{"id":938369,"date":"2026-07-16T07:36:24","date_gmt":"2026-07-16T07:36:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/938369\/"},"modified":"2026-07-16T07:36:24","modified_gmt":"2026-07-16T07:36:24","slug":"former-tv-star-says-shows-cancelation-was-what-forced-him-to-finally-quit-hollywood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/938369\/","title":{"rendered":"Former TV star says show\u2019s cancelation was what forced him to finally quit Hollywood"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Lost<\/a> star Ian Somerhalder<\/a> has reflected on his decision to quit acting, saying his experience working with Netflix persuaded him to leave the industry behind.<\/p>\n

The 47-year-old Louisiana-born former actor first found fame in the Dawson\u2019s Creek spin-off Young Americans and the 2002 Bret Easton Ellis adaptation The Rules of Attraction. He subsequently landed a key role on ABC\u2019s enigmatic drama Lost and later starred on the CW series The Vampire Diaries<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In 2019, Somerhalder took the lead role in the Netflix series V Wars, but the vampire horror series was canceled after a single season.<\/p>\n

Speaking about the experience on the Haley on the Go podcast<\/a>, Somerhalder said he \u201cworked really hard\u201d on the series and was disappointed when an initial cut \u201cwasn\u2019t even watchable.\u201d <\/p>\n

After Netflix turned down his request for money for reshoots, Somerhalder recalled that he raised over $6 million himself in order to shoot \u201c10 or 12 hours of footage in six days.\u201d <\/p>\n

\"IanIan Somerhalder, pictured in 2024 in Aspen, Colorado, retired from acting after the cancelation of Netflix\u2019s \u2018V Wars\u2019 (Greg Doherty\/Getty Images for St. Regis)<\/p>\n

After successful reshoots, the show was released and found an audience. \u201cYou give everything, and then the show was a hit,\u201d Somerhalder recalled. \u201cWe built a show that was No. 1 in 103 territories out of 120 territories. It was a big deal.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, despite this success the show was quietly canceled by Netflix executives shortly afterward. Somerhalder said the decision convinced him it was time to leave acting behind.<\/p>\n

\u201cI pulled the plug. That was it. I walked away,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n

After quitting acting, Somerhalder moved to a farm in Southern California where he focuses on sustainable farming. He also co-founded Brother’s Bond Bourbon with his former The Vampire Diaries co-star Paul Wesley<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Despite business struggles and significant debt, Somerhalder told the podcast he has no plans to return to acting. <\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s in the rearview mirror. I do,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"Somerhalder,Somerhalder, pictured here in 2025, co-founded Brother’s Bond Bourbon with his former \u2018The Vampire Diaries\u2019 co-star Paul Wesley (Getty)<\/p>\n

Back in 2024, Somerhalder admitted that he now regrets some of his behavior while appearing on Lost.<\/a><\/p>\n

Speaking to People, he said: \u201cI don\u2019t think I would really change anything other than maybe with Lost.\u201d<\/p>\n

He continued: \u201cI maybe complained about craft service or something, showed up late twice, actually really late once. I was so tired from the night before, I slept through my alarms. That\u2019s about as far as I can go.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the time, he said of his decision to call time on acting to concentrate on raising a family with his wife, Twilight actor Nikki Reed, that: \u201cOnce you reach a certain level, you\u2019re like, \u2018Okay, I want to focus on family and the future of farming and food and energy and the big things.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":938370,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[33],"tags":[63967,13890,377850,82814,185,1002,97251,79,171,6675,117,1005,145849,37258,54073,12813,377849,54075,3546,3092,54079,66742,10256,67,132,68,9963],"class_list":["post-938369","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-arts-culture-and-entertainment","tag-bottle","tag-bourbon-whiskey","tag-business-finance-and-industry","tag-celebrities","tag-color-image","tag-dusseldorf","tag-economy","tag-entertainment","tag-finance-and-economy","tag-germany","tag-horizontal","tag-ian-somerhalder","tag-lifestyles","tag-looking-at-camera","tag-merchandise","tag-north-rhine-westphalia","tag-one-person","tag-people","tag-photography","tag-smiling","tag-three-quarter-length","tag-tradeshow","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us","tag-wine"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/938369","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=938369"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/938369\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/938370"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=938369"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=938369"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=938369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}