A Conversation with Katerina Graham

The Examiner have posted a great new interview with Katerina Graham, who plays Bonnie.

We are shooting the series in Atlanta right now. I play Bonnie. She is the best friend of the girl who falls in love with the vampire. In an interesting way she kind of sets the tone of the show. She has a very foreboding texture. It’s a great show. The writing is great and the cast is really great. It debuts September 10 on the CW. I’m pretty excited about it.

Renaissance woman, Katerina Graham, got her start in show business at the tender age of six doing commercials for Barbie and K-Mart and appearing on TV shows like Lizzie McGuire and Joan of Arcadia. But Katerina was never one to limit herself to just one aspect of anything. Fluent in four languages, this multi-talented performer has professional credits as a singer, songwriter, actress, dancer and record producer. Her latest endeavor includes a major role in the CW’s highly anticipated new teen heartthrob series, The Vampire Diaries.

Mike Parker – For a young lady for 20 summers you’ve already accomplished quite a bit. Actress, dancer, singer/songwriter, producer. You’ve been a busy girl.

Katerina Graham – Yeah, I have. It helps when that is all you do. I was homeschooled so it left me a lot of time to do acting and music. When you look at it that way it is not that amazing.

Parker – Randy Travis, the great country artist, once commented that he could be an actor or he could be a musician, but there just wasn’t enough time in the day to do both and do them both well. You seem to be bucking that trend.

Katerina – You know, that is a depressing quote. I have to somewhat agree, and somewhat disagree. It is true that when I’m on set I can’t be in the studio, and when I’m on tour I can’t be on set. If you try to do too much simultaneously something will suffer. The trick is to manage your scheduled. I’ve already got my next year planned out.

Parker – I read somewhere that in the midst of all the other madness of life in the entertainment industry that you also completed your degree in recording engineering?

Katerina – I did. When I was a teenager I came to a roadblock in my life. I wanted to do music really bad but I didn’t have a producer. No one really wanted to work with me and I can’t blame them. I didn’t have a deal; I didn’t have a demo – it was pretty sad. But I had made enough money from my acting to buy some recording equipment so at the age of fourteen I started teaching myself to produce. When I was sixteen I did a duel enrollment in high school and The Musician’s Institute, so I completed high school while I went to college. It helped me to be self-sufficient. I did it because I had to, not because I wanted to.

Parker – With so many irons in the fire how do you find time to unwind? Where do you find peace?

Katerina – I don’t ever unwind. My work is my peace. If I’m not working I’m not at peace.

Parker – Tell me about your role in the new CW series, The Vampire Diaries.

Katerina – We are shooting the series in Atlanta right now. I play Bonnie. She is the best friend of the girl who falls in love with the vampire. In an interesting way she kind of sets the tone of the show. She has a very foreboding texture. It’s a great show. The writing is great and the cast is really great. It debuts September 10 on the CW. I’m pretty excited about it.

Parker – The TV series is, of course, based on the novels by L.J. Smith, and not to be confused with that other series about high school vampires. Were you a fan of the novels or of the vampire genre before starting work on “The Vampire Diaries?”

Katerina – You know, I was. I think everyone is somewhat a fan of the vampire genre. If you’ve read the books you’ll notice there are some differences between Bonnie and me, physically. The best thing I could have done for myself and for the fans, and to do justice to L.J.’s novels, was to forget the physical characteristics of Bonnie and capture her essence. I think L.J. is great. I thank her for giving the world these books. When it comes to the competition between The Vampire Diaries and True Blood or Twilight, all I can say, is L.J. wrote the books long before the whole Twilight thing came out. It’s not even the same story line.

The Seven Questions

1. What’s your favorite sound?
Katerina – Applause.

2. What makes you happy?
Katerina – Doing charity work.

3. What makes you angry?
Katerina – Intolerance.

4. What is the secret of success?
Katerina – Napoleon Hill.

5. If you could have dinner with anyone in history, living or dead, who would it be?
Katerina – Mother Teresa.

6. What is the epitaph that is written on your tombstone?
Katerina – “The girl that gave all that she had.”

7. When you get to heaven, what is the first thing you want to hear God say to you?
Katerina – “I forgive you.”

This entry was posted on Friday, July 31st, 2009 at 7:51 am and is filed under Interviews, The Cast. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.