Nina Dobrev (born Nikolina Kamenova Dobreva; January 9, 1989) is a Bulgarian-Canadian actress. She gained widespread recognition for her dual roles as Elena Gilbert and Katherine Pierce on The CW's supernatural drama series The Vampire Diaries (2009–2015, 2017) and for her role as Mia Jones in the CTV teen drama Degrassi: The Next Generation (2006–2009).
Early Life
Dobrev was born in Sofia, Bulgaria, and immigrated to Canada with her family at the age of two, settling in Toronto, Ontario. Her mother, Michaela Dobreva, is an artist, and her father, Konstantin Dobrev, is a computer specialist. She has an older brother, Aleksandar. Dobrev attended the Vradenburg Junior Public School and later the Wexford Collegiate School for the Arts in Scarborough, Ontario, where she studied various performing arts, including acting, dance, gymnastics, and music. She pursued a major in sociology at Ryerson University (now Toronto Metropolitan University) but ultimately dropped out in 2008 to fully dedicate herself to her acting career.Career
Dobrev began her acting career with minor roles in films such as Fugitive Pieces (2007) and Away from Her (2006). Her breakthrough came with the role of Mia Jones, a teenage mother, on the Canadian television series Degrassi: The Next Generation, which she starred in from seasons six to nine.In 2009, Dobrev was cast in the leading roles of Elena Gilbert and Katherine Pierce in the American supernatural drama series The Vampire Diaries. The show, based on the book series of the same name, became a global phenomenon, and Dobrev's portrayal of the benevolent protagonist Elena and her cunning doppelgänger Katherine garnered her significant critical acclaim and a devoted fanbase. She remained a main cast member for six seasons, departing in 2015, but returned for the series finale in 2017.
During her tenure on The Vampire Diaries and subsequently, Dobrev also pursued a film career. She appeared in the critically acclaimed 2012 film The Perks of Being a Wallflower, an adaptation of the novel of the same name. Other notable film credits include Let's Be Cops (2014), the horror-comedy The Final Girls (2015), the action film XXX: Return of Xander Cage (2017) alongside Vin Diesel, the science fiction horror film Flatliners (2017), and the romantic comedy Dog Days (2018). In television, she starred in the short-lived CBS sitcom Fam (2019). More recently, Dobrev starred in the Netflix romantic comedy Love Hard (2021) and the action-comedy film The Out-Laws (2023).