Actor Ian Somerhalder has accumulated quite a lot of fans through the years through his work in shows like The Vampire Diaries and Lost—he’s got over 15 million followers on Instagram, just to give one metric. But those 15 million loyal might not recognize the star in the first few episodes of his new Netflix show V-Wars, because he broke his nose in a rather involved way.
Somerhalder, 38, was at Joshua Tree, and jumped up in the air to catch a glow-in-the-dark LED frisbee. He caught it, but ended up with some major collateral damage: he face-planted, landing right on the moneymaker. “I look like a different person,” he says in Ian Somerhalder vs. The Internet, the latest edition of the Men’s Health video series. “My nose was about that big. The swelling went down, but it took about five months.”
Luckily, he looked like himself again in time to film the end of V-Wars, his second consecutive TV project centered on vampires after a decade playing Damon on The Vampire Diaries. Where he plays a scientist trying to protect the public from a vampire outbreak in the new series, the older one saw him as a much larger character, a villain who eventually became an anti- and even regular hero of sorts. Often, even, fans would forgive some bad things that Damon would do.
He’s hot when he’s being sassy, he’s hot when he’s mad, he’s hot when he’s killing people, one YouTube comment reads.
“No one should be hot when they are killing people, but somehow Damon made it possible,” Somerhalder says about his own character.
His Vs. the Internet touches on a handful of other vital topics, like hanging with Aquaman (“If you have the choice of sitting on Jason Momoa‘s lap, you just do it.”), training routines (he goes to the gym 4-5 times a week, but plans on ramping up for V-Wars), and how a girlfriend can convince a boyfriend to join her at Yoga (“Your boyfriend should want to do yoga with you,” he says).
But the 41-year-old actor sounds the most excited when talking about the eating routines that he’s adapted through the years. When an Instagram commented asked how it can be that he eats something every hour, he practically begs anyone to listen: if you eat something once an hour, your body stays “lean and mean and on fire,” he clarifies, before also giving a pitch for intermittent fasting.
“It’s really good for your system, and your soul,” he says. “You do get a little hungry, but man, you feel great. And it works.” A strong pitch, because who doesn’t like feeling great? A universal concept.
“And, by the way,” he says, seemingly remembering one last important factor at the last moment. “It’s cheap!”