Josh Schwartz Offers Gossip Girl Insight, Spoilers
“For me, the big goal with Gossip Girl is to have learned from The OC.”
With this quote, Gossip Girl creator Josh Schwartz has kicked off the second season of our favorite show with ambitious, but attainable goals.
“We don’t ever want to feel like we’re sacrificing the characters to try to tell overheated stories,” Schwartz said. “There’s outrageousness to [some things that occur]. I guess if you wrote them down, they’d seem crazy and huge, but hopefully they still feel emotional and grounded and not so insane all the time that you feel like you’ve lost track of reality.”
What were the other lessons he learned from The OC - his previous hit show, which had a terrific first season but quickly fizzled out thereafter?
“No. 1, don’t do 27 episodes in the first season,” Schwartz said. And don’t wait six months to debut the second season, as happened with The OC.
“We really pushed and pushed to get back on as soon as possible,” Schwartz said Gossip Girl, one of the first fall shows back on the air September 1.
Another pitfall for a show of any age is guest-star overload, but Schwartz plans to keep the focus on the main characters while adding some new faces.
“The key is, I think, you have to introduce new characters, but they can’t overwhelm the storytelling. It’s really about your core characters and taking what people like and invest in without changing it too radically or too quickly,” Schwartz said.
One thing that will change: Dan (Penn Badgley) and Serena (Blake Lively), the star-crossed couple who broke up last week, will not follow the lead of The OC’s Ryan and Marissa, who seemed to get back together every other week.
Follow the jump for more Gossip Girl insight, news and spoilers for some upcoming episodes, straight from the creator of the show!
Dan and Serena “have broken up. That is going to stick,” Schwartz said. “They still feel for each other, but we’re not putting them together and breaking them up every week. I have learned that lesson.”
A popular pairing that will get more attention is that of the conniving Chuck (Ed Westwick), who has fallen for manipulative society queen Blair.
“You’ll see the way the season is shaped out – Blair and Chuck play a huge part in it,” Schwartz said. “They had a couple of small scenes together last year ...and they were just really funny, there were little sparks between them. Stephanie and I were like, ‘They’re really fun together.’ It grew out of there – the writers all love them and love writing for them. It was a natural place for us to go to this year. It’s really delicious.”
One thing that won’t change, he said, is the depiction of conspicuous consumption on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. The family of one character, Nate (Chace Crawford), has suffered financial reverses, but he’s the only character that will be short of cash, Schwartz said.
Despite the current woes of the economy, “these people are wealthy enough to ride out anything,” Schwartz noted.
A few more bits and pieces about the show from Schwartz:
- The scene in the September 15 episode, "The Dark Night," in which the three girls approach Dan and Serena and browbeat them about their lives – based on what the girls have read online – was a “nod” to the celebrity gossip sites and message boards that obsessively follow the show and the lives of the Gossip Girl stars. But the scene wasn’t necessarily a dig at those sites: “It wasn’t about getting back at anyone ... [within the show] people read [the site] Gossip Girl," Schwartz said. "Younger and younger people are reading things online, so it’s natural to imagine the next generation of Gossip Girl users in their bedrooms, obsessively following the relationships of the kids who are in high school when they are in grade school.”
- Josh Schwartz added that the episode was written by former OC writer John Stephens, “who shares our meta, kind of self-aware point of view. It’s a little bit of a nod to New York Magazine’s Daily Intel,” sites like that.
- On the evolution of Chuck Bass: “He was definitely much more straight-up villainous out of the gate last year, and one of the nice things about television is that you start with a character who his a villain but you always intend to evolve ... We’ll start to find out more about his family life. He’s got some fun story lines with some unlikely people – he and Dan end up in jail together.”
- On Chuck and Blair: “They have a lot of common interests. But I think it was important that you see Chuck develop feelings for Blair and even a little bit of insecurity. He’s just so outrageous and Ed Westwick is so great at all that stuff, at totally selling it. But at the same time, you do feel that Chuck’s got a beating heart.” He still yearns for Blair, even though, as Schwartz says, she “is his kryptonite.”
- On how the character of Jenny took off in popularity: “Both Humphreys, Jenny and Dan, were our way into the show. Serena was our heroine [in the pilot] and that was the narrative way in, but it’s hard, because she was a character who was already on the inside. Then she was ousted, so the audience could sympathize, but ... Jenny was us last year, taking [the audience] inside. This year, [for her] the wheels start to come off the wagon.”
- On Jenny’s future: “It’s just about growing up fast. It’s not even about good or bad, it’s about coming into her own as a young woman. And as an artist [in the fashion design field]. It’s hard for her dad, who also had his dream when he was young, to look at her and what she wants to do with her life and not be supportive of it. But at the same time, he worries for her trying to navigate this world on her own.”
- On Wallace Shawn as the new love interest for Blair’s mother: “Blair will go up against him, and Blair vs. Wallace Shawn feels like it’s going to be really fun.”
- On the influence of Gossip Girl fashion, especially Chuck’s outlandish duds: Chuck’s clothes are “based on my wardrobe,” Schwartz joked. But he added that the show’s style was the result of a collaboration between Savage and the show’s costume designer, Eric Daman. “I show up in my jeans and T-shirt and Stephanie walks me through the wardrobe choices and I trust her completely.”
September 22nd, 2008 9:28 AM
I'm really glad Schwartz is taking lessons from The OC. That's smart and I hope GG thrives.
September 22nd, 2008 11:13 AM
Jenny is popular? Eh? She's a scheming two-faced social-climbing freshman who still uses people like Eric even after she supposedly has turned over a new leaf!
September 22nd, 2008 11:55 AM
Looking forward to see Dan and Chuck together in jail and the developing Chuck/Blair relationship. They're the reason I watch in the first place.
September 22nd, 2008 12:47 PM
its good to know that Dan and Serena in the end will get back together.. butttttttt.. we have to wait for it to happen.. not anytime soon
September 22nd, 2008 12:57 PM
Huh? Dan and Serena will get back together in the end? Hope so!!
September 22nd, 2008 2:59 PM
im hoping for serena and dan too :]
September 22nd, 2008 3:23 PM
I can't wait to learn about Chuck's family! (What about his mother?) :)
September 22nd, 2008 7:19 PM
Paul, I totally get you, I'm a Jenny hater too :D~
maybe if we pray at night she'll go away
September 22nd, 2008 9:09 PM
I hope S&D stick together.
September 22nd, 2008 10:08 PM
I raelly don't want Dan and Serena to get back together. I just don't like their relationship...which is weird because they date in real life, but I don't care. I do NOT like them together.
September 22nd, 2008 11:41 PM
hey, i'm a guest, but i gotta agree. not a big fan of jenny's-and s can do better than d. for him to say he's not judgemental he doesn't act that way. he's annoying now
September 23rd, 2008 1:14 AM
I actually really like Serena and Dan together. The dynamic between the two of them when they are together is really interesting. And I would love to see a TV show where couples actually stay together and how them being together is incorporated into the show's plot.
September 23rd, 2008 2:35 AM
Chuck was much better before than "evolving." I don't want to see him involved in all this Emo stuff.
September 23rd, 2008 4:03 AM
ah chuck and blair!!
hope they finally get together,
now that marcus isn't with her anymore
pleeeeeaaaaase let them get together
September 23rd, 2008 2:05 PM
i love it when people like him actually talk to their viewers instead of being all mysterious about plots and stuff..
September 23rd, 2008 2:36 PM
i don't like serena trying to be the new queen of the school i love the way blair does it hopefully blair gets really mad and turns up her bitchiness and takes it out on serena if she has to bring her down cause it's not fair to blair since she is mostly trying to help serena out but i hate chuck for setting this up also i hope blair finds out about chuck's plan
September 23rd, 2008 4:41 PM
wow, nice, i dont dan and serena to get back toegtehr, its done!, blair and chuck are way more interesting.,.
what will happen to nate?
he will stay with vanesa? jenny? o serena????
I choose serena she is his real love
September 24th, 2008 12:19 AM
I hope that Serena and Dan get back together too! It would be nice to see them stay together for awhile like Seth and Summer on the OC!! The new Queen S seems so out of her character. Truthfully, the 4th Episode of the Season seemed so out of line - why couldn't S and D just realize that their friends were plotting everything and how realistic is it that Dan meets this Amanda girl the first day back at school? It was so obvious that someone had planted her there!!! Too obvious.
September 24th, 2008 12:22 AM
stop hating on Jenny she is young and just wants to hung out with the crowd she thinks has the most fun.......hey! we've all tried to impress one group or another at some point in our lives..right from kindergaten but she learnt her lesson, let it go. prayin 4 s & d. Blair shouldrise again to queen B. love chuck..anyone that would go thru that kinda trouble 4 a woman...despite his methods.
September 24th, 2008 3:49 PM
Dan and Chuck in jail, interesting. I could see Chuck getting Dan into that mess for sure. Ugghhh Dan and Serena, eventually they better be together, tragic if they don't. Jenny, I got to love her, she is pretty smart. She's young so she's gonna make her mistakes, but I'm rooting for her. Thank God the Royal circus left town, now Blair can focus and the games can begin!
September 24th, 2008 8:20 PM
I really wanted nate and blair. Yes I know it is different to the books and Blair and Chuck have great scenes together but I wish the writers would give screen time to Blair and Nate as in the end they "should" end up together again
September 26th, 2008 9:45 PM
I think that Blair and Chuck are more in depth characters and their "relationship" is more interesting than the one between Serena and Dan,'cause you never know what could happen. I hope for the guys writting the serie to focus more on them. They seem to be doing it. But for what I'm reading in spoilers for the next chapter it'll be Serena centric and come on we had the whole first season based upon her.
By the way I totally hate Jenny. Like Nate she is two-faced and a complete hypocrit.
September 29th, 2008 5:46 PM
Can't wait for the episode with Stella Maeve as Emma--will you have a spoiler out for it soon?! When does it air?
Big fans
September 29th, 2008 6:16 PM
polly and jim,
the episode with Stella Maeve is called There might be blood
and the airdate is november 3.
it's episode 2.09