Nina Dobrev

Nina Dobrev (born Nina Konstantinova Dobreva, in Bulgarian Нина Константинова Добрева; January 9, 1989) is a Bulgarian-Canadian actress. She played the role of Mia Jones, the single teenage mother on Degrassi: The Next Generation, from the show's sixth to ninth season. She currently stars as Elena Gilbert and Katherine Pierce on The CW television teen drama The Vampire Diaries. Dobrev was born in Sofia, Bulgaria and moved to Canada at the age of two, where she was raised in Toronto, Ontario. She speaks fluent French, English and Bulgarian. Her mother is an artist, and her father is a computer scientist. She has one older brother. She attended J. B. Tyrrell Sr. Public School and Wexford Collegiate School for the Arts in Scarborough, Ontario. From a very young age, she showed great enthusiasm and talent for the arts—dance, gymnastics, theater, music, visual arts, and acting. Dobrev attended the Dean Armstrong Acting school where she was discovered by many different talent agencies in Toronto. Modeling jobs led to commercials, which then turned into film auditions. Shortly thereafter, she booked roles in feature films, including Fugitive Pieces, Away from Her, Never Cry Werewolf, and the television series Degrassi: The Next Generation. She also was in an MTV movie called The American Mall on CTV. She is currently starring in The CW's drama The Vampire Diaries, playing the dual role of Katherine Pierce.