Celebrity of the Week: Nina Dobrev

Nina Dobrev was born in Sofia, People's Republic of Bulgaria (now Republic of Bulgaria) as Николина Константинова Добрева, and moved to Canada at the age of two, where she was raised in Toronto, Ontario. She speaks fluent French, English, and Bulgarian. She has an older brother, Alexander; her father is a computer specialist and her mother is an artist.

Dobrev attended J. B. Tyrrell Sr. Public School, where she started ballet and jazz classes, and competed in rhythmic gymnastics.  Then, she attended Wexford Collegiate School for the Arts in Scarborough, Ontario, and Ryerson University in Toronto, majoring insociology. She left in 2008 to pursue her acting career. 

Modeling jobs led to commercials, which then turned into film auditions. Shortly thereafter, she booked roles in feature films, including Fugitive Pieces,Away from Her, Never Cry Werewolf, and the television series Degrassi: The Next Generation. She starred in a number of Lifetime original movies. In 2007 she appeared in the music video of You Got That Light performed by Wade Allain-Marcus and David Baum. She also was in an MTV movie called The American Mall on CTV. She is currently starring in The CW's drama The Vampire Diaries, playing the dual role of Katherine Pierce, a vampire loved by two human brothers during the American Civil War, and Katherine's doppelgänger Elena Gilbert, a human who is caught between the same two brothers, now vampires, Damon and Stefan Salvatore. 

She also had a minor role in the erotic thriller Chloe, theatrically released by Sony Pictures Classics on March 26, 2010. The film had enjoyed commercial success and became director Atom Egoyan's biggest moneymaker ever.

In April 2011, she was cast as Candace in the film adaptation of The Perks of Being a Wallflower, alongside Logan Lerman, Emma Watson, and Paul Rudd. Shooting began in May of that year in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and she completed her scenes on June 27, 2011. The film was released in September 2012.

In 2012, she appeared in a Funny or Die music video with Nick Braun called SPF.  The song, written by Dobrev, Braun, and hip-hop producer Jewels Beats,  charted as high as #188 on iTunes Comedy Charts. She is also currently dating Ian Somerhalder (Damon Salvator from Vampire Diaries).

I personally would really like to meet Nina. She seems like a really cool and friendly girl! I think that she has a great character and she is just amazingly gorgeous. I have watched the Vampire Diaries and I gotta say that she is just an amazing actress. Being able to play two roles in the Vampire Diaries is a really hard thing especially if one is good and the other one is completely bad, in other words, doppelgängers. I one day hope to meet her. 

Even though you're growing up, you should never stop having fun. - Nina Dobrev