Fam’s Nina Dobrev Shares Secrets About Her Real Life Family

Is there anything in the world that makes for better TV than a totally screwy family sitcom?

Nina Dobrev‘s new series, the CBS comedy Fam, aims to answer that question, telling the story of a woman at the height of her game — if you don’t count the people she calls family. She’s got a great job, a gorgeous fiancée, future in-laws that love her to pieces and an apartment that nobody her age could ever reasonably afford. But just as she’s about to get the life and family she’s always wanted, her own family decides to bust in and wreck it all.

Clem’s (Dobrev) little sister has questionable morals, hygiene and life choices, but much to Clem’s dismay, she doesn’t have a place to crash. Thanks to all the dirt her sister can and will dish — including the fact that Clem’s dearly departed father is actually alive and kicking — Clem’s life immediately enters damage control mode.

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Clem may have more family drama than she knows what to do with, but what about Dobrev’s IRL fam? TV Guide sat down with Dobrev to hear all the dirty details of her own family, including Dobrev’s childhood antics (she turned sneaking out of the house into an art form), which family members she’d want on her zombie apocalypse team, and why she’d call her own family sitcom The Borat Diaries.

Fam premieres Thursday, Jan. 10 at 9:30/8:30c on CBS.

(TV Guide is owned by CBS.)

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Nina Dobrev, The Vampire DiariesPhoto: Tina Rowden, Tina Rowden/The CW