Ian Somerhalder was the star of “The Vampire Diaries” when it was all the rage. Now, he’s left Los Angeles in his rear-view mirror and moved to a farm in Southern California on which he and his wife, actress Nikki Reed of “Twilight” fame, can better raise their young children and focus on family instead of the trappings and glitter of fame and fortune in LA.
As background, Somerhalder and Reed have a young daughter, age 6, and an even younger son, six months old. In a previous interview about the farm, Somerhalder, now 45, said that stepping away from acting and Hollywood helped him focus on “I stepped away from acting a little over four years ago to raise my kids, build my companies and get these films launched.”
In that older interview he also noted that living on the land gives one a better sense of what it means to leave a better world for one’s children, saying, “By using healthy soil management practices, we are building a secure future today, or tomorrow. And once you do have children, you realize I am no longer alone here. I am leaving this to my children.”
Now, Somerhalder is speaking about living on a farm again. He did so in a January 11 interview with E! News, during which he spoke about acting and moving away from it. He said, “I love what I did for a really long time.” He continued, “I love making films, I just did it for so long. We had an amazing run.”
Continuing, Somerhalder said that set life was nice because it was like a “community” and a “family.” However, he quickly added that he has a new, actually family now, saying when turning to his wife Nikki Reed, “But this is our 2.0 version.”
Then, turning back from their former careers as actors to current life on the farm, Nikki told E!, “When you see the way that nature operates, you find compassion.” She added, “It’s a beautiful thing to see what’s happening with children, to watch them participate in the growing of their food and the understanding of what food is and where it comes from.”
Continuing, she connected their simpler life on the farm to caring about the state of the environment, saying, “I started connecting the dots between what you do for the planet and what you do for yourself.” She added, “It’s become a way of living so much simpler.”
Somerhalder spoke somewhat similarly about focusing on the environment in his previous interview about the farm, saying, “You have the ability every day you walk out of your house to have the single most powerful vote on the planet, which is to vote with your dollar. What companies are you going to support? Are those companies good stewards of not just the environment, but of the communities that support that?”
In that older interview, he also said that working on the farm is real work, saying, “Walking through the farm with kids and dogs and family. Every stop, you’re pulling off of trees or off of bushes, pulling up out of the ground and feeding everyone as you’re moving through the farm.”
Featured image credit: Featured image credit: By Super Festivals from Ft. Lauderdale, USA – C02460, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=135352224
"*" indicates required fields