Nina Dobrev won't appear in final season of The Originals

Nina Dobrev will not be returning to her supernatural roots — at least not on the small screen.

Some fans had hoped that Dobrev, who starred as Elena Gilbert (and her doppelgängers) on The CW’s The Vampire Diaries might reprise her role in the fifth and final season of the show’s spin-off, The Originals. But the actress squelched those hopes during a recent interview with EW, saying, “No, I will not be on The Originals, no.”

Asked if she would ever want to head back to Mystic Falls, Dobrev says she has her eye on other projects, “We literally just wrapped a few months ago. I doubt that would be in the books for me,” she says. “But, yeah, no, I’ve been so busy with all kinds of other things going on right now that I don’t know that I’d be able to sign on.”

And she has another reason. “I’m not a young twenty-something anymore. I don’t think I could play a vampire,” she adds, laughing. “I’m getting old.”

Back in March, Julie Plec, who served as showrunner for both Vampire Diaries and The Originals, suggested the possibility of a revival in the distant future. “I could see our universes coming together in five years, 10 years, when people miss the shows,” Plec told EW. “There’s still stories to be told for The Originals that our characters here very smoothly and seamlessly fit into, so if we don’t get to do that while The Originals is still on the air, I think that one day, if somebody wanted it badly enough, it could exist.”

At least fans will be able to catch Dobrev on the big screen this fall; she stars in the remake of the 1990 paranormal film Flatliners, alongside Ellen Page, Diego Luna, and James Norton. Flatliners opens in theaters on Sept. 29.