This past Sunday, September 22, was the 20th anniversary of the series premiere of Lost. The series has gotten a lot of coverage in honor of this, including retrospectives, a documentary, “best of” lists, and catching up with some of its former cast members. Ian Somerhalder played Boone on the first season of Lost. After leaving the show, he starred as Damon in The Vampire Diaries, which premiered 15 years ago. Once that series was over, Ian and his wife, Nikki Reed, decided to stop acting and try their hand at livin’ la vida farm with their two kids, daughter Bodhi, six, and son Eagle, one.
Although they’ve both been fairly quiet over the past few years, Ian and Nikki have had some side hustles in the entertainment industry. Earlier this year, they executive produced a new documentary called Common Ground. Ian also reappears every so often to give interviews about why he quit acting. It must be that time again because during an interview with People to promote his partnership with Nutro, Ian talked about his time on both series and – you guessed it – why he prefers farming over acting.
On Boone’s fate leading him down this path: “Losing that, I was the first one cast and the first one killed, that was a sort of tough pill to swallow,” he explains. However, there was a bright side as his brief time filming in Hawaii further inspired his passion for environmental conservation. “I got to work on a lot of reef conservation,” he explains. “I got to work on a lot of soil and water conservation even there. This is 2004, I was already doing this, my voice just wasn’t as big. Cut to 2005, [I] left Lost, which was humbling.”
On Vampire Diaries’ success: “And then very beginning of 2009 came Vampire Diaries. And that was a rocket ship. Initially, it was a very, very, very young audience, but that audience matured and it got bigger and bigger.”
Streaming services “changed the game” for both his series: “[The Vampire Diaries] now has been seen by almost like 1.2 billion people globally,” he notes. “So if you just run those numbers, you sort of step back for a second and think about that, there’s 8 billion people on the planet, so it’s roughly about one-eighth of the people walking the face of the planet have somehow interfaced with this IP, the story. They’ve been affected by it, maybe they’ve seen it, heard about it. That’s an unparalleled platform. So if you can chain link some knowledge and passion together for me, animals and soil health regeneration at a very large scale, that’s going to be quite substantial.”
He’s thankful: Somerhalder adds that he feels “enormous gratitude” for shows like Lost and The Vampire Diaries as they gave him a platform to speak about projects close to his heart. “That path has gotten me to where I feel most authentic anyway, which is in a pair of cowboy boots, feeding the cows and running horses.”
He has other priorities now: “August 19th makes five years since I was professionally on camera as an actor/producer,” he explains. “I stepped away from that after V Wars to build these companies, launch films like Kiss the Ground, Common Ground and Ground Swell and raise my kids. I remember sitting with my management talking about this, saying, ‘Hey, this is the only thing I’ve ever known that’s ever sustained my family, and I’m walking away from it,’ at this sort of peak, could have gone and done anything, but these partnerships mean way more to me. I say this in all humility, in all respect, but I would much rather do this than go spend two months in some city, shooting a TV show away from my family or transporting my family back and forth.”
He wants to focus on family and farming: “Once you reach a certain level, you’re like, ‘Okay, I want to focus on family and the future of farming and food and energy and the big things.’ I don’t need to chase awards and anything that would make me feel better about myself,” he says. “The fact now is I get to partner with people that are launching things like the Greater Ground initiative where they’re literally holding the hands and investing in these groups of people, these farmers that are actually creating this food that our pets and us eat. That’s huge. So you go and you do all these fancy things and you realize at the end of it, it’s the grounding stuff that matters.”
Oh my goodness. That was a lot of words for someone to simply say, “My acting gigs dried up so now I love Mother Earth.” Jk jk! I think it’s great that he’s focused on his family and the future of farming. I honestly do. I’m sure a lot of working actors with young families prefer being at home with them instead of constantly traveling for film or TV shoots. Ian’s fortunate enough to have the means to be able to do that and ability to do these side projects to bring some more revenue to support this life. It wasn’t that long ago that he was in eight figure debt after a failed business. Hopefully, he’s got a good accountant in place now.
I like that Ian makes the connection between his unexpectedly leaving Lost leading to him exploring his passion for the environment which eventually culminated in his current life of family, cows, and cowboy boots. Closing doors and opening windows and all that. And although he was long winded in making his point, he has a decent platform to get the word out, so he totally should do that. I just wish he had a way of talking about all of it without sounding so damn pretentious.
photos credit: Xavier Collin / Image Press Agency / Avalon, Jeffrey Mayer / Avalon
I have always found him to be quite annoying and lacking. He’s a pretty face but its clear thats it. She seems to have more substance and talent than him.
He scares me.
I read an interview with him and his wife – talking about how they got together etc – and it was supposed to be so adorable and cute. And all it was was one red flag after another.
I had gotten out of a narcissistic relationship and the similarities to me – the things he said, how he acted etc – were so scary.
I agree. He has the depth of a puddle but fancies himself smart and deep. It’s like someone perpetually stuck in the first semester of intro to philosophy college class.
I’d forgotten how insanely beautiful he is. I have not seen either show. Evangeline Lilly is the reason I avoid Lost. I’m not really into Vampire stuff – though I did read Twilight back in the day lol
Sounds like they have a pretty great life!
He’s a repulsive, abusive guy. Remember when he admitted to flushing his wife’s birth control?
Omg I did not know this story! That is insane!
He’s given me the ick ever since that supposedly charming story about him flushing his wife’s birth control down the toilet. I hope Nikki and the kids are okay.
I don’t know how residuals work for actors on streaming platforms, which I assume Vampire Diaries is somewhere on there. But Twilight is rerun on television a lot and Nikki probably lives comfortably that way.
I watched Lost and I watched the earlier seasons of The Vampire Diaries before I fell off. I remember when he was dating Nina Dobrev, what a hot couple they were (I find it so funny Nina now is with Shaun White who I don’t find attractive really but he seems more laidback and I bet you Nina has way more fun with him). He is insanely good looking and also insanely insufferable lol. I don’t think Nikki was in demand as Ian, she did the Twilight movies and what else? Some episodes of the short lived Sleepy Hollow show. Sounds like they are happy with their homesteading/farming life (I mean Nikki is basically a tradwife now right?).
Nikki had (has?) a sustainable jewelry line that was pretty successful for a while there, and I think she got into the influencer/social media brand deals game much earlier than most of her acting peerage, so I think she was pretty comfortable money-wise on her own. She apparently fished him out of a very large debt, so she may have great money-sense that carried her through lean professional times before moving completely onto whatever they are doing now.
She also co-wrote and starred in Thirteen (when she was 13), which was directed by Catherine Hardwicke. She has been around for a while behind the scenes.
I’ll never be able to move past him admitting to throwing Nikki’s birth control pills away without her permission. Garbage person.
he came in to my job to promote the bourbon he produces with Paul Wesley. I have to say, he was so nice/un famous acting. he legit went up to every worker and introduced himself. the people with him looked annoyed he was doing that. his eyes are even prettier in person and he’s not as tall as I had thought.
Sounds like a nice person. I named my son after his character on the Vampire Diaries.
They were both in V Wars, a Netflix show, about vampires, in 2019.
It was canceled because it was crappy. It could have been good but nope.
Her acting is atrocious, his is little better.
So I think more this whole farming/tradwife switch is that they both got good while they could & that twilight/VD money is enough. He’s gross either way.
😮
He was just on tiktok live selling supplements
This article reads like something written by someone who was really into lost, likes occult adjacent shows like vampire diaries,TV, and has issues getting obsessive and weird about guys who are charming but out of their league. someone who is super jealous about the whole Ojai hipster/Father John Misty hat wearing skinny girl set.
I am guessing — but is tha author like a housewife from LA with ties to the Ojai area and body image issues who watches a lot of bad TV and is chronically online?