This is surely some surprising news — apparently Ashlee Simpson was being heavily considered for Nina Dobrev’s role of Elena on the Vampire Diaries.

“We all independently looked at a bunch of [audition] DVDs,” co-executive producer and director Marcos Siega told the crowd at a recent Screen Actors Guild event for TVD. “We couldn’t find the girl we wanted. The network wanted us to hire Ashlee Simpson…But Nina [Dobrev] sent this DVD back and we all were home looking, searching, and we came in the next day saying, ‘We should look at Nina again.’ We showed it to Peter Roth, and Peter only saw her on that tape and he said, ‘That’s her.’”

I’m glad Ashlee wasn’t picked. Not that I have anything against her, she just doesn’t seem to fit the image of Elena.

What do you make of Ashlee being considered as Elena?

Source: E!