Unstoppable: Showrunner Julie Plec

Zombies may have stolen some of their thunder, but vampires are still taking a big bite out of primetime, thanks to showrunner Julie Plec.

She has not one, but two of the most-watched shows on the CW this fall: The Vampire Diaries and its spinoff, The Originals.

Vampire Diaries has returned for its sixth season — and not a minute too soon for young devotees breathlessly awaiting the latest adventures of protagonist Elena (Nina Dobrev), vampire Stefan (Paul Wesley) and Stefan’s brother Damon (Ian Somerhalder).

Its gothic romance, supercharged emotions and impossibly beautiful cast have proved an irresistible formula for the rabid teen fan base of the show, developed by Plec with Kevin Williamson (The Following) from the book series by L.J. Smith.

“Genre shows — at least, the ones I like — deal with universal themes of love, mortality and loss,” Plec says. “I think people like to see those deep emotional themes wrapped up in a fantasy package…. We hit a combo platter of theme and tone that really connected with our audience.” 

Plec’s ability to tap into the coveted youth demographic resonated with Warner Bros. Television, which rewarded Plec in June with a three-year overall deal to develop original shows.

And in the new Vampire Diaries season, Plec — who’s already been a development exec, producer and writer — will reach another career milestone when she makes her directorial debut. 

“It’s something I said I’d never do, ‘cause I didn’t think I’d be any good at it,” says Plec, who cops to directing a “terrible musical” at college. “But fear of being mediocre is not a reason not to take on a great challenge. I will give it everything I have.” 

Plec has had an affinity for the supernatural since childhood, growing up in the Chicago suburb of Park Forest.

An avid reader, she feasted on authors like Stephen King and Robin Cook and cites The Solid Gold Kid by Norma Fox Mazer and Harry Mazer — about kidnapped teens — as a profound early influence.

Writing did not come naturally. After tanking a playwriting class at Northwestern University (where her classmates included future showrunner Greg Berlanti), she set her sights on a development career.

Plec moved to Los Angeles with just one connection, Lisa Harrison, now her literary agent, but back then “the sorority-sister friend of a cousin,” she recalls. Harrison tapped Plec to replace her as assistant to director Wes Craven. During the shoot of Scream, Plec met Craven protégé Kevin Williamson and the two became fast friends.

As an associate producer on Scream 2, she assisted Williamson with writing chores.

She then joined his production company as a producing partner, working on shows like Dawson’s Creek and Wasteland.

In the kind of symmetry that marks Plec’s personal life, she also jump-started the writing career of former classmate Berlanti, who wrote early on for Dawson’s Creek, and did likewise for Damon Lindelof (The Leftovers), whose early credits include Wasteland.

Helping Williamson make TV shows led Plec to a life-changing epiphany. “Everything I was doing was helping the writers,” she recalls.  “I was writing for television and didn’t even realize it.  At that point, my career shifted — I can write, I enjoy writing. I’m a fan and storyteller at the same time, so I wanted to make the kind of TV I wanted to watch. To do that, I needed to be a showrunner.”

In 2006, while producing the ABC Family show Kyle XY, Plec was given a script assignment, which led to several more.

She rose to coexecutive producer and in 2009, riding the wave of the Twilight craze, she and Williamson launched Vampire Diaries.

In 2013 Plec spun off The Originals, which follows the Original vampire family introduced on Vampire Diaries.

She also became an executive producer on Berlanti’s CW series Tomorrow People, giving her a remarkable TV trifecta: three shows on the same network.

Though Tomorrow People did not get a second-season pickup, Plec’s plate remains more than full. The Vampire Diaries and The Originals, now in season two, are written in L.A. and shot in Atlanta, giving Plec a 2,000-mile commute.

Despite crazy hours that can find her working till 6 a.m., she manages to sleep a full eight-hour shift, a necessity she calls “my personal turnaround time.”

A self-described workaholic, Plec is unmarried and has no kids or pets.

“When you work this hard with people,” she says, “they have to become your family.” The Vampire Diaries family extends to the show’s legion of fans, which include Plec’s 550,000 Twitter followers.

Plec feels a responsibility to her fans and has an innate sense of what drives them.

Consider that, as a child in the 1980s, she had escapist fantasies of being kidnapped with the pop band Duran Duran and “running away from home with the 7-Eleven kid who turns out to be River Phoenix,” she recounts, laughing.

“It’s wish fulfillment in extremis,” she continues. “Because nobody really wants to be kidnapped or fall in love with a vampire, but they do want powerful, epic, eternal feelings of love.”

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Read the full story in emmy magazine issue no. 8-14 in digital and print versions.