Joseph Morgan - Fanpage Czech Republic

Because I love something special in his eyes

Wetpaint: So even though we’ve finally met Klaus, everyone’s still got tons of questions about his history and who he is, exactly. We know it’s all supposedly there in the script, but what’s an example of something that, as an actor, you’ve personally brought to Klaus’ character?
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Joseph Morgan: I would say absolute enthusiasm. And I don’t just mean in terms of me being enthusiastic about playing the role. I mean Klaus actually being enthusiastic. I think that there’s a definitely a childlike element about this character, certainly in terms of the tantrums he throws, and sort of never really having grown up. I feel like, as someone so old, he has kind of a childlike enthusiasm when it comes to certain things, even some things that are very painful for other people. He really revels in it the way that a kid would, you know, kind of rediscovering it every time.
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I would imagine that being hundreds of years old, there are a lot of opportunities to rediscover your passion for life.
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Absolutely, there are. So yeah, I would like to think that the enthusiasm is one of the bigger things that I try to bring to the table.
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Prior to TVD, you did a lot of work in film, especially historical dramas. What was it like to transition from that to a teen-oriented show on the CW?
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Every role is different, so you have to go about it and tackle it in whatever way you feel it requires. I just thought about it in terms of the character and what work I needed to do to feel like I was ready to go on camera and play him. But it was definitely a conscious decision on my part to start auditioning for television roles. Over the last couple of years I’ve done almost exclusively films, and had great experiences. And the commitment that American television requires scares me a little bit, but I started to feel like that was something I was interested in — developing a character over a longer period of time and developing a relationship with the audience for a longer period of time. But you know, I’m not guaranteeing that Klaus will be around for a long time.
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I was gonna ask — are you telling us something about how long Klaus is sticking around?
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You know, I... [pause] who knows? If he makes it past the end of this season, then I’m sure we’ll see a lot more of him, but you know what? People have died on the show and come back. People have been featured in flashbacks after they’ve died. So, you’re never really sure that you’re rid of anyone, are you?

Well, anything can happen on The Vampire Diaries, but do you think a character as big as Klaus would be so disposable?
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You know, I had this moment where I really knew that I wanted this job. After I’d read for the role, I was watching some episodes of it that I had DVR’d, just to prepare for meeting Kevin and Julie, the creators of the show. And I watched that episode where Damon tears out Uncle Mason’s heart. I hadn’t realized the show was that dark, but they really went there. I thought, “Oh my god. Okay, this could be really interesting.” If they’ll let me do things like that, if [Klaus] is going to go to those places, then this is something that I’m really interested in exploring.
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When did you realize how big of a phenomenon TVD was?
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Well, the first degree of that was when I first read for the role. I knew I had a callback with the creators of the show, just to talk about it. And I thought, “Okay, I’m just going to do a little bit of research now, I’m going to look up on the Internet whether Klaus was in the books of The Vampire Diaries,” because I knew there were books before [the television show]. And I just typed in “Klaus Vampire Diaries,” and there were pages and pages and pages of “Who’s going to play Klaus?” It was just unbelievable to me, the volume of stuff just on this one character. Suddenly I started to feel like, “Oh, this is kind of a big deal!”
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