Colin Ferguson Talks Haven, The Vampire Diaries, and Eureka [Exclusive] 

[Warning: General spoilers ahead.]

Haven returns to regularly scheduled mayhem this week with the return of everybody’s favorite bad boy, William. In part two of our chat with Colin Ferguson, he talks about coming back to be a sh-t disturber and discusses his time on The Vampire Diaries and  Eureka. Because I suck, I completely forgot to ask him about his Maytag campaign. I KNOW.

Ferguson was thrilled to step back into the role of William, and super grateful that the role was everything he’d been promised. “What I love is that way back in the beginning when [they pitched him], it was this wonderful, gorgeous storyline with detail and nuance and backstory, and I said, ‘sure,’ thinking there’s no way [it would come to pass],” he recalls.

“[I was sure] it’d be a third of that. But they actually did it. It’s so rare when somebody pitches you a part and you say yes and they actually do everything they say. It was amazing. For all his lack of scruples, what a fun character to play. So to come back, when they said they’d love to have me back for another two episodes and…sort of come full circle. I thought, for sure, I’d love to do it. I loved those days with Lucas [Bryant].”

Last season, around the time we first met William on Haven, Ferguson did an arc on The Vampire Diaries and was pleasantly surprised by all involved. “I wasn’t quite sure what to expect because of the unbelievable popularity of that show. I was a bit shocked by how kind everybody was,” he says. “That is really a family. All the actors, the writers, the producers. They help each other on so many levels. They’re so kind to each other. My big takeaway was how grounded everybody still was. I tip my hat to Julie [Plec] for setting that tone right out of the gate. She’s an amazing. amazing lady.”

“Atlanta has had a huge boom now, and back then [when The Vampire Diaries started], they were breaking in everything with that town, and that makes you sort of bind together. After [they wrap an episode], they go hang out together. I did eight episodes, and they had done six seasons, and they really were generous with everything I was going through as a new father. I was really struggling with how to be away and they were so helpful, flying [my son] in and making it happen. I really appreciated everything they did. [I think] that’s why it’s such a popular show–because they are such kind, kind people.”

Working on TVD in Atlanta and witnessing the closeness of a cast and crew working outside of LA was reminiscent of Ferguson’s time on Eureka, which filmed just outside Vancouver before its own boom. “Vancouver then wasn’t what Vancouver is now. Our crew was a lot of The X-Files crew, and back then it was a really small town,” he explains.

Eureka wrapped up in 2012, and Ferguson is happy with the way the show ended. “Our last two seasons, we did 18 and 20 episodes. When the word came in that we were done, we were exhausted. But we were really pleased that Jaime [Paglia] went to the network and [asked for one more], and they gave him another episode to wrap it up,” he says. “We were really grateful to the network for that. I loved the way that it wrapped up. That was the best stuff that we were doing in seasons 5 and 6, so to go out doing the best stuff that you did was the way you want to go out. We didn’t stay too long at the dance, that’s for sure.”

Haven airs Thursdays at 10/9c on Syfy. Click here for a sneak peek of Thursday’s episode, “Close to Home,” which features a long-awaited scene of domestic calm before the latest storm. The episode also finds Nathan making a dramatic choice to save the town, while Audrey is less-than-welcoming when Duke finally returns home.