NBC Nightly News with Tom Llamas - The Drink with Kate Snow: Ian Somerhalder

Episode Date: January 9, 2022

The Vampire Diaries star Ian Somerhalder tells Kate Snow about how a “terrible business situation” nearly crushed him, until wife Nikki Reed stepped in to negotiate a path out. Ian has now launched a bourbon called “Brother’s Bond” with on-screen brother Paul Wesley.

Hey everyone, this is Kate Snow. So happy to share with you a conversation that I had with Ian Somerhalder, the actor, as part of my series, The Drink. It's always about how you got to the top of your field. So you may remember Ian from his roles in The Vampire Diaries, super popular for that, and Lost. But also, he's now launched a best-selling bourbon, and there's a connection between that and what he calls a terrible business situation that he got in. He says he lost millions. And he tells me how his wife, Nikki Reed, stepped in to save him from literally financial ruin. You can hear many more stories of success from top artists, entrepreneurs, and visionaries. You can find it all at NBCNews.com slash the drink. That changed your whole trajectory, right? Yes, that decision changed the entire trajectory

of anything my life would ever be. All right, so Ian Somerhalder, what is your drink? You chose your own drink for the occasion, right? Yeah, literally, right? I get to drink this with you. And I think, you know, other than my child and my family, I'm more proud of this than pretty much anything in the world.

Cheers, I've got some here. So it's Brothers Bond, it's your company. You might be the first guest on the drink to literally make your own drink. Like you, didn't you basically invent this? Yeah, Paul and I blended this literally in this room and in my kitchen. Paul being your co-star, your brother on-

Yeah, Paul Wesley, yeah, Paul Wesley. Paul Wesley and I have been talking about this since like season two of the vampire the brothers bonded on screen over bourbon and then Paul and I bonded off screen over bourbon Paul likes to remind me he's the only way he could tolerate me which I'm sure there's some truth um so this is you know been in our togetherness for 12 years I want to ask you about your childhood because honestly, researching, like looking into you to talk to you today, I don't find a whole lot about how you grew up, how you became a model.

You're from a small town in Louisiana. How does the kid from the Bayou end up in Hollywood? My mom used every dollar we ever had to get me modeling and acting classes at 10 years old. And then we went to this convention. It was in Copenhead, South Carolina. There's all these little events that kids have to do. You have to like write and recite a commercial like on a stage in front of all these judges and people. And I went there and I won every single award

and I got a three-year contract with Ford Models. And then you ended up going to Europe, right? When you were older, like in your older teens? Five days after my 16th birthday, I got on a plane through New York, shot literally like 12 pages of a major fashion magazine. And then immediately after that, I moved to Milan. And, you know, at 17, I had an apartment in Milan,

one in Paris, and one in New York. Seriously? Yeah, it was the wild part. Lost is really the big role that breaks through for you, right? That must have been a huge break, but then they tell you you're going to die in the first season. Like, is that, was that hard? That was a very humbling experience for sure. That sucked.

But I got it. If that show doesn't break you into the world, I don't know what can. That sucked. But I got it. If that show doesn't break you into the world, I don't know what can. Although I do mess with everyone. I know season one, I remember we had 12 Emmy nominations and they all went to the Emmys and walked away with all these trophies. And I was like, you know what?

Screw that, man. I'm not even going. I don't want to go. It's not my show anymore. Like an idiot. I've worked my ass off in season one. Yeah, you should have been there. To be a part of something like that.

And then showed up at the Emmy after party in like a leather jacket. But I always joke with everyone. I say, you know, we had 12 Emmy nominations in season one and season two. Nothing. How did Vampire Diaries come to you? I had to fight tooth and nail.

Long and short of it is, send me the script for Vampire Diaries come to you? I had to fight tooth and nail. Long and short of it is, send me the script for Vampire Diaries. I picked it up and I said, this is Twilight on TV. And I threw it on the ground. A couple, two days later, I realized, because I read the pilot, and I realized, this is really fricking awesome. And this character is unbelievable. This guy has the potential to be like the coolest character

on television. Casting says, yes, we'll see him. But he has to be here at, you know, I think it was 10 AM on the dot. I was in Vegas at the time with my family. Now it's like 11 o'clock at night. And I'm thinking, oh my god, I have eight pages of sides of the script that I have to know for the show now that I really want. Printed them out, went to the business center.

Five o'clock in the morning, I leave Vegas. I taped all the pages together for the Vampire Diaries and put them on my dash because it's still dark, five o'clock in the morning. So I drove through the Mojave Desert, through the middle, you know, late, early morning into the morning. That is where I literally worked on and came up with the character of Damon Salvatore. Are you driving the car while reading?

Driving the car. Oh, and at warp speed because I knew I was going to hit traffic. So I'm going like 100 miles an hour. Not super safe. Totally, no, no. I'm a dad now. I wouldn't do that shit now.

The drink is about how you got where you are. That changed your whole trajectory, right? Yes, that decision changed the entire trajectory of anything my life would ever be. You wrote something about your wife and how she saved you from a terrible business situation. Can you tell us more? Like I read your Instagram post and I was like, what happened? When you're in your thirties,

you're so much energy, you're idealistic. Listen, I don't have a college degree. I don't have a PhD or an MBA. All I knew what I could do is leverage entertainment value to create quantifiable global change. So during Vampire Diaries,

I used the money I made to finance companies that I knew would be able to create that impact. Now, the thing about it is, is going back to that little thing is, I was not a businessman. I was so busy. I was a star of a TV show. I worked 100 hours a week and I flew between 60 and 90 flights a year. What were you not seeing? I wasn't seeing that I made personal guarantees that far exceeded my own net worth. And it was a tremendous amount of capital. I'm asking you about this because that could have been crushing. What do you mean could have been? It was. It was crushing. It destroyed my life, destroyed my health. It wreaked, I mean it as a team spearheaded by my wife. Yeah. Because she

spent two years negotiating this deal out. She negotiated a path out financially, a path out for you. Yeah. I'm trying to process that someone with your fame and stardom and, you know, obviously you made a lot of money doing Vampire Diaries, I'm sure. And it was all kind of going. It was gone. It was gone. Yeah. Did someone take advantage of you, of your stardom? No, I had my eye off the ball. I trusted people that should have never been trusted. And it's the best, most expensive, most incredible lesson I've ever learned. Did it lead you to launch this? Where it came from. That's where Brothers Bond came from.

I wonder whether you also created this bourbon so that you could fuel your environmental work. You're taking part of what you're earning from all the Vampire Diary fans who are buying your bourbon, right? And you're putting it into sustainable agriculture. You have to do well and do good at the same time. Ian, can we do a quick lightning round? Yeah. Okay. Ready? Yeah. Weirdest thing about you? You know, I don't know. I had better penmanship with my toes than with my hands. What? That's weird. Okay. Best advice you ever got? In life, if you do not seek humility, it will find you. It just depends on how it finds you. Worst advice you ever got? Sign this personal guarantee. What's next for you? Being the best father and being the best husband

and being the best son in the world. Well, that's a beautiful way to end. Cheers to that. Amen. Thank you. Thanks, Kate.