Nina Dobrev is going a little crazy. The actress plays the dual roles of sweet, innocent Elena and evil, naughty vampire Katherine on the CW’s “The Vampire Diaries,” which finally will return Jan. 27 with a new episode. It’s a challenging job that at one point this season called for Dobrev to play opposite herself during a tense heart-to-heart between Elena and Katherine, as well as play Katherine during her human days in 1400s Bulgaria, Katherine masquerading as a Brit and Katherine as a newly made vampire all in one episode.

It’s not easy, and I think I’m slowly becoming a schizophrenic because of it,” Dobrev said during the CW’s Kick-Ass Women panel at the TCA Press Tour last week. At a cocktail party after the event, she spoke further with a small group of reporters, including Show Tracker, about getting to play two such diametrically opposed characters. Elena, I get to do a lot of emotional scenes. She goes through such a roller-coaster ride,” she said. “With Katherine, I just get to [mess] with everyone. I just get to play around and have fun and be bad and get away with things that all throughout my life I’ve been taught by my parents not to do. Now I get paid for it.

But it might not stop with Elena and Katherine. Could Dobrev be playing a third character at some point? “Hypothetically,” she said. “Because Katherine is the first doppelganger, that means there was one before her. So I guess we’ll what happens.” She’s up for the challenge too even though she’s got her hands “very full right now” with two roles. “I’m sure it would be interesting,” she said.

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