Even Tyler Lockwood's own friends sometimes called him a dick on The Vampire Diaries. So you can imagine how Michael Trevino, now 34, would be keen to emphasize differences between Tyler and his new Roswell, New Mexico character, Kyle Valenti.
Here's what Michael Trevino said when asked during the TCA 2019 winter press tour if he was trying to differentiate Kyle from Tyler, or lean into any similarities:
You know, it’s been 10 years since Vampire Diaries. It was 2009, and I was 24-years-old when that series started. And to be coming on board with this ... you know, Kyle is somebody who is very principled. You know, he is a surgeon. He has been through a lot. He lives by a strong moral code. And I feel like with this project, I'm with friends, which is very nice. I'm still at The CW, and I’ve had creative freedom to be more involved on this series, and I'm very grateful for that. And I feel like all of us feel that way. It's such a collaborative effort. And, for me, right off the bat, yes, it's going to be a lot different from the role that I played on Vampire Diaries.
It's kind of amazing to think about it, but it has indeed been a full 10 years since The Vampire Diaries first premiered. Michael Trevino starred on that show, and took Tyler to a couple of episodes of the spinoff The Originals. At first, Tyler was just an arrogant bully, although he was given the chance to develop a bit over time.
Julie Plec created The Vampire Diaries and she was part of The CW panel at the TCAs. She's an executive producer on Roswell, and chimed in with a funny story about Michael Trevino's new role:
I was showing my mom, by the way, the first episode of Roswell, because she hadn’t seen it, and she was in town. And she was, like, ‘Is that Tyler?’ And I said, ‘Yeah, that’s Tyler.’ And he said, ‘God, he was such a dick on that other show.’
Heh. Michael Trevino said they were changing that, and evolving, since it has been 10 years. Roswell creator Carina Adly MacKenzie also piped up with a Tyler Lockwood reference at that point:
One of my favorite moments on set this season we have a flashback episode that’s almost entirely 2008, so everybody is in high school garb the entire time. We had 800 visual effects shots I’m not exaggerating and Trevino walks out of the trailer, like, clean shaven, like a little baby, and I was likes, "Tyler Lockwood, I have missed you."
Haha. For anyone else who missed Tyler Lockwood, Lockwood Manor actually got a shoutout last night on Legacies, the joint spinoff of The Vampire Diaries and The Originals. The Mystic Falls mansion was used as a temporary safe haven for students at the Salvatore school who needed to escape the latest monster of the week.
Roswell creator Carina Adly MacKenzie said Michael Trevino was the one who helped her feel comfortable on the TV set. She said she didn't have anyone specifically in mind to play Kyle Valenti on Roswell until Trevino showed up to audition and "did a phenomenal job."
What he brought to Kyle was a person who I believed could stand up to Max. Nathan [Dean Parsons] had already been cast [as Max Evans], so we needed somebody who looked like they could beat Nathan up, and possibly win.
Roswell, New Mexico airs Tuesdays at 9 p.m. on The CW. Legacies, run by Julie Plec, airs Thursdays at 9 p.m. Michael Trevino recently supported his fellow Vampire Diaries co-star Nina Dobrev at her 30th birthday party. She now has her own CBS show Fam, which also airs Thursday nights during the very busy 2019 TV midseason.
