Phoebe Tonkin’s Hayley had a very small presence on The CW’s hit show, The Vampire Diaries, but starting this fall, fans will get to know more about the young werewolf who happens to be pregnant with Klaus’ child.
From her brief stint on Diaries, what we do know is that her character, Hayley, has been traveling the world for years trying to find out more about her family which leads her to New Orleans, the setting of The Vampire Diaries’ spin-off series, The Originals.
OMFGtv met with Tonkin, as she promoted the new show at the San Diego Comic-Con in July where she talked a little about the troubled werewolf.
“The irony is [Hayley] went to New Orleans to try to find out about her family and it’s kind of like ‘be careful what you wish for’ because all she wanted her whole life was her family and now she has one of her own,” she says. “She went to New Orleans to find something and she found it, but in a different way.”
When viewers first met Hayley in Mystic Falls, she stirred things up quite a bit and was disliked by some fans for getting in between the Tyler and Caroline relationship. Don’t put her off just yet. Once you get to know her, you may take a liking to her.
“There’s so much back-story for Hayley in particular,” she reveals. “I’ve never really had a character that has had so many things that have happened that really have driven her to where she is right now. It’s going to be really fun to try and persuade people that watch Vampire Diaries and that don’t really empathize with Hayley to have them by the end of the season rooting for Hayley.”
Before Mystic Falls, Tonkin was a fan-favorite and standout on The CW’s short-lived spellbinding witch craft-focused drama, The Secret Circle. While her character, Faye, on the show was a “Witch Bitch,” one feature both her CW characters share is their fierceness (Tyra would approve!). “Faye was a little bit more cheeky and vulnerable; whereas Hayley is a little bit more out in the open,” Tonkin adds about their differences.
“She is lonely and she has been abandoned and that kind of comes out in fierceness as opposed to Faye [where] it kind of came out in being manipulative. She was kind of the bully because she was so insecure about her own thing. I think Hayley’s story is a little bit sadder.”
The Originals premieres this fall on The CW.