THE ORIGINALS at TCA: Live-Blog

THE ORIGINALS — the new THE VAMPIRE DIARIES spinoff — is about to be paneled at the Television Critics Association. Follow along for the live-blog as the cast and producers tease what’s to come…

10:39 AM: “The way we look at it is we had an audience grow with us for four years,” Julie Plec says. The vamps on THE ORIGINALS aren’t struggling with being a vampire, they’re reveling in it.

10:41 AM: They’ll be shooting most of the show in Atlanta (where THE VAMPIRE DIARIES shoots), but they’ll do occasional shots in New Orleans. “It was important for us to launch the show with our best foot forward, both with a production level and a comfort level,” Plec says of being able to use some crew members for both TVD and TO.

10:43 AM: Daniel Gillies is MIA because he’s off shooting his other show.

10:44 AM: “I think she realized her bond with her family is stronger than anything else,” Claire Holt says of Rebekah’s doomed relationship with Matt. Joseph Morgan says he can’t promise Klaus won’t try to stake his sister again.

10:45 AM: Charles Michael Davis jokes that in order to prep for playing Marcel, he bit a lot of people, but his cast jokes he just did a lot of karaoke.

10:46 AM: Why did Klaus not just destroy Marcel in the backdoor pilot? “We’re used to Klaus coming in with a bull in a china shop mentality, a one man army,” Morgan notes. “Marcel HAS an army.”

10:48 AM: “Oh, God, absolutely. It’s one of the most difficult tasks, creatively, but one of the most important ones,” Plec says of trying to draw in a non-VAMPIRE DIARIES crowd. She says it’s important the audience can jump in no matter what their knowledge is.

10:49 AM: While Gillies is off filming part-time in Canada, the series is shooting Wednesday-Sunday. “Thanks, Daniel,” Holt jokes. Gillies is very heavily involved in the first episode they’re filming of THE ORIGINALS.

10:50 AM: Plec says they need to establish the show on its own before they deal with the crossover potential.

10:51 AM: Phoebe Tonkin says she’s hoping the pregnancy will be a slow burn. “The first season, the pregnancy will remain a problem or an issue for a good portion of the season,” Plec says.

10:54 AM: “She always gets herself in trouble somehow,” Holt says of Rebekah’s entrance to the show in season 2. “I think she’s going to start a riot.”

Could Marcel and Rebekah have a history together? “I wonder if you tune in to episode 2 on October 8th…” Plec teases.

10:56 AM: Plec is enthusing about the amazing musical scene New Orleans in the series.

10:57 AM: “His goal…is to try and bring them together and find redemption,” Plec says of Elijah. “And he’s driven by that need and he sees in the baby that redemption.”

Morgan says the first episode of THE ORIGINALS will be a quasi-retelling of the backdoor pilot from Elijah’s point of view.

10:59 AM: Davis shares that he and Morgan used to play poker together. They geeked out over photography together early in their friendship. “We actually got told to stop ad-libbing because we didn’t want the scene to end,” Morgan shares of their first day filming together. Both of them wanted to get the last word!

11:01 AM: “We learned what a mark was together,” Holt says of working with Tonkin as young girls H20: JUST ADD WATER. They share they just shot their first scene together, and it might be the last one, they joke, given that they had so much fun together.

11:03 AM: “She feels protective of Hayley,” Holt says of Rebekah’s feelings towards Hayley. She points out how much Rebekah wants a family…but that being said, one of her first lines to Hayley is requesting she get Rebekah’s bags for her.

11:05 AM: “It’s love, it’s family, it’s betrayal, it’s loss,” Plec says of universal themes being packaged in supernatural ways and catching on.

11:09 AM: Marcel’s origin story was that he was a young kid in 1815. He’s a young vamp!

11:10 AM: Davis found a tiny crown during costume fitting, and he presented it to Morgan as a joke offering, asking for Klaus to not kill him.

11:11 AM: And we’re done!