In a recent interview with The New York Post, Penn Badgley talked about the great Gossip Girl cast, along with the opportunity to basically play the lead male role on the series.

“It’s a great cast all around,” the actor said. “In a lot of teen soap operas, you have a lot of pretty faces and maybe not a lot of talent, but I really do feel that there isn’t a weak link in the Gossip Girl cast.”

Having starred in several short-lived and quickly forgotten series, such as Do Over and The Bedford Diaries, all three of which aired on the WB (the predecessor of The CW), Badgley has been a network favorite for years.

“[The network has] been grooming him to be a teen star for so long now - some of the characters he’s played in the past were a little bit more dorky, but he’s grown into his own in this role and this is his moment,” CosmoGirl! entertainment editor Rachel Chang said.

We certainly agree. But Penn said he was unaware that the channel was grooming him for success until he landed his Gossip Girl role.

“It definitely felt like, ‘What can we put Penn in this year because we want to keep him working for us?’ ” Badgley said, adding that it’s a “very positive feeling” to be wanted this way, and although he initially felt “a little cheesy doing WB show after WB show,” he is “definitely grateful for the opportunity they’ve given me and now that I’m on Gossip Girl, I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

Here’s a Gossip Girl casting tidbit:  

Serena’s grandmother will soon be making an appearance on the show. And she’ll be played by Caroline Lagerfelt. Fans of Beverly Hills 90210 may recognize this actress as David Silver’s mom from back in the day.

Lagerfelt also appeared on a recent episode of House.

Blake Lively recently spoke openly about the influence America Ferrera has had on her young career.

These two actresses starred together in The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants.

“She’s a mother to me,” Lively said. “When I decided I was going to move to New York for [Gossip Girl], she sat down with me. I knew I wanted to live on the West Side, and she said, ‘No, you need to live on the East Side because of this, this and this.’

She makes lists of pros and cons about why I shouldn’t get another dog. She’s like ‘This is why you shouldn’t get one.’ America’s always very nurturing with me, which I appreciate very much. She’s awesome!”

Ugly Betty fans sure agree.

Forget Gossip Girl fashion for a moment.

Here’s a real life fashion face-off, involving Leighton Meeter. She wore the same Kenneth Cole Reaction mini dress as a pair of other stars recently: actresses Stacy Keibler and Spencer Locke.

Who wore this dress better?

There’s lots more gossip going around regarding Chace Crawford and Carrie Underwood.

The latest comes from Nicole Fiscella, the little-known co-star who plays one of Blair’s silent friends on the show.

“They’re the cutest couple,” the Gossip Girl actress said of the duo, who have been spotted hanging out around New York City in the last month, stopping by hot spots such as Marquee and Justin Timberlake’s Southern Hospitality restaurant.

“Chase is just such a great guy,” Fiscella continued. “He’s so fun and I think he just loves his life right now. He seems to be having a good time with [Carrie].”

We’re sure he is.

In closing, Fiscella said she hasn’t met Underwood just yet, but the Gossip Girl cast has plans to do she. She hears she’s “a great girl.”

Chace Crawford recently commented on a certain American Idol star.

When asked if he was dating Carrie Underwood, the Gossip Girl star was both honest and vague:

“We’re just hanging, having a good time, dating around. It’s good,” he says. “I love country music and she’s very classy.”

Do you guys like this couple? Let us know in our Gossip Girl forum.

Here are a couple shots of the Gossip Girl cast on location, filming at 51st Street in New York City.

Here’s Ed Westwick, being fun and silly.

Blake Lively is with her furry best friend.

This isn’t a full-fledged Gossip Girl spoiler because it’s just a preview for the next new episode, airing November 7.

But we wanted to warn fans that don’t like seeing a nanosecond of an episode before it’s televised. Consider yourself warned…

Stephanie Savage is the producer of Gossip Girl.

Below, she answers a question from Entertainment Weekly about the differences between the television series and the books it is based on:

What do you want to say to the avid GG book fans who complain about the tweaked characters and plotlines on the TV show?
I think that one’s a book and one’s a TV show — you have to write for the medium you are in. In television, a lot of the stories need to be more emotionally grounded. The books also have a longer reset period between them, so you can jump over big story issues between books, whereas with television, viewers kind of expect continuity between the episodes.

It would be very jarring for people if Serena and [her best friend] Blair [played by Leighton Meester] got into a giant fight in the first episode, but in the second episode they were friends again and we never explained why.

So I think you just have to deal with different expectations of the medium that you’re working in, and you also have to be free as a writer. The series has 11 books in it right now, but God willing, we’re hoping to make 100 episodes.

So you have to be able to find characters that, as a writer, you can just really dig into and live with and put a part of yourself in, and try to update them too. I think Cecily went to school in the ’80s, and the books were written in the early 2000s, and there’s certain things that might have worked in the books that maybe don’t feel like they’re going to work now.

The cast of Gossip Girl is featured with a photo spread in the upcoming issue of Hollywood Life magazine.

Here’s a peak at the pictorial:

Leighton Meester seduces the camera.

Ed Westwick does his bet Chuck Bass face.

We hope Carrie Underwood isn’t jealous of this Blake Lively and Chace Crawford photo.