AceShowbiz -

Yes, it was Nina Dobrev's voice that your heard in the season 7 finale of "The Vampire Diaries". The actress made a cameo as Damon heard Elena's voice in the vault and she pled for his help. "Damon... Help me... I need you," she begged in a moment that not only tore Damon's heart, but also ours.

More surprisingly, executive producer Julie Plec reveals that Dobrev did return to the set to record new material for the said outing. "In this particular case, she came in and did the ADR, [automated dialogue replacement]," Plec tells TVLine.

She explains how the actress agreed to do it, "I reached out and said, 'We can either cobble it together from a bunch of episodes, or you can come in and see everybody and do ADR.' She chose to do it in person, which was great, because it was a nice little personal Nina visit."

As for when Elena will physically return to the show, Plec sticks with her plan to have her return for the series finale. "It's what she and I kind of agreed on when she decided to move on, and it's what I've got in my head," Plec shares.

She adds, "Obviously things can change throughout time, if the show goes on longer than we expect it to, or if we all collectively decide it would be fun to bring her back earlier, and she wanted to. But in my opinion, she was very clear about what she wanted the next step in her life to be, and she's doing a great job of achieving that. So I'm sticking with my side of the plan, which is to bring her back at the very end."