Ian Somerhalder reveals why he stepped away from acting after finding success on Lost and The Vampire Diaries Have YOU got a story? Email [email protected] By Brian Gallagher For Dailymail.com Published: 00:23 BST, 24 September 2024 | Updated: 00:26 BST, 24 September 2024 e-mail View comments Ian Somerhalder hasn't acted in more than five years, revealing why he stepped away from the biz in a new interview.
The 45-year-old actor and father of two kids with his wife Nikki Reed , was reflecting on the 20th anniversary of Lost and the 15th anniversary of The Vampire Diaries in a new interview with People. He hasn't acted since the 2019 Netflix series V-Wars though he revealed in a new interview with People that he's quite happy off-camera. Somerhalder recently partnered with the pet food company NUTRO for their Greater Ground initiative that helps foster healthy soil practices to grow better pet food.
He has also executive produced documentaries like Kiss the Ground and Common Ground, and revealed why he prefers life off-camera now. Ian Somerhalder hasn't acted in more than five years, revealing why he stepped away from the biz in a new interview The 45-year-old actor and father of two kids with his wife Nikki Reed, was reflecting on the 20th anniversary of Lost and the 15th anniversary of The Vampire Diaries (above) in a new interview with People. Somerhalder (left in a scene from the Lost finale) recently partnered with the pet food company NUTRO for their Greater Ground initiative that helps foster healthy soil practices to grow better pet food 'August 19th makes five years since I was professionally on camera as an actor/producer,” he explains.
“I stepped away from that after V-Wars to build these companies, launch films like Kiss the Ground, Common Ground and Ground Swell,' he said. 'I remember sitting with my management talking about this, saying, "Hey, this is the only thing I've ever known that's ever sustained my family, and I'm walking away from it," at this sort of peak, could have gone and done anything, but these partnerships mean way more to me,' he insisted. Read More Nikki Reed cozies up to husband Ian Somerhalder at EMA Awards Gala 'I say this in all humility, in all respect, but I would much rather do this than go spend two months in some city, shooting a TV show away from my family or transporting my family back and forth,” he continues.
'Once you reach a certain level, you’re like, "Okay, I want to focus on family and the future of farming and food and energy and the big things." I don't need to chase awards and anything that would make me feel better about myself,' he admits. 'The fact now is I get to partner with people that are launching things like the Greater Ground initiative where they're literally holding the hands and investing in these groups of people, these farmers that are actually creating this food that our pets and us eat.
That's huge,' he adds. 'So you go and you do all these fancy things and you realize at the end of it, it's the grounding stuff that matters,' Somerhalder says. He also opened up about one of his first major roles as Boone Carlyle on ABC's Lost, which debuted 20 years ago on Sunday.
Somerhalder called playing Boone a, 'very humbling experience,' since he was the first major character to die on the series. 'August 19th makes five years since I was professionally on camera as an actor/producer,” he explains. “I stepped away from that after V-Wars to build these companies, launch films like Kiss the Ground, Common Ground and Ground Swell,' he said 'I remember sitting with my management talking about this, saying, "Hey, this is the only thing I've ever known that's ever sustained my family, and I'm walking away from it," at this sort of peak, could have gone and done anything, but these partnerships mean way more to me,' he insisted 'So you go and you do all these fancy things and you realize at the end of it, it's the grounding stuff that matters,' Somerhalder says 'I got to work on a lot of reef conservation.
I got to work on a lot of soil and water conservation even there. This is 2004, I was already doing this, my voice just wasn't as big,' he said 'Losing that, I was the first one cast and the first one killed, that was a sort of tough pill to swallow,' he admitted, though his time spent filming in Hawaii helped fuel his passion for environmental conservation. 'I got to work on a lot of reef conservation.
I got to work on a lot of soil and water conservation even there. This is 2004, I was already doing this, my voice just wasn't as big,' he said. 'Cut to 2005, [I] left Lost, which was humbling.
And then very beginning of 2009 came Vampire Diaries. And that was a rocket ship,' he said of The CW series. 'Initially, it was a very, very, very young audience, but that audience matured and it got bigger and bigger,' he said of the series.
Somerehalder returned for episodes in the second, third and sixth and final season of Lost, which ended its run in 2010. The Vampire Diaries launched in 2009, with Somerhalder playing Damien Salvatore throughout the show's eight-season run that ended in 2017 . While both shows were big hits upon their initial airing, he admitted that, 'streaming changed the game,' making both shows even bigger.
'(The Vampire Diaries) now has been seen by almost like 1.2 billion people globally. So if you just run those numbers, you sort of step back for a second and think about that, there's 8 billion people on the planet, so it's roughly about one-eighth of the people walking the face of the planet have somehow interfaced with this IP, the story,' he said.
'They've been affected by it, maybe they've seen it, heard about it. That's an unparalleled platform,' he said. 'Initially, it was a very, very, very young audience, but that audience matured and it got bigger and bigger,' he said of the series 'So if you can chain link some knowledge and passion together for me, animals and soil health regeneration at a very large scale, that's going to be quite substantial,' he said.
The actor added that he has, 'enormous gratitude' for getting to star in those two hit shows throughout his career. 'That path has gotten me to where I feel most authentic anyway, which is in a pair of cowboy boots, feeding the cows and running horses,' he said. Somerhalder has also worked as a director, taking the helm for three episodes of The Vampire Diaries and one episode of V-Wars.
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