Nina Dobrev has always wanted to take "big risks"

She told Rogue magazine: "I wanted to prove everyone wrong who said I would play this one role my whole life or be stuck playing younger roles.

"I've always wanted to take big risks...

"I started 'Vampire Diaries' when I was 20.... I grew with the show and I wanted to continue to grow outside of it. Mentally, it was a crazy time. I was 27 when I left the show. I was ready to do something different."

Nina can next be seen in the reboot of cult 1990 film 'Flatliners', which is about medical students experimenting with near death experiences, and she admitted the appeal of the film was her own curiosity about life after death.

She said: "It's such a unique concept, the idea of dying and coming back to life- everybody at some point wonders what happens after we pass away- where do we go?

"There are so many questions. I've always wondered about it, so the fact that this film explores that concept was very intriguing to me."

The actress recently admitted she had to go to "medical bootcamp" to prepare for the film and she's now feeling confident about her life-saving skills.

She said: "We went through a rigorous medical boot camp to learn about everything to do with reviving a human in a dire situation - CPR, how to use the defibrillator, how to get heart monitors, and if that's not working, how to physically check the body.

"We had to do that so that we would look believable on camera as if we had been doing it for years.

"I don't want to say that I could save a person's life, but I could definitely assist in keeping them alive until the proper paramedics came if something were to happen."