Vampire Diaries: 6 Iconic Jeremy Moments

"Jeremy was such a little punk in Season 1, which was actually really fun to play," McQueen admits. "I just got to be like, 'Aaah! I'm angry!' ... This was also my first time as a series regular — I was 19 when we shot the pilot — so I was surrounded by all these actors who really knew what they were doing. They took me under their wings and showed me the ropes, and it was a lovely experience."

"Beremy" apparently heated up much faster than originally planned, thanks to a little improv. McQueen recalls, "I talked to Kat [Graham] before we shot the scene, and I was like, 'You know what? This would be a really cool moment just to kiss you.' And she was like, 'All right, let's try it! Should we tell the writers?' And I was like, 'No, they're going to tell us not to. Let's just do it.' So we ended up doing it, and they liked it, so they kept it. It was a cool moment as an actor to take a risk and have it pay off like that."

McQueen admits the Bonnie-Jeremy-Anna triangle was rough. "When you're a kid, love is confusing," he says. "Anna had taken him under her wing at a difficult time; he had just lost Vicki, and she was there for him. Then he started being with Bonnie, who had been around him his entire life. At the end of the day, I think he really loves Bonnie, but when you're young, you're all mixed up."

McQueen says the producers asked him to start working out in Season 4, "so when the shirt-rip scene came, I thought, 'OK, I can get a little self-indulgent for a moment. It'll be a little cheesy, but it's awesome.' Everyone cracked jokes at me on set, but it was a fun moment. It was a nice moment for Jeremy to Hulk out. ... The shirt was pre-ripped, and I was like, 'Come on, I can rip it myself!' And they were like, 'This is a TV show, Steven.'"

"The phone call was scheduled to be filmed later in the week, but then they moved it up, so I was kind of surprised," McQueen admits. "But it turned out really well. The running scene happened at, like, five in the morning; we were trying to finish it before the sun came up, so they were literally like, 'Just run around in the woods and scream 'Bonnie!' I was like, 'OK, let's do it.' When you're shooting a show, there's so much that comes together, so you just have to go with it."

"I can't go into too much detail [about the last scene I shot], but there was a foot on my face," McQueen teases. "We shot it a bunch of times, and honestly, it was just a shot of a foot on my face. [Director Chris Grismer] goes, 'All right, let's shoot it one more time,' so the camera pans up to the door and the entire cast and crew comes running in dressed in superhero costumes with a big ol' cake. They threw the cake in my face, which was a beautiful send-off."