Elle Fanning as Katherine von Swartzschild

Elle Fanning is an American actress best known for starring as Aurora in Maleficent.

Ethnicity: German, English, as well as Irish, French, Channel Islander [Jersey, Guernsey], remote Scottish and Welsh

Dakota Fanning as Elena Gilbert

Dakota Fanning is an American actress best known for starring as Jane in the Twilight Saga.

Ethnicity: German, English, as well as Irish, French, Channel Islander [Jersey, Guernsey], remote Scottish and Welsh

KATHERINE'S BOOK ORIGINS:
Katherine von Swartzschild was a young German girl, who was the daughter of Baron von Swartzschild and Elizabeth Morrow. She was very sickly, weak, and fragile as a young human girl. Her maid, Gudren, asked Klaus to turn her into a vampire. Katherine had no say in the matter.

Katherine's father believed she was still sick and so took her to the Salvatore Boarding House in an attempt to cheer her up. There she met Stefan Salvatore, the younger human son of Conte di Salvatore, who she fell deeply in love with. She was also interested in Stefan's older brother, Damon Salvatore.

KATHERINE'S BOOK DESCRIPTION:
❝The figure in the trailing white dress turned from the candle she was lighting, and Elena saw what might have been her own face on its shoulders. But it was a subtly distorted face, pale and beautiful as an ice sculpture, but wrong. It was like the endless reflections of herself Elena had seen in her dream of the hall of mirrors. Twisted and hungry, and mocking. Her voice was light and sweet - silvery, Elena thought. Like her eyelashes. There were silvery lights in her dress when she moved, too. But her hair was gold, almost as pale a gold as Elena's own. Her eyes were like kitten's eyes: round and jewel blue. At her throat, she wore a necklace with a stone of the same vivid coloUr. She did a little pirouette, and Elena saw that what she had vaguely taken for the train to Katherine's dress was Katherine's hair. It flowed like molten gold down her back to spill over the floor, trailing behind her.❞

KATHERINE'S WIKI DESCRIPTION:
❝Described as having an uncanny physical resemblance to Elena Gilbert, Katherine is so beautiful that both Salvatore brothers were infatuated with her beauty and elegance when they first came to know her.

However, despite the many similarities between Katherine and Elena, there are still a few differences between the sisters: Katherine's golden-blond hair is a few shades darker than Elena's, which is a soft pale gold that is almost white-blond, and so long that it trails behind her like a wedding-dress train, while Elena's is only waist-length, and silky-straight instead of curly like Katherine's. Katherine is more petite in stature while Elena is slightly taller than Katherine by a "good head span", and her eyes are also noted to be much-bluer and more widely-set than Elena's eyes. Katherine's eyebrows and eyelashes had a "silvery" appearance while Elena's brows and lashes were a darker blond.

Because of the remarkable physical resemblance between Katherine and Elena, Katherine had actually considered - before learning that Elena was actually her younger sister - that she might be a distant relative of hers, and Stefan had once wondered if Elena was Katherine's reincarnation, though he eventually realised that she was not, and Katherine herself later learned the truth of their kinship and made her peace with Elena.❞

ELENA'S BOOK/WIKI DESCRIPTION:
❝I ....don't think it's vain to say that I am beautiful. If I did not know I was, I would have to have never looked in a mirror or heard a compliment. It's not something I should be proud of—it's just something that was passed down from Mom and Dad.❞

❝Elena was described to be an angelic classical beauty. She has long, straight hair the blond colour of which resembles a soft, pale gold, and its texture is silky and smooth. Her eyes are the colour of lapis lazuli (a deep, dark blue), with flecks of gold in them, and her eyebrows and lashes are a darker blonde compared to her hair. It would seem that Elena's blue eyes also had violet highlights in them, given how her homecoming dress was said to bring out the purple of her eyes.

Elena's skin was described by Stefan to be like a magnolia flower, or swans, or alabaster: fair, perfect, and translucent. In fact, her skin is so fair that she does not tan easily, and can get sunburned, and the blue veins of her body are visible to the naked eye.

In terms of physique, Elena is taller than the petite and fine-boned Bonnie, but shorter than the stately and graceful Meredith, and is built sleek and slender in a gorgeous way.

Because of their familial relation, Elena has an uncanny resemblance to her older half-sister, Katherine. However, there were still numerous difference in their physical appearances, as noted by Stefan: Katherine's hair is longer than that of Elena's, to the extent where it spills on the floor and trails behind her, and it was a few shades darker to Elena's blonde. Katherine's eyes were also much bluer than Elena's, and her eyebrows and lashes were silvery-white in colouring while Elena's were a darker blonde to her hair. Last but not least, Elena is taller than Katherine.

Due to her blonde-haired, blue-eyed, angelic beauty, Elena was acknowledged to be one of the loveliest and most desirable females in all Fell's Church. In fact, she was so beautiful that she had a dramatic effect on those who surrounded her most intimately: Caroline, one of her childhood friends, later turned against her out of jealousy and spite. Bonnie was occasionally plagued with feelings of inferiority due to the comparisons that she could not help but make between Elena's beauty and her own. Stefan, who guarded his heart as best as he could due to his tragic past, fell deeply and irrevocably in love with her. Even Damon, who could be cruel and capacious, and had entertained himself with many beautiful women over the many years that he had lived, ultimately choose her over Katherine.❞