- Ian Somerhalder left acting due to a studio standoff over the cancellation of his show “V Wars” on Netflix.
- The actor was unhappy with the quality of the show’s first cut and raised over $6 million to reshoot footage, leading to exhaustion and hospitalization.
- Somerhalder decided to quit acting at age 40 after realizing he didn’t want his career to be controlled by studio politics, focusing instead on conservation and business ventures.
Ian Somerhalder is finally opening up about why he left acting behind. The former heartthrob says one Netflix series was the last straw. Nearly seven years after his final on-screen role in “The Vampire Diaries”, he is finally spilling about the fallout from his 2019 show “V Wars” and the studio standoff that pushed his decision
Ian Somerhalder details the cancellation of V Wars that pushed him to leave Hollywood
Speaking on the “Haley on the Go” podcast about the Ian Somerhalder quit acting fiasco, he shared a “really honest, kind of controversial” reason for stepping away. The 47-year-old said the show appealed to him because it let him play against type. “I wanted to do V Wars because it was me, not as a vampire, it was me as a scientist,” he explained. He also moved his family to Northern Ontario and spent close to a year on that project
According to him, the first cut was so rough that he did not want it released. “I said to the studio, I don’t want to put my name on this. I’ll give you the money back,” he recalled. When he and the producing partner James Gibb pushed for creative control to fix it, he said the streamer agreed with a catch: “Netflix said, ‘Sure. We are not giving you a dollar more.”
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To save the series, the pair raised more than $6 million themselves and shot for roughly 10-12 hours of footage in about six days. This also left him exhausted due to which he was hospitalized. Although V Wars premiered in December 2019 and got a warm response, Netflix pulled it after one season. “The execs were fighting, and someone quietly canceled the show,” he said
The Netflix cancellation drama was the turning point. “I looked at myself in the mirror, and I said to my wife… man, I am 40 years old,” explaining that he doesn’t want his career to be controlled by studio politics. “So I pulled the plug. That was it. I walked away,” he said
Since he exited the screen, the Louisiana native has focused on framing, conservation and business. He co-founded Brother’s Bond Bourbon with former The Vampire Diaries co-star Paul Wesley. Netflix has not publicly addressed his account
TELL US, WERE YOU SURPRISED IAN SOMERHALDER QUIT ACTING OVER THIS DRAMA? AND WOULD YOU LOVE TO SEE HIM BACK ON SCREEN SOMEDAY?
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