Julie Plec Got Her Best Negotiating Hack From Shonda Rhimes

When Julie Plec was 22, manning a desk at a Hollywood production company, she never could’ve imagined her legacy.

The 53-year-old director, writer, and producer is responsible for some of TV’s most enduring fandoms, having worked on the sets of Dawson’s Creek and Riverdale, and most notably, created The Vampire Diaries in 2009 and its spinoffs, Legacies and The Originals. The supernatural romance drama was so well-received that years after it ended, global TVD-themed fan events are still held, and audiences continue to make travel plans inspired by the fictional town of Mystic Falls. (In 2022, police had to shut down an event with the two male leads, Ian Somerhalder and Paul Wesley, since too many fans showed up.)

Back in the day, adding a supernatural element made shows more marketable to Hollywood execs — a strategy that Plec well. But with the Prime series We Were Liars, out June 18, she’s getting back to basics. “All I ever want to do in my career is tell stories about young love, longing, friendship, and family,” Plec says.

Adapted from the 2014 psychological thriller by E. Lockhart, the series follows amnesiac Cadence Sinclair (Emily Alyn Lind) as she uncovers the secrets of her past. “I’ve been waiting for a story that had the same sort of high-stakes, propulsive, twisty, and turny elements as my former work, without supernatural creatures in it,” Plec says. “Although, as [my co-creator] Carina MacKenzie would say, the show is not without its monsters.”

Ahead, Plec doles out career advice, chats We Were Liars, and reflects on her Vampire Diaries decisions.

What liberties did you take when adapting the novel?

We took an almost prosaic, poetic first-person narrative about a girl with amnesia, and turned it into a full-sweeping family saga.

We had a prequel book to work with for backstory on the adult characters. We pulled from our CW training days and came up with some great Martha’s Vineyard-[esque], rich people events that didn’t exist in the book. And then it was really about the math of how to structure it so the audience would get the surprises in all the right ways.

In the books world, romantasy is widely popular now. Given your experience on shows like Supernatural, is that genre of interest to you — something you might consider adapting?

It is, and it isn’t. I have A Court of Roses & Thorns on my Kindle, and I began The Fourth Wing and was enjoying it. I feel like I’m getting prude-ier in my old age, and the spice in these books is making me laugh. So maybe I would be happier to do romantasy minus a little bit of the super spice. Then again, you never know. Everybody likes a good hot sex scene.

Vampire Diaries was primarily a YA love story. Was there ever a point in your career when you felt judged because of its genre?

The CW was so great because they nurtured the genre, both on the comic book and supernatural side, and occasionally on the coming-of-age, no-monsters-involved side. During those years, we worked with these incredible artists who made hundreds of hours of television. It wasn't just cheap schlock, who-cares TV.

I’ve tried to carry all of those people along on every project that I do, and without fail, every time I go to another streamer or company, they turn up their noses a little bit at some of those resumes. I get frustrated and say to the executives, “Don’t judge their resume because all they have are CW shows. The reason all they have are CW shows is because they’re loyal to me, and that’s where I was, and we spent the last 15 years together doing beautiful work. So you’re punishing them for sticking around with me.” So, that’s the biggest hurdle.

You still advocate for those who worked in the Vampire Diaries universe?

I’m always looking for ways to tell everybody else about how gifted they are. My favorite thing that happens is when I’m in a chat group with other TV writers who are like, “Oh, does anybody know a great production designer or a great editor?” And then I can jump right in with my list of all my favorites.

I love that. I recall you once saying that if CW had its way, the original cast would have looked very different. How did you advocate for Nina, Ian, and Paul?

Vampire Diaries had a very specific casting dynamic because [writer and director] Kevin [Williamson] had a lot of power at that moment in time. He had had a magnificent run in the late ’90s and early 2000s in his career. We brought him back to TV after Dawson’s Creek for the first time, and the people paying our bills were huge Dawson’s Creek fans, and so he could do things like say, “This is how it’s going to be, or I quit.” Ultimately, that’s how he was able to keep Ian in the show as Damon, despite Ian tanking that audition, as he talks about all the time.

With Nina, we started the process believing Elena needed to be blonde, just like the girl in the books, and Nina had to fight to get us to look at her. But the minute we took a good look, we were like, "Oh, we're so dumb. Why did we wait so long to even see how perfect she was?"

And with Paul, neither of us saw it. It was other people who had to fight us to put Paul in the role, which I talked about a lot with him, so he understands that we were the dumb ones because the first day on set, when he opened his mouth and started to act, Kevin and I looked at each other and said, “Oh my God, we were so wrong, and how lucky are we that we got him?”

Vampire Diaries had very opinionated and loyal fandoms. How do you navigate that?

We should all be so lucky to have the intense fandom of the Vampire Diaries universe, because that is the reason why I remain in any kind of demand to be able to do what I do.

But with it comes the harder and meaner parts. As you go through it enough times, what I’ve had to teach myself is to stop searching for validation [in] what other people think of me and find creative validation in two things: One is, do they like what you’re doing? And two, did you like what you did, and did you have a good time with it along the way? I try to make the process as enjoyable as possible so that the external stuff — if it’s ugly, or not what I wanted to hear — doesn’t ruin the fact that I had a really good time doing it.

The fandom has strong opinions on who should have ended up with whom and who shouldn't have died. Looking back, do you have any regrets about any deaths on the show?

Had I been looking at the show through the lens of somebody who wasn't a white Midwestern girl in that particular era, there’s a handful of deaths that sent a message I didn’t mean to send. Grams dying so early was really traumatic for Bonnie Bennett, and then [she lost] her parents and Enzo. The constant torture of that character was born out of us knowing how good [Kat Graham] was at crying. But we were so dumb and not really taking into [account] that she was the only Black character on the show. Things like that, I wish I could go back and handle with more sensitivity.

Conversely, is there a character that you think overstayed its welcome?

You could poll a bunch of people, and they would say Matt Donovan, and I will argue to the day I die that Matt needed to live. He represented the humans of Mystic Falls. He represented hope that the community could carry on and survive no matter what got thrown its way.

Given the opportunity, which plot line or character would you love to flesh out more?

I thought Legacies had years of potential, and if the CW hadn’t sold itself, we might’ve gotten those years. It was teed up perfectly to keep the Vampire Diaries franchise alive, and it makes me sad that we abruptly had to stop. I would always be happy to tell more stories about Katherine Pierce.

I wish I could have told a second season of Containment, one of my favorite babies. Especially now, having just survived Covid, there was a lot more story to tell. I could list about 30 things I’d like to do more of, but right now, I’ll just cross my fingers for a second season of We Were Liars.

How have you handled rejection throughout your career?

I’ve been pretty lucky in that when I set my mind to getting something made or a story told, I usually win that battle. That being said, it doesn’t always make it to air or find success. And that rejection, whether from the company or the audience, never fails to hurt. I have learned to remind myself that art and entertainment are two very subjective things, and what is right for one person or streamer might not be right for another. It doesn’t mean you’ve failed or that you're a failure. It just means that the moment was not your moment.

Working as a woman in Hollywood is notoriously difficult. What’s the best advice you can give women who want to excel in male-dominated fields like yours?

Because I’m an opinionated person, I’ve always talked. I’ve talked over people, I’ve interrupted people. I have battled for my space at the table. I have gone to war — not as a woman, but as one voice in the room. You don’t have to defend yourself against men interrupting you, marginalizing you, and demeaning you. Just get in there and be the warrior that you are, and not worry about whether it annoys them that you’re interrupting them. Say what’s on your mind, do your job, be a badass, and stop worrying so much about feeling demeaned.

You have likely been in so many situations where you had to negotiate for higher budgets or higher pay. Do you have any foolproof negotiating tips?

I have to give my props to the queen, Shonda [Rhimes], who I believe has said publicly that the first thing her dad ever taught her about negotiations is you absolutely, positively have to be ready to walk away. If you are willing to walk away and say goodbye, no matter how much you love the project, then you will always get as close to the desired result as is possible.

The best deal is the deal that leaves both sides a little bit disappointed. Because you can want something and it can be unreasonable, but if you’re willing to come down off the unreasonable aspect of your ask, fight, and be willing to walk away, you can usually get to where you need to be.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.