Fans can hardly contain themselves: Daniel Gillies will be a lead on The Vampire Diaries spinoff, taking his beloved character of Elijah to New Orleans along with Joseph Morgan's Klaus and Phoebe Tonkin's Hayley.

The only person who may be even more excited about this casting? Gillies himself.

“Julie Plec has been talking about this for a little while and to be honest with you, I never thought it was going to become a reality,” Gillies told EW this week. “I just thought it was a cool idea she threw around and I did not dare to dream that it would come to fruition. I knew that if it did, we would be a part of it, but I didn’t want to get ahead of myself. But I feel very blessed that it is closer to becoming a reality now.”

Gillies, who will appear on the April 25 backdoor pilot of The Originals, also revealed one snippet about the series, assuming it gets picked up by The CW.

It will be set in contemporary New Orleans, but the show will also go back in time often. Or, as Gilles puts it:

"[It] will flash back to show what the f–k happened to us to bring us to this moment."

We can't wait.

Matt Richenthal is the Editor in Chief of TV Fanatic. Follow him on Twitter and on Google+.