Leo Howard may be romancing Lucy Liu on CBS All Access series Why Women Kill this summer, but he is heading to The Vampire Diaries spinoff series Legacies in the fall to bring relationship drama to the iconic town of Mystic Falls. The actor was announced as one of the latest additions to the cast of The CW series, which serves as a sequel to the mythology and some of the characters from the beloved franchise, comprised of TVD and The Originals.
The news of Howard’s casting first broke in late August. He is set to join the cast as Ethan, the son of the town’s new Sheriff Mac (Dawson’s Creek‘s Bianca Kajlich). TVLine describes the character as a “competitive athlete and good-hearted new student at Mystic Falls High School.”
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In a conversation with PopCulture.com, Howard teased the potential drama coming to the show courtesy of Ethan and his sister Maya (The Fosters alum, Bianca Santos) both starting to develop romantic feelings for Hope Mikaelson (Danielle Rose Russell).
“I play the sheriff’s son and we’re fairly new in town, and me and my sister fall for the same girl,” Howard told PopCulture.com in a phone interview Aug. 29. “And so that’s where I’m at right now in the show. And the girl is Hope Mikaelson, who’s the main girl in the show.”
While the relationship drama will have to wait for the resolution of Hope (spoiler alert) effectively dying in the Season 1 finale, fans can expect the relationship antics to be a big piece of the series’ second season. Knowing that characters in the Vampire Diaries universe are never truly gone forever is just one of the realities established in the Julie Plec-created franchise.
“Julie Plec has really put her stamp on building that world out and that’s really cool. Like going into that, I’d seen it before but I really dug into it when I obviously got cast in it,” Howard said, adding he breezed through the first two shows in the franchise. “The world that she has built on mythology and vampires, it’s really cool. She has a very modern take on it, which I like.”
Along with the Howard and Santos, Kajlich joins the cast as Sheriff Mac, described as “the human line of defense in a town regularly besieged by monsters. Despite a troubled past, she’s willing to open herself up to a new romance when the opportunity arises.” The description seems to hint the sheriff will be romancing Alaric Saltzman (Matt Davis). The series will also welcome Descendants star Thomas Doherty as a brooding new vampire and Alexis Denisof (Angel) as a British sorcerer named Professor Vardemus.
Legacies is centered around Hope Mikaelson, daughter of Klaus Mikaelson (The Originals‘ Joseph Morgan) and Hayley Marshall (Phoebe Tonkin). Starting two years after the events of The Originals, 17-year-old Hope attends the Salvatore School for the Young and Gifted and fights the different supernatural beings targeting the once peaceful town of Mystic Falls.
Legacies Season 2 premiere Thursday, Oct. 10 at 9 p.m. ET on The CW. Why Women Kill releases new episodes Thursdays on CBS All Access.
