"The Vampire Diaries" star Ian Somerhalder recently opened up about the upcoming eighth season of the hit The CW series.
In an interview with E! News, the actor, who plays the role of Damon Salvatore, said that he wants season 8 to focus more on the core characters.
According to him, the core characters are the first reasons why fans fell in love with "The Vampire Diaries," and now is the best time to shift their focus on them again.
In season 7, a slew of new characters were introduced on the show which means that airtime for some of the older characters were divided.
This move was planned ahead by executive producer Julie Plec who thought that the introduction of new characters is what will appease fans who still couldn't get over Nina Dobrev's exit.
However, as it turned out, fans wanted to see more of the older characters, and not the newer ones.
"The reason I'm not reflecting going back is that I'm staring down the barrel of another season and I really want to make sure that we get to go back to the basics. What made people fall in love with this story was its characters, not 40 of them, like eight of them, six of them - this core group of actors, of characters that really move you," he said.
Meanwhile, Somerhalder also explained his goal for season 8, and why it's important to go back to the show's roots with or without Dobrev's Elena Gilbert on the show.
"We don't know where that's going to go but leaving the audience with the fact that by the time they will have spent eight years of their life with these people, I want the audience to feel closer, more afraid, more in love, more in tune with these characters that they ever have been," he said.
In other news, the upcoming episode of "The Vampire Diaries" season 7 will feature a huge risk that Damon is willing to take for the sake of his brother Stefan (Paul Wesley).
The vampire huntress Rayna (Leslie-Anne Huff) is also expected to make an appearance in the said episode.
"The Vampire Diaries" season 7, episode 16 will air on Apr. 1.