After hearing one of their stars speaking a foreign language on set, the writers of this spooky series were inspired.

In a scene from a recent episode of “Vampire Diaries,” the episode flashes back to a young Katherine (played by Canadian star Nina Dobrev) in Bulgaria in the 1400s.

According to “Vampire Diaries” star Nina Dobrev, who was born in Sofia, Bulgaria in 1989 and later moved to Canada, the writers of the show decided to add a new layer of depth to the character of Katherine after overhearing the actress converse with her mother over the phone in her native language.

“The next thing I knew, it was in the episode” says Dobrev during an interview with CTV.ca.

But while the actress is fluent in Bulgarian, the writers of “Vampire Diaries” are not, and when the original Bulgarian dialog was presented to Dobrev, she thinks they used an “internet translator” to get the dialog right.

“Half of it didn’t make sense… and I couldn’t make sense of it. So I called my mom and we translated it together, and afterwards once we actually did it, the editors called me and needed my help because they had no idea what I was saying,” says Dobrev, who appreciated the chance to get involved behind-the-scenes.

“When you are on a TV show every single day, you get to know all the crew members, you get to know the director of photography, and they start explaining different shots to you. I’ve really learned a lot about it, and at some point I’d like to write or direct,” says Dobrev.

“The two characters I’m playing on the show now are quite substantial and quite enough for me at the moment.”

Now in its second season, “Vampire Diaries” continues to skew away from the show’s source material, the original “Vampire Diaries” series by L.J. Smith, which were published in the early 90s, well before the “Twilight” trend.

The new season has provided more opportunity for Dobrev to stretch her acting skills and portray more of her second character on the series, the vampire Katherine, along with her original role as the teen-aged Elena.

The series is filmed in Atlanta.

Full episodes of “The Vampire Diaries” are available online at CTV.ca.