Her niece is in love with a vampire and her nephew wants to become a vampire.

Indeed, it should be an interesting season ahead for Aunt Jenna on The Vampire Diaries, as Sara Canning spoke to TV Fanatic this week about her role, season two - and her ultra sexy co-star. Excerpts follow...

Ian Somerhalder was named Entertainment Weekly’s Sexy Beast. How does it feel to work on set with a sexy beast now?
Isn’t that crazy? Mad props and respect to Robert Pattinson, but I was like “wow, this is a big deal." There are a few vampires that people are in love with. I think people love Ian for different reasons. I think people really love the character of Damon, and its nice to see a vampire be allowed to be a badass because we’re seeing a lot of vampire love stories, and vampires trying to grab hold of the humanity they have left and find their human qualities. It’s refreshing to watch a destructive force like Damon. I think Ian’s perfect for the role. He’s one of the most charming people you’ll meet and then he can just turn on that crazy side as well.

What can we look forward to this season?
Without being allowed to say much, some of the major points that have been established are Katherine returning and how that’s going to affect the brothers and the entire town. Jenna has let Katherine into the house and it's going to create a lot of tension with her and Elena because Katherine has become this puppet master and you never know who is who. Jenna is one of the only characters left who doesn’t know about the supernatural beings in Mystic Falls. For her, it will really test her as a parental figure and as friend to have Katherine messing with everyone and misleading Jenna. There are other major secrets that are being revealed.

Other than that finale scene, will Jenna come face-to-face with Katherine again, thinking it’s Elena?
Up to this point, with what we’ve been shooting, Jenna’s been dealing with Alaric and Elena and the whole fact that she’s seen who she thinks is Elena making out with Damon on the porch.

Will Jenna and Alaric’s relationship develop more?
In the beginning of the season, we’re definitely going to see some interaction with them in the sense of “where are we?” and “what are we doing?” because in season one there were so many stops and starts to their relationship and so many things getting in the way. Jenna’s had a lot of crazy guys in her life, so she’s at a point where she knows she playing an important role in the lives of Elena and Jeremy and she’s focusing on what’s right for her for the first time in her life and I think she knows that Alaric is a really great guy, but she’s not going to be the girl who sulks and waits around for him.

Jenna’s too strong of a character for that, that’s not her personality. We’re going to see some good things happen between them, but I don’t think it’ll ever be easy. Whether or not Isobel is completely out of the picture, we also have the fact that Alaric is in cahoots with vampires, and vampires that have a very strong involvement in her niece's life and her nephew's as well. If she ever finds out, that’s going to be a serious bone to pick with Alaric over his involvement and his alliance with them.

Does Jenna start to finally suspect something supernatural is going on this season?
I think it’s important that Elena and Jeremy have a strong hold of something nestled in reality, and I think that’s Jenna. They have so many crazy things going on in their lives. Every episode we see them go through these plot twists that rock their world... it’s a show with vampires, but it’s not a show about vampires. It’s a show about people and relationship and, yes, some of those relationships involve vampires, but I think they wanted to stick with watching these characters develop each week with dealing with heartbreak and betrayal and falling in love and the supernatural elements throws something else into the mix. I definitely think eventually, with all of her involvement with these characters who know what’s going on, will bring her to what happens, and I can’t wait to see how she deals with it because she has such a sense of adventure and she’s so open.