'Vampire Diaries': Ian Somerhalder contemplates Damon's life with the cure, and casting Silas

The Vampire Diaries is back tonight to begin a new chapter, with an Elena who’s turned off her emotions to survive the pain of Jeremy’s death. How will it affect her relationship with Damon? “I think the loyalty part definitely went out the window,” Ian Somerhalder says. “I think the sire bond was more emotionally based, and now she doesn’t care about anything. He’s kinda screwed. She’s not havin’ it. And she doesn’t want the cure. She’s thinking You know what, I’m just so tired of being so vulnerable. This way, she walks out of the house, and she’s not worried about getting killed every five minutes. She’s now an empowered badass chick. So having said that,

I think that Damon’s gonna have to abdicate that throne of being Sire Man.”

Damon, of course, doesn’t want the cure either, but asked to contemplate what Damon’s life would be like if he were somehow forced to take it, Somerhalder offers this vision: “Hypothetically, if he did, I think the second it kicked in and he realized he was human, there would be an overwhelming sense of… [sighs]. But then, ‘Well, I’ve lived quite a while, I’m gonna grow old naturally and die. I could take the Salvatore fortune and donate half of it to the Ian Somerhalder Foundation, and then just go buy a really great loft in New York and a place in the Caribbean and just chill. Maybe a vineyard in the south of France. That could be cool.’”

Another of the show’s remaining mysteries is what the new big bad Silas looks like. Does he have his own form? Does he take over other people’s bodies? If it’s the former, we asked Somerhalder for his casting choice: “I mean it’s The Vampire Diaries, so he’s probably young. But we could flip it a little bit,” he says. “So, I’m thinking… Didn’t Regis [Philbin] retire? He could come back. He’s not crotchety, he’s awesome. I’m gonna talk to [CW president] Mark Pedowitz and [Warner Bros. TV president] Peter Roth about that.”