November 2007 News Archive (Page 2)

Appearing on The View last week, both Blake Lively and Penn Badgley talked about the appeal of Gossip Girl.

Each young star pointed to a sensation of "heightened reality" on the series. First, check out what Blake had to say:

"I think that our show takes place at a heightened reality a little bit… I think a lot of the realism is lost in the sparkle, and it's meant to. You need that for the entertainment and the grit.

But this stuff does happen and it's good that we get to address these issues. It does open the door for conversations for parents to have with their children."

And Badgley was in full agreement with his castmate: "You see the repercussions of it at such a young age... It is heightened reality because it is television, but they did get it from somewhere…"

Remember: there's a new Gossip Girl episode tomorrow night! We can't wait.

It's hard not to hate Jessica Szohr.

Okay, maybe it's just hard not to hate her character, Vanessa.

After all, she keeps entering through Dan's window at the most inopportune times - and we'll take issue with anyone that dares to get in between the budding, cute relationship between Dan and Serena.

Szhor seems alright, however. She recently talked about Vanessa's background, specifically her unique sense of fashion.

"In the book, Vanessa was very gothic, always in black, with piercings and when we started the show, they wanted to make her kind of Lower East Side … tight skinny jeans, high-tops, and things like that," Szohr explained.

"I had just moved here so I wasn't aware of the neighborhoods, so when I was doing homework for my character, I went to the Lower East Side."

So, any Gossip Girl spoilers to dish, Jessica? What does the future hold for your character?

"I think Vanessa might get a boyfriend and I don't know for a fact, but I think Dan might say, 'I don't want her to be with someone else,'" said Szohr.

Uh-oh. Does that mean the future isn't so rosy for Dan and Serena?!?

Here's the official preview for this week's new Gossip Girl episode, "Blair Waldorf Must Pie."

When Dan (Penn Badgley) hears that Serena (Blake Lively) and her family are spending Thanksgiving alone at The Palace, he naively invites them to spend the holiday with his family, creating an uncomfortable situation for Rufus (Matthew Settle) and Lily (Kelly Rutherford), whose children are unaware of their complicated romantic history.

Meanwhile, Blair's (Leighton Meester) emotions spiral out of control when she learns that her father isn't coming home for Thanksgiving. Nate (Chace Crawford) spends the holiday with his mom (Francie Swift) and dad (Sam Robards), but their awkward dinner quickly goes from bad to worse.

Gossip Girl is already known for hot, steamy sex scenes. Remember when Chuck and Blair went at it in the back of his limo?

But might the series be spicing things up even more?!?

E! News is reporting that there will be a "same-sex incident" on the show, but has offered no further details. While CW officials could not be reached for comment, the best bet for such an occurrence would be Serena and Blair.

At least we hope so. Remember, Blair's father left her mother for another guy and will soon be appearing on the show. But let's not think about the possibility of this spoiler simply being a peck on the lips from Mr. Waldorf to his man.

After all, as Howard Stern said a few years ago: "Lesbians get ratings."

On a crisp autumn day in November, on the ice at Central Park's Wollman Rink, Blair Waldorf (Leighton Meester) is pissed.

It's several hours into a shoot for Gossip Girl, the teen soap about well dressed, shockingly loaded, and occasionally evil private high school students on Manhattan's Upper East Side.

During the episode filming today, tortured princess Blair is hanging with her recently outed, frequently absent father (John Shea), who brought his Boy Toy along on what was supposed to be an afternoon with his daughter.

As Boy Toy skates past, Blair Waldorf looks up from her Sidekick, shoots a chilly glare, sticks out an ice-skate-clad foot, and... splat.

You'd think such a spectacle would draw attention from passersby, but strangely, nobody walking past the set seems even slightly intrigued.

If you look at ratings, however, that might not seem so surprising.

On paper, this Sex and the City / Mean Girls style TV drama is not very successful, drawing a relatively lame 2.6 million viewers per show and languishing near the bottom of the Nielsen chart (#105 to be exact).

Blake Lively and Gossip Girl are a new breed of smash hit.

But in a season with few new breakouts, Gossip Girl is redefining what it means to be a TV hit. Based on Cecily von Ziegesar's hugely popular book series about an anonymous blogger who chronicles private-school scandals, Gossip Girl is luring a new breed of viewer.

"This show is a bigger deal than ratings are reflecting," says executive producer Josh Schwartz, who also created and ran The OC.

"We have a great formula," adds Leighton Meester. "Really great characters, great clothes, hot people, good locations, and rich people with really messed-up lives. What's not to love?"

So where are all the obsessive fans during this shoot? Well, probably just finishing up second period. And why doesn't anyone seem concerned about Gossip Girl's early performance?

As it turns out, slumming at the bottom of the ratings chart isn't so bad if you're the only show kids are talking about.

Continue reading this article in Entertainment Weekly ...

Gossip Girl star Leighton Meester, who plays Blair Waldorf, was looking stunning as usual at the N.Y. City Ballet opening gala on Tuesday.

Leighton Meester was accompanied by one of her Gossip Girl co-stars, Nicole Fiscella, who plays seldom-used Isabel. See photos below! 

Leighton Meester & Nicole Fiscella: Gossip Girl cuties hit the town! 

A pair of Gossip Girl cuties, Blake Lively and Penn Badgley, stopped by The View on Tuesday to chat up the women of daytime's hottest talk show. Watch the video of their interview below - in which they talk about Gossip Girl and some pics of a young Penn Badgley are shown!

When Gossip Girl star Matthew Settle was a teenager in Sevierville, Tenn., he rebelled by cranking up the radio when driving a church van.

"Part of that (driving) was to (give me the opportunity to) listen to rock music," says Settle, whose parents are conservative Christians who forbade him to listen to such songs. "The other reason was I just wanted to drive."

Matthew Settle has come a long way since those days. He can be seen in the role of former rock star-turned-New York art dealer Rufus Humphrey in the new CW hit series Gossip Girl, airing 9 p.m. Wednesdays.

The series, which began in September, has been a big hit in the Knoxville area, reports the Knoxville News-Sentinel. Most weeks, its audience here rivals those in major cities such as L.A., Chicago and New York.

The show centers on a group of beautiful high school students at a posh private school in Manhattan where reputation is everything, and their lives are often dramatic and documented often on a website run by a shadowy female figure simply known as Gossip Girl.

Matthew Settle's character, Rufus Humphrey, has two teen children at the academy. They're middle-class and don't quite fit into that world.

But Rufus Humphrey makes sure his kids, Dan and Jenny, don't fall victim to classmates' materialistic ways. There's no "do as I say, don't do as I do" stuff for Rufus. He's straight with the children, played by Taylor Momsen and Penn Badgley, about what to expect out of life.

Like his character's kids facing class struggles in the school setting of Gossip Girl, Matthew Settle has also been there and done that.

Continue Reading...

Here's a behind-the-scenes video of Blake Lively and Leighton Meester during their recent photo shoot for Entertainment Weekly:

Fans familiar with Nicole Fiscella and Nan Zhang haven't exactly been pleased with the amount of screen time these actresses have received on Gossip Girl this season.

According to a recent article on Gawker, there's a reason behind this:

"Originally, the Katy and Isabel characters on Gossip Girl were actually listed in the breakdown as "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern in Jimmy Choos,' writes a tipster who auditioned for the show, but wasn't ultimately cast. "They were actually the funniest part of the show - they had these totally bizarre three line conversations at the end of each scene.

Unfortunately, for those of us who went in 19 times for every part on the show and ended up coming down to the very end for those roles, the network decided that they had to go "ethnic," and they claimed couldn't find any black or Asian girls who were funny, so they, at the last minute, cast models and decided to just make them sight gags.

No joke."