Lost And Vampire Diaries Star Reveals Why He Stopped Acting

Nobody is more clear-eyed about the shows that made him famous than Ian Somerhalder himself. He made a splash with Lost and described leaving that show as a “humbling” experience, something that he contrasts with the “rocket ship” of Vampire Diaries. That show’s already impressive number of fans got a boost via streaming, but the actor made the surprising choice to walk away from Hollywood when his career was arguably at its peak. 

In discussing his success, Ian Somerhalder is quick to note that he has “enormous gratitude” for these shows, especially because they allowed him to preach to fans about the importance of things like reef conservation projects. He recently pointed out how The Vampire Diaries “has been seen by almost like 1.2 billion people globally,” meaning that about one in eight people “walking the face of the planet have somehow interfaced with this IP…That’s an unparalleled platform.”

He hoped that his fans would “chain link some knowledge and passion together for me, animals and soil health regeneration at a very large scale” into “quite substantial” environmental change. 

Considering how much he enjoyed that platform, why did Ian Somerhalder walk away from acting? Eventually, though, he came to the surprising revelation that he’d rather balance time between these passion projects and his family rather than between Hollywood and environmentalism. “That path has gotten me to where I feel most authentic anyway,” he said, “which is in a pair of cowboy boots, feeding the cows and running horses.”

The decision may seem baffling to fans, and Ian Somerhalder is very aware of how crazy it sounds: “at this sort of peak, [I] could have gone and done anything, but these partnerships mean way more to me.” He was hesitant at first to walk away from the “only thing I’ve ever known that’s ever sustained my family,” but eventually realized that this is what he is most passionate about. “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 said.

For all of his success as a major Hollywood star, it seems that Ian Somerhalder is experiencing something that most of us eventually do…the urge to settle down. He says he wants “to focus on family and the future of farming and food and energy,” what he considers the “big things.” He could return to acting in a heartbeat, but in the actor’s words, “I don’t need to chase awards and anything that would make me feel better about myself.”

Many actors would kill to be in Ian Somerhalder’s position: handsome, wealthy, and famous to a huge chunk of the entire planet. But it sounds like the actor’s focus on saving the world has also given him a kind of Zen perspective on his place in the grand scheme of things. At this point, he feels like returning to acting would be nothing more than a way to stroke his own ego, and he’s far happier to devote his time and energy to making tangible changes to the world around him.

If you’d like to return to the heyday of Ian Somerhalder’s fame, you can currently stream The Vampire Diaries on either Peacock and Max (assuming you can stop re-watching The Penguin, of course). The actor himself doesn’t really miss that heyday, instead spending his time making the world a better place.

So while the rest of us enjoy living in his past, Somerhalder himself  is going to focus on creating a better future.

Source: People