‘Vampire Diaries’ Season 7 Spoilers: Paul Wesley Talks Nina Dobrev’s Exit; Will Stefan Leave Next?

“The Vampire Diaries” Season 6 might not be the end of cast members leaving. Nina Dobrev (Elena) left the show in the finale, and Paul Wesley recently shared that he doesn’t plan to stay on the CW drama forever either.

“I think everything has to come to an end, man. First of all I'm playing a 17-year-old. I'm 32 years old,” Wesley told People.

While it sounds like the New Jersey native, who plays vampire Stefan Salvatore on the series, wants to eventually leave the show, it doesn’t sound like it will be an immediate exit. “So theoretically, if I were to stay on the show for say three more years, I would be a 35 year old playing a 17 year old, which is almost double. It's more than double. It's literally more than double!” he explained.

Wesley noted that while he respected his co-star Dobrev’s decision to leave, it will have a huge impact on “The Vampire Diaries” Season 7. “Obviously there's a great nostalgia. It’s never going to be the same,” he said. “I have no idea what they're going to do next year, literally. Apparently they have a plan. I don't know what the plan is. It's going to be really interesting. It will be interesting to see what they come up with for the brothers.”

As previously reported, Season 7 will focus on Wesley's character Stefan and Ian Somerhalder’s character Damon Salvatore. It seems the writers may have told Wesley’s onscreen brother a little bit more about Season 7. “The story is just going to change form and I think that we get to go back to this really awesome dark, edgy, volatile [story]—all the s--- that we all love,” Somerhalder recently told Entertainment Weekly.

That dark storyline will force the boys to come together to fight their own mother, Lily (Annie Wersching). Her family of heretics (vampire/witch hybrids) are going to cause trouble for the Salvatore brothers. “We're teeing up the big crisis of Season 7, which is Salvatore's family versus Lily Salvatore's heretic family,” executive producer Julie Plec teased to the Hollywood Reporter. “They're going to be the main conflict of Season 7 once we launch into it.”

With so much focus on Damon and Stefan, it seems like they’ll both have to stick around “The Vampire Diaries” for a while longer.

“The Vampire Diaries” Season 7 will premiere in the fall on the CW. Do you think the show could survive the loss of another cast member or should they call it quits if one of the brothers decides to leave? Sound off in the comments section below!