Just found this on Twitter …

Kelly

… Mcqueen and I finally on our plane back to Hotlanta. You kicked our ass Comic-Con, hopefully we’ll see u in 2011.

E! – Forget Team Edward or Team What’s-His-Name, the fierce battle now brewing on Vampire Diaries day at Comic-Con is Damon versus Stefan…And Elena versus Katherine.

So is there any chance that Ian Somerhalder and Nina Dobrev will be locking lips again in the new season–after that scorchingly hot kiss in the season one ender? We just chatted with the stars themselves and here’s what they say about the new season:

Ian Somerhalder:

What’s up for Damon this season?
It’s not necessarily going to be the funnest season for Damon. I think that he’s going to challenged a lot where I don’t think he was used to being challenged. I think there are some things that are gonna wreak more havoc in Mystic Falls than he probably did in season one and it’s gonna be a problem so those challenges are something to look forward to ‘cause it’s not boring.

Will we keep seeing the humanity in Damon or will he revert back to his evil ways?
Well, when I think that he finds out it wasn’t Elena, he’s gonna be a little pissed off.

Does he still want to be with Katherine after he finds out it’s her?
He still wants Katherine like an idiot. It’s weird you know, love is a really blinding force. It forces us to do things, stupid things that we all every single one of us has experienced it.

Will Damon’s feelings for Katherine transfer over to Elena?
I don’t know. Actually to be honest with you, I don’t know. What I’d like to see is for him to realize [that Katherine] is a crazy, manipulative bitch and really a lot of where he comes from, his traits, he learned from her and if he were able to look inward at himself and say, “These are not very high quality traits of a person”.

In the sneak peek clips we saw, SPOILER ALERT: Katherine says she wants Stefan. How will that make Damon feel?
That’s another thing that’s just going to crush him.

How will it affect Damon and Stefan?
A tentative alliance. That’s the thing. That’s the interesting thought is that it might actually form, that alliance may have to get stronger because she’s going to wreak havoc  for both of them, whether Katherine wants Stefan or Damon, Stefan wants nothing to do with her, for the most part. Until he does. If he does.

Do you think Elena brings out Damon’s humanity?
I think that’s the only time you ever see it is when he’s with her.  I mean Nina Dobrev’ll do that to you.  No two ways about it.

Nina Dobrev:

Which Salvatore brother are you rooting for at this point for Elena to be with?
Defan! Their undisovered brother who is the perfect mix between the two.

Will you be kissing Ian again this season?
I will be kissing at least one Salvatore brother this season.

What’s up with Katherine coming back?
Last season I got to do it very little. I mostly played Elena and we teased to Katherine a little bit, but this year there’s gonna be a lot more Katherine. She’s back and she’s wreaking havoc and she’s up to no good. So it’s gonna be fun to kind of step into Damon’s shoes a little bit and play with them and mess with everyone’s minds.

How are you differentiating between Katherine and Elena as far as appearance?
Between the wardrobe stylist and the creators, we all kind of collaborate, but I’m very outspoken about the way I want Elena and Katherine to look and the fact that I want them to look differently. And one of the main things for example is Elena is a flared jean girl and Katherine is a skinny jeans and heels kind of girl. There’s little subtle things that create a different vision visually. They have to look different as much as they look the same.

Paul Wesley:

How’s Stefan dealing with that porch kiss?
For me, I’m brokenhearted about the kiss between Damon and Elena. Because as sociopathic and malicious as he is, and maybe a murderer, he knows that I love him. It’s the worst insult. At this point Stefan doesn’t empathize as much or care. He’s more like, You know what, I”m not going to deal with this guy.

Does it change his feelings for Elena?

Elena, Elena, Elena. He loves her. It’s sort of a transformation. He’s coming to terms with himself, season two is a lot more about acceptance. This is what I am. He’s going to do other things. Laugh, be jovial.

Now that Katherine has said she’s back for Stefan, is he interested?
It’s  a mix, he thought he was in love with Katherine at one point, she’s the person who is responsible for his immortality. It’s heavy. He meets her with disgust and at the same time a little bit of interest.

What do you want for Stefan?
I love not necessarily the dark side, I love that as well, but I like Stefan to have other tactics other than victimized and accepting the burden. And be more proactive.

What can we expect this season?
Well, you know Katherine being back in Mystic Falls is a bit of a gamechanger for the show. We have how is this going to affect Damon and Stefan in terms of Katherine now being back in town and I don’t know. It’s so hard to talk about it without giving anything away because it seems like everything is a surprise! She comes back and as you saw in the clip, she came back and pretty much stated why she’s back and it’ll be fun to sort of watch that play out, but if you’ve watched our show in the past, you know there’s always more than one reason someone’s there or some of the motives of our characters. So it’s a huge turning. Well she said she wanted Stefan. She came back for Stefan.

Could there be other reasons?
Maybe. Could be.

What will we find out about Katherine?
There’s so much to still know about 1864, what happened? Why wasn’t she in the tomb? How did she escape? Where did she go? Why did she come to Mystic Falls to begin with? What brought her to Mystic Falls? And so there’s all those fun questions that we’re gonna explore and how the Lockwood curse figures into it.

How is Katherine different now than she was in 1864?
She’s meaner. It’s going to be interesting to watch.  She’s different in the sense that she doesn’t have to wear corsets anymore and she’s different , well I’m scared to say it because it’ll tease where she’s been. It’s a bit of a secret what she’s been up to.

Will we see flashbacks of characters that died last season?
Yes.

Will we see Isobel again?
Not right away. I don’t have any plans in the first, you know we’ve sort of broken the whole season, but we haven’t individually broken down the back 9 episodes so I’d hate to say no and then turn around and do it and make a liar out of me. So I would say not in the first 12.

How many flashback episodes will there be?
Certainly we have three flashback episodes planned, and I’m guessing there’ll be four.

What can you tell us about Tyler’s journey this year?
Tyler’s going to sort of learn through the help of his Uncle Mason who comes to town in the very first episode, who and what he is. He’s gonna learn about the curse, who he is and how he responds to it. It’s going to be a typical growing up story, a sort of coming of age tale, but it’s horrible to have all these questions about why you’re the way you are and why you’re so angry and why you always feel so lost and then you get the answer and you don’t like it. So it’s gonna be a fun journey for him…and violent.

And the following is their recap of the panel discussion:

Aside from the steamy little chat we just had with Ian Somerhalder, Nina Dobrev, Kevin Williamson and Paul Wesley—check it out here!–there was plenty of dish spilled to the thousands of fans today who packed The Vampire Diaries panel session at Comic-Con. On the off-chance you couldn’t shine your best Storm Trooper costume in time to hit the Convention Center in San Diego …Guess what? You can still get the scoop right here for free:

[Executive Producer Julie Plec] on Jeremy: “He’s either going to wake up alive of he’s going to wake up dead. But he is going to wake up.”

Kevin Williamson on whether Damon and Elena will hook up: “I’m not gonna say.” Ian: “I should be so lucky.”

Paul on Stefan accepting his vampire ways: “I think it’s a thing that will never escape him.” Kevin: “One of the things that Stefan will come to terms with is the fact that he’s a vampire, which includes drinking blood.”

Ian on playing nice Damon: “The nice Damon freaks me out. We went through that scene on the porch and I was miserable. I didn’t know what to do. My favorite scenes are nutty Damon. Dancing around in my underwear with Kayla [Ewell] was awesome.”

Ian on who has the best abs: “I’m gonna go with Paul. I’m too lazy. I like food way too much.”

Nina on who is the better kisser, Ian or Paul: “They don’t kiss and tell. And neither do I. I’m gonna leave you guys to wonder.”

Kevin on the new werewolves: “Werewolves are hard to fake on a weekly basis. It’s hard to do those CGI hairs. There will be a transformation.  It’ll happen. Not right away, but it will happen in the first order.”

Kevin on this season’s body count: “I don’t kill people just to kill people.  But yes, people are going to die.”

The cast on the stories they want for their characters…

Paul: “I enjoyed so much indulging in the blood. I don’t want Stefan to be as confused, and I want him to make decision to indulge in blood and take part in maniacal activity once in awhile to fulfill that vampire need. [Beat.] I don’t know what I’m talking about. [Laughs.] I would love to do a flashback of Stefan dancing to really bad 80s music and just having fun.”

Nine: “I would love to see Elena take on Katherine. Elena’s gone a long way.”

Ian: “I would love to see Damon front and center at a Rolling Stones concert in 1969, with a mullet. I would love to see Kevin give Damon Stefan’s bedroom because there is a lot of action going on in there. It’s a dope bedroom.”

Kevin on Katherine’s backstory: “There’s another part of the story we haven’t shown you.”

I feel that if you love Vampires… you love everything that goes bump in the night. So, one of the things that we were looking forward to during the SDCC is AMC’s The Walking Dead. So, here is the video from the panel.

While we are on the subject of the living dead; Diana M, who is one of our SBLC reviewers, attended a panel on authors that write about Zombies. Here is her article:

I just love him…

~M.

Click on the image to see the video…

EW also has a series of portraits of the cast:

This last pic of Joe Manganiello, reminds me of Harry Potter. Just sayin’.

And here’s one more of Kristin and Joe…

So, while the Being Human panel was happening…. I was in full blown True Blood mode. My apologies. Thankfully, Digital Spy and some of our friends from BBCAmerica’s Anglophenia had a live blog going and were twittering like mad and it is as follows:

Out come the panelists: Toby Whithouse, Sinead Keenan (Nina), Russell Tovey (George), Lenora Crichlow (Annie) and Aidan Turner (Mitchell).

Russell Tovey: “Sinead’s a Comic-Con virgin. She’s got her chastity ring on.”

Sinead Keenan: “It’s a joy to work with Russell Tovey even though he’s quite abusive to me on set.”

Bit of background: Being Human season two premieres here in the US tomorrow night at 10pm on BBC America.

Toby explains the genesis of the idea for the show. It started as a drama about three humans sharing a flat, each with their own problems, but then morphed into something more interesting.

Toby’s now discussing how he devised the show. Before he was a vampire, Mitchell was a “recovering sex addict.”

Whithouse: “Had I been approached to write a supernatural show, the output wouldn’t have been Being Human.”

Preview clip of selected season two highlights.

Turner: “In the first series Mitchell is struggling with his addiction and exorcising himself from everybody. He’s moved in with a wolf and decided to get himself clean. You just happen to be there, Lenora. He’s doing alright until Herrick comes along, then it’s no longer just Mitchell’s problem any more. When George kills Herrick, Mitchell feels responsible for that and has to reform his friendships in order for him to get clean. The only way of doing that, I guess, is getting darker and stepping into Herrick’s shoes. The way it works out, before he knows what’s going on, he’s deep involved in something he shouldn’t be. So naturally I guess it gets darker.”

That boy can really talk. Crichlow: “Annie doesn’t get darker. Oh yes she does! For her in season two, everyone kind of goes off on their own journeys. For Annie that’s quite lonely. So when they go off and be vampirey and wolfy, she gets bored. She gets hit with the reality stick of being stuck and not moving on. It’s very bleak for her, so she has some tough decisions to make.”

Tovey: “It goes dark for George. At the end of the first season he’s used the wolf within him and killed someone.” At this point he asks who’s seen all of season two, and a large portion of the crowd cheers. He notes that they’ve all committed an illegal act.

“He goes on a very strange tangent and acts out in strange way,” he continues. “Doing various strange things with various strange people.”

Clip 2: Scene between Nina and George where they’re getting very frustrated with each other.

Russell Tovey on Sinead’s acting: “Surely she deserves an Emmy.”

Whithouse: “It was never a conscious decision to make the second series darker, it was just a natural evolution. The ambition of the show, bizarrely, has always been to do a realistic show as possible. When we sit down and storyline, we have to talk about it in very logical terms.”

The moderator says vampires are being used as a metaphor for gay marriage and addiction. “As human beings we all feel the same sense of loneliness and seclusion that they feel,” says Whithouse. Tovey adds: “The show is about these guys trying to be human, and that’s why so many people connect to it, because we’re all human, aren’t we?” Crichlow: “Most of us.”

Keenan: “The beauty of the show is that the cross each of these characters has to bear is incidental. It’s about how they all deal with life day to day and trying to get by as far under the radar as possible. They just want a nice, normal, hundrum, peaceful existence – which is what they don’t get.”

Aidan has put off Lenora midflow. “I’ve forgot what I was saying now… and I’ve come all the way from London to say it!”

Tovey complains about the extensive transformation process needed for his character relative to the others. “You just put a couple of teeth in,” he tells Turner. He replies: “I love putting the teeth in. And the blood tastes lovely – it’s minty!”

Wisely, the moderator hands over questioning to the audience. Questioner asks if the actors would change anything about their characters for the American remake. Tovey: “Their George should be less attractive than me. I think he should be naked throughout.”

Crichlow: “I think Annie should have straight hair and not wear grey.” Keenan: “Maybe Nina would have a cuter nurse’s outfit, like an old-fashioned white one with a little hat.”

Lenora jokes that many women can identify with Annie’s being “stuck in the same outfit for ages.”

What is Nina’s neurosis? Tovey: “She’s the fourth member of ABBA.” Whithouse: “I don’t think Nina’s choice in men is particularly good, in as much as the first one gave her scars and the second made her into a werewolf. I haven’t really thought about it, to be honest.”

Obscure question about why George didn’t want to do paintballing again. Tovey: “I think he was bullied by all his paintballing friends, they cornered him and left him.”

Questioner adds that they wouldn’t download illegally if BBC America didn’t wait seven months to premiere the episodes. “Yeah you would,” laughs Crichlow.

Question about Annie’s afterlife. Crichlow: “Season two, definitely, Annie would like to think that’s it and it’s over. She’s got something to stay for in the house now, so secretly she’s quite chuffed that she missed that bus. But season two says otherwise. Death and taxes are inevitable.”

Whithouse: “If these creatures existed, they would want to live under the radar. So they would take these ancillary jobs. If they became head of ICI, that would expose them too much. It was a very logical decision that if you’re going to hide, you’re going to do a low-level job. The thing about hospitals as well is that it’s where life and death mix on a daily basis, so for the show that’s a very evocative mix.”

Toby Whithouse on Being Human s2: “If you’re going to do a show on vampires, werewolves, and ghosts, it’s going to get dark.”

Girl asks about the most emotionally challenging scene. Turner: “There’s that scene with Mitchell and George at the end of series two episode eight in the corridor, where Mitchell’s world is falling around him. They’ve lost Annie, then George brings him back. That was pretty full-on as I remember.”

Crichlow: “One of the most emotional scenes I’ve done was in season two, where Annie leaves a message for the boys. It’s all voiceover but we shot it anyway. I was in pieces because it was towards the end of the shoot. We don’t know what happens year to year and I was just in tears. The thought of not getting to work with these guys again…”

Repetitive fan requests. Tovey: “I always get asked about the werewolf transformation.” Keenan: “How do you learn all those lines?”

Boy tells Turner that the “brooding vampire is not very interesting at all” so he’s pleased things are getting darker. Turner: “Mitchell has a lot of stuff to do in the second series, so when he deals with all that, you might see a different side to him in the third series.”

Question about how they choose the music. “We don’t,” says Tovey. Whithouse: “We have a composer on the show who writes a lot of incidental music. That has become part of the DNA of the show and he’s an absolute genius.” Apparently there are different versions of music between the UK, the US and DVD releases. Whithouse says he makes suggestions for music in the scripts but they mostly ignore him.

Scottish boy asks Tovey what the status of him is with Torchwood. “I dunno. No idea. Genuinely no idea. There’s been lots of rumors. I did that scene [in 'End of Time'] and I never really thought anything of it. To be honest, I’ve never really watched Torchwood, but since then I’ve been bombarded with messages asking ‘are you gonna be Jack’s lover?’ I genuinely don’t know.”

Good question about whether they now feel in direct competition with the US remake, given how popular the original now is in the US. Keenan: “It’s a whole different beast.”

Tovey notes: “It would be weird if they started doing panels at Comic-Con and we were doing panels here too.”

Whithouse: “It doesn’t affect the UK version in the slightest. The American version will be its own show. Watch it, enjoy it. Really watch it, because I’m sure I get a fair bit of royalties. The UK show is always going to remain a UK show – it doesn’t have a retrograde effect on us at all. You shouldn’t worry about that.”

Toby says the vampires in the original pilot were “a little too Anne Rice.”

Whithouse on the original pilot: “What was really beneficial about is it we did exactly what you’re meant to do with pilots and look at what did and didn’t work. I think what didn’t work was the vampires. In the pilot Mitchell had walked into a different show. It wasn’t consistent. So that gave us the opportunity to redress that. The cast we had in the pilot were great but we wanted to take the show in a different direction.”

The moderator brings the panel to a close.

Screening video

Crazy day and tomorrow is the Vampire Diaries….

~M.