet, the bruises on my legs, they're not going to go away. I think real girls have bruises. Tough chicks get bruised. They get dirty. And they have fun.

I'm an artist; content is incredibly important to me. I only want to keep moving up and up in terms of quality and be careful with perception. I don't just want to do things that are the pretty girl with lots of makeup, I want to get into the gritty stuff and get down and dirty and dark and really feed my soul and not my vanity.

Dearest TVD Family: [ . . . ] I always knew I wanted Elena's story to be a six-season adventure, and within those six years I got the journey of a lifetime. I was a human, a vampire, a doppelganger, a crazy immortal, a doppelganger pretending to be human, a human pretending to be a doppelganger. I got kidnapped, killed, resurrected, tortured, cursed, body-snatched, was dead and undead, and there's still so much more to come before the season finale in May. Elena fell in love not once, but twice, with two epic soulmates, and I myself made some of the best friends I'll ever know and built an extended family I will love forever [ . . . ] There's more to come before we wrap this up [ . . . ] but until then I invite you to hop on the roller coaster ride that is Elena Gilbert's life and join me as I celebrate her and prepare to say goodbye to her--and to my work family--as I move on to the next chapter of my life. I want to share this goodbye with all of you [ . . . ] You, the wonderful fandom who gave more love, support and passion than anyone could have ever imagined seven years ago, when a young Degrassi girl from Canada showed up in L.A. to audition for "that 'Twilight' TV show". ;-) I love you all. Fasten your seat-belts . . .

[2017] The things I want to do aren't necessarily the things that are expected of me. I don't want to play a teenager anymore. I want to play adult roles and be challenged and work with great filmmakers and tell incredible stories, and that has meant being really picky.

[2017, reflecting on leaving The Vampire Diaries (2009) in 2015] That was the plan from the get-go. If anything, the fact that [leaving] terrified me drove me even more. I needed to feel that fear of "Oh, my God, what if I never get a job again?". That just made me want to work five times as hard to make sure that didn't happen.

[August 2017, interview in "Ocean Drive" Magazine] I moved around a lot. My parents grew up in Bulgaria, and I was born and lived there for a very short amount of time before we moved to Canada. Every summer we'd go back to Bulgaria and do a lot of road trips to Turkey and Romania and all the neighboring countries, so I definitely got the travel bug young. I didn't have a privileged life, but I had the privilege of experiencing many cultures and meeting people from all walks of life.