'V Wars' Season 1 sees Nikki Reed get her first co-starring role with Ian Somerhalder. Here's what we know about her character
When the trailer for 'V Wars', starring Ian Somerhalder and Adrian Holmes, was released a few days ago, fans got one major surprise. Somerhalder's wife, actress Nikki Reed, appeared in the tiniest clip. Soon, it was announced that she will be playing a character named Rachel.
Both Somerhalder and Reed are American vampire genre royalty. Somerhalder rose to star status with his role as Damon Salvatore on 'The Vampire Diaries', while Reed's claim to fame was playing Edward's sister, Rosalie Hale, in 'The Twilight Saga' movies.
Somerhalder plays the lead role of Dr. Luther Swann in the show. In 'V Wars', based on the comics of the same name by Jonathan Maberry who also serves as executive producer, a virus causing vampirism has been released due to the melting of polar ice caps. The virus causes mutation of a dormant gene in some humans, causing them to turn into vampires.
Some vampires are deadly and violent, while some are peaceful and co-exist with those who haven't turned. However, a war breaks about between the human and vampire factions as the leaders of each tries to take control -- leaving civilians to bear the brunt of the violence and bloodshed.
Luther is a scientist, who is working on finding a cure and is considered to be the foremost expert on vampires, having written many books. He is a pacifist and is against the use of violence, and in the comics, he primarily tries to mediate between the two factions hoping they come to a peace agreement. In the series, we don't know what the politics will look like yet, but we do know that Michael Fayne -- Patient Zero -- is his best friend, the one for whom he's trying to find a cure.
Another thing we know about Luther from the comics is that his little daughter turned into a violent vampire and kills his son and ex-wife -- something we learn from flashbacks. It looks like the series might avoid this gruesome plotline and instead, Luther might just have a son.
This is where Nikki Reed comes in as we think that she might be playing his wife -- who may or may not be deceased. In the shot in the trailer, we see Luther and Rachel touching their foreheads. It is most likely that we will see Rachel only in Luther's flashbacks and it could turn out that she may have been killed prior to the events of the series.
'V Wars' will release on Netflix on December 5th.