Who Played Young Damon and Young Stefan?

August 08, 2024

When you have a show that runs for eight seasons about vampires, producers, writers, and directors have a lot of directions to go in. No vampire show would be complete without an origin story.

The Vampire Diaries harkened back to Civil War-era Mystic Falls, Virginia, on a few occasions. One such sojourn occurred during the episode “Mommie Dearest,” toward the beginning of the show’s penultimate seventh season.

Young Damon and Young Stefan appear once in the entire series

Vampires would have issues with their parents for, well, longer than most people (just watch The Originals to find out more).

By this point in the series, Lily Salvatore (played masterfully by Annie Wersching of Star Trek: Picard, Timeless, and 24) had been back for several episodes, revealing to her now-grown sons that she didn’t die in 1863.

Damon and Stefan were busy interrogating her because they were dealing with Julian, whose behavior reminds them of their father’s, which triggers a flashback to the time before they were turned.

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In the flashback, Giuseppe Salvatore blames the brothers for stealing money. Damon initially denies they did it. He didn’t believe him, so Damon confesses to protect his younger brother from his father’s wrath. Giuseppe punishes Damon by extinguishing a cigar on his arm.

Fast forward to the present day, and Damon realizes that Lily stole the money. She was going to use the money to escape Mystic Falls and Giuseppe’s rage. Unfortunately, things didn’t go as planned.

Young Damon was played by Gavin Casalegno

In keeping with the true Italian tradition of the Salvatore brothers, young Damon was played by Gavin Casalegno.

Following his lone appearance on The Vampire Diaries, Casalegno appeared in Nine Seconds as Cole Jackson, in a horror flick The Unhealer, as Reed, as Trevor Strand in Walker, and most recently as Jeremiah Fisher in Amazon’s critically acclaimed series The Summer I Turned Pretty, according to IMDb.

Look for Casalegno to reprise his role in season 2 of the series based on Jenny Han’s bestselling coming-of-age young adult fiction books, according to Glamour.

Young Stefan was played by Luke Judy

Luke Judy hasn’t quite become a household name in some acting circles yet. He’s just 15 and has quite an acting career ahead of him if he chooses.

Most notably, he played Evan Huang’s best friend Zack in nine episodes of Fresh Off the Boat. He played Gretchen Carlson’s son in Bombshell, the 2019 movie about the toxic culture of Fox News, according to IMDb. Gretchen was played by Academy Award-winning A-lister Nicole Kidman.

His older sister, Savannah Judy, has appeared in several projects alongside him, including 2020’s A Soldier’s Revenge starring Neal Bledsoe (The Man in the High Castle) and featuring Val Kilmer.

If the two boys wish to continue acting, they have a good start to their careers. Best of luck to them as they seek their place in the world.

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