Top 10 fascinating facts about Daniel Gillies

Daniel Gillies at The Paley Center For Media’s PaleyFest 2014 Honoring “The Originals” photo by iDominick Wikimedia

Top 10 fascinating facts about Daniel Gillies

Daniel Gillies who was born on 14th March, 1976, in the Winnipeg City of Canada. He has been  known by the name, Holy Monster. Gillies who is 5 feet 11 inches tall. He has been  raised by his parents in New Zealand. His mother was a nurse and father was a pediatrician.

He did his schooling from the Unitec School of Performing Arts. At Unitec, he became keenly interested in acting. It was then that he decided to take it up as a profession. He moved to Sydney in 2001, looking for acting opportunities. He struggled initially, and worked as a waiter and dishwasher to support himself. Gillies was a member of the Auckland Theater Company, New Zealand. After moving to Canada, Gillies got his first role in a movie titled A Soldier’s Sweetheart, in 1998. He played the side role of a boy named Medic.

1.Daniel Gillies pursued a different path from his family tradition

Daniel GIllies, Vampire Diaries Convenetion NJ, 2014 photo by Liz Swezey Wikimedia

He had his first acting experience on stage with the Auckland Theatre Company. More specifically, when Gillies decided to pursue acting, he was breaking away from the family craft as a surprising number of his family members have had careers in medicine. This includes his mother (a nurse), his father (a pediatrician), and even his great-great-great grandfather, a pioneer in the field of plastic surgery.

The Actor who is  best known for his work on The Vampire Diaries and its spin-off, The Originals. He also had a prominent role in Saving Hope. Daniel married actress Rachael Leigh Cook in 2004. He and ex-wife, Rachael have two children.

2.Apart from acting, Daniel Gillies possesses other talents

Gillies is well known from his most famous work on screen. His appearances on film and television have captivated audiences around the world. However as far as talents go, he can go far beyond just acting. Gillies has also exercised his creativity as a writer, director, and producer.

Perhaps most notably, he fulfilled all three of these talented gifts in the 2012 film Broken Kingdom. In addition, he might add a director’s role to his list of capabilities as he directed an episode of The Originals just this year.

3.He has been  inspired by a melting pot of people

Daniel Gillies, Vampire Diaries Convention NJ, 2014 photo by Liz Swezey Wikimedia 

While most people look for inspiration from notable figures within their own field, this is only half the case for Gillies. He has stated that he finds great inspiration from figures like David Lynch. 

Daniel Gillies also expressed his admiration for individuals like artist Marina Abramovic and radio host Ira Glass.  Marina Abramović is a performance artist and art filmmaker whose work explores body art, endurance art and feminist art, the relationship between performer and audience, the limits of the body, and the possibilities of the mind. Actively participating in four decades, Abramović refers to herself as the “grandmother of performance art”. She pioneered a new notion of identity by bringing in the participation of observers, focusing on “confronting pain, blood, and physical limits of the body”.

 4.   Daniel Gillies Net Worth

Being one of the most popular characters on a much beloved show like The Vampire Diaries, there is no need to assume that Gillies has seen remarkable success in the entertainment industry. It goes without any surprise that he is financially well-off. Most of Daniel’s wealth comes from being an actor and current estimates have Gillies’ net worth at an impressive $3 million. 

5.   He got divorced in 2020

Daniel Gillies at The Paley Center For Media’s PaleyFest 2014 Honoring “The Originals” photo by iDominick Wikimedia

Finding success in the entertainment industry can be a devastating blow to one’s relationships because we don’t get to to see the work, the travel, the stress from doing interviews and press or pressure to remain in the public eye at the same time. So, it’s kind of sad to see many Hollywood relationships that can remain intact in this line of work. Dangerous stunt conditions might end up in personal injury lawyers, but divorce situations obviously need divorce lawyers.

Gillies was married to actress and ex-wife Rachael Leigh Cook in 2004, and the two have two children: a daughter born in 2013 and a son born in 2015. The She’s All That star Rachael Leigh Cook and Vampire Diaries alum Daniel Gillies announced their separation after being together for 15 years of marriage. No wonder their separation caught people off-guard when they announced their divorce on Instagram. 

6.   He has children with his ex-wife.

Rachael Leigh Cook and Daniel Gillies are committed to putting their kids first although they recently announced their divorce. Their Instagram announcement made it clear that he cares about his children so much: “Your discretion in this matter is kindly requested for the sake of our children during this time of transition. Thank you to those of you who are already aware; for your tremendous compassion and understanding.” 

In July 2019, Rachael Leigh spoke to Entertainment Tonight about that delicate period of transition. She said that Gillies was filming in New Zealand when they made the news public, but they wanted to explain everything to their two young children (Charlotte and Theodore) when he returned to the States. “As long as the kids will be okay, I’ll be okay. You know what I mean?” she said at the time. “That’s the end-all. One day at a time.”

But Daniel Gillies, the actor and filmmaker may have ended his 15-year marriage with actress Rachael Leigh Cook last year, but says the “Perception” star is still his “best friend,” and he’s putting his first Valentine’s Day as a single man to good use by offering himself up as a date.

7.   Daniel Gillies is active on social media.

Daniel GIllies, Vampire Diaries Convenetion NJ, 2014 photo by Liz Swezey Wikimedia

Regarding his social media presence, Daniel has been  active on various social media like Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. His Instagram handle which is @ Mr. danielgillies and has over 3.3 million followers in it. Likewise, he joined Twitter in December 2010 and has over 991.6k followers on his @ danielgillies account. His Facebook account is @ danielgillies.

8.   He is set to join Roku Original and ABC Australia Drama ‘The Newsreader’ As series Regular.

Daniel Gillies is in Melbourne shooting the incredible show, surrounded by the co-creators of the show that he thoroughly enjoys and deeply admires. He really is grateful for the opportunity and the thanks his managers Rob Marsala.

9.   Writing is more of a creative outlet to him than acting.

“You end up doing a lot of writing as an actor anyway. You just do. I could deny this, but you do because after a time you get to know the character and it’s yours, and it belongs to you. There might be a certain cadence, or specificities of speech, or things that you wouldn’t say, sometimes. You’re like, ‘I don’t need to say that because in the last episode I did this.’ Nobody becomes a better master of your character than you do. I always think that…not always, often actors will have terrible ideas for lines, but often they have really good ones. Often, they’re a really good consultant on what to say.
 
To sort of splinter off and answer your question more specifically, when you’re writing for the purposes of just writing, I’m writing my next film, for example, right now and it’s excruciating. It’s the most difficult. Anybody can write a screenplay. Anybody. I mean, I’m going to say it. Anybody can write a TV show, but to write a good TV show, that’s a slim percent. To write a great movie, that’s almost no one. The ravine between you and a good piece of work, to span that can take years. I find writing absolutely brutal and one of the most difficult parts of the process of creation.” He said in an interview.

10.Daniel Gillies speaks with a Kiwi accent.

Daniel Gillies at The Paley Center For Media’s PaleyFest 2014 Honoring “The Originals” photo by iDominick Wikimedia

Though Gillies was born in Canada, his parents are from New Zealand. When he was a toddler, the family relocated from Canada back to New Zealand, and Gillies speaks with his Kiwi accent.