Josh Schwartz News

It's no secret that No Doubt has a thing for the '80s.

In 2003, they released a cover of Talk Talk's 1984 hit "It's My Life," which earned them a Grammy nomination. Then, last Wednesday, Ryan Seacrest posted a link to yet another cover, this one of Adam & the Ants' 1981 track "Stand and Deliver."

This is the song the band will perform on the May 11 episode of Gossip Girl, which serves as a "backdoor pilot" for the spin-off series featuring young Lily.

Gossip Girl executive producer Josh Schwartz filled MTV in on some details about the episode and No Doubt's performance on it, the band's first on TV.

"As you know, they're reuniting, they're going on tour, and they wanted to do a TV appearance and reached out to us on Gossip Girl," Schwartz said.

"We came back and asked, 'What about being an '80s band?' So they came on as 'Snow Doubt' and did a cover of Adam & the Ants' 'Stand and Deliver.' It was amazing."

Schwartz said the episode will serve as the jump-off point for the Gossip Girl spinoff, which focuses on the wild, rock-and-roll youth of Eric and Serena van der Woodsen's mom, Lily - which explains the cameo by the faux '80s rockers.

"It's about Serena's mom Lily growing up in L.A. in the '80s. And the pilot will air as a series of flashbacks inside the May 11 episode of Gossip Girl," Schwartz said.

"We've finished shooting it all, and it all looks great."

Gossip Girl head honcho Josh Schwartz spoke with E! Online this week about his man upcoming projects, including the Gossip Girl spinoff. Here's what he had to say:

Q: What's the skinny on the Gossip Girl spinoff?

A: We just finished shooting [the Gossip Girl episode that will serve as the spinoff pilot] and I'm really excited. I mean, you know obviously it's going to be out of my hands at a certain point in terms of whether it can move forward, but Brittany Snow is so good.

Q: She did kick ass on Nip/Tuck.

A: Funny. That's the footage that sealed the deal for me. When I saw her reel, and I saw the Nip/Tuck stuff and saw she could go to that bitch, badass side, I knew we had our Lily right then because eventually she's going to have to go there. She doesn't start off as that person, but she will become her.

Q: Will the show focus on Lily and Rufus and Allison at all? Or Serena's father?

A: No, it's Lily and her sister Carol. Brittany and Krysten Ritter have amazing chemistry as these mismatched sisters and Andrew McCarthy plays their father, which is incredible. We also got No Doubt to record a cover of Adam and the Ants' "Stand and Deliver" just for the show. They're going on tour and they don't have an album, so this is the only new song that they've done. They performed it on the show and everybody, Gwen [Stefani] and the band, were just super into it.

Same girl, same outfit, same afternoon, same NYC street.

Passionately embracing ... two different costars?

The photos of Leighton Meester (Blair) shooting a scene yesterday for Gossip Girl in front of the Sony building in Manhattan kissing on again, off again love interest Ed Westwick (Chuck) AND ex-beau Chace Crawford (Nate) have caused a stir.

So what's the deal? Who will get together, Nair or Chair? Is she really kissing both boys or is this just a dream sequence - or better yet, an elaborate hoax?

E! Online asked Josh Schwartz himself.

When asked if the dual paparazzi photos of Blair kissing Chuck and Nate may have been just a red herring to throw off fans, the Gossip Girl executive producer, said, after a long pause. "Hmm... that would be a great idea!"

An inside source who works on the show also reports to E! that "If she was in the same outfit it was probably to throw off the photogs. But she does kiss both [Nate and Chuck] at some point in the last couple of episodes."

Either way, we can tell you for a fact that both are taking an interest in her and the Chuck-Blair-Nate love triangle is heating up. What can we look forward to in that respect as the second season of the show comes to an end?

"That will be a big part of the storyline," Schwartz said. "It's graduation, so it's all about what is the future for these characters and the show? Where's everyone going to be next year? Chuck, Blair and Nate are obviously a big story."

Also on tap: "Georgina Sparks (Michelle Trachtenberg) returns, which is always fun. She comes back very different from the last time you saw her."

Click to enlarge a sampling of the scandalous pics in question ...

The return of Gossip Girl is just 10 days, three hours and five minutes away (not that we're obsessed), and Entertainment Weekly has some new teasers / Gossip Girl spoilers about the final eight episodes of the current season for us.

Some of this we knew, and some we didn't. Either way, enjoy - and count down the minutes until March 16 at 8 p.m. with the staff of Gossip Girl Insider:

For Gossip Girl's final eight episodes of Season 2, Blair Waldorf (Leighton Meester) is a woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown. "She's realizing that life is not turning out how she wanted," says executive producer Stephanie Savage.

Blair will seek solace in her old flame Nate (Chace Crawford).

Meanwhile, Blair's frenemy Serena van der Woodsen (Blake Lively) will once again hit a rough patch in her life after falling under the spell of a dubious tobacco heir (hints Stephanie Savage: "Let's just say Serena gets a mug shot").

All this, plus college acceptances, prom, and the Constance Billard school play.

Adds Gossip Girl executive producer Josh Schwartz, "You have not lived until you've seen Nelly Yuki in a fat suit in The Age of Innocence."

No, no we have not.

As you surely know by now, Gossip Girl is getting ready to spin off a new show - one that would be set well before the soap's teen characters were born.

The May 11 episode of the CW show will serve as the pilot for a potential new series from Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage, co-creators of Gossip Girl.

The Gossip Girl spinoff, which doesn't have a title yet, would chronicle the high school adventures of Lily van der Woodsen, a former wild child turned society matron who is played by Kelly Rutherford on Gossip Girl.

The younger Lily hasn't been cast yet, but Schwartz said the show would chronicle the high schooler's adventures in the Los Angeles of the '80s.

"I'm very influenced by the '80s, as is Stephanie," Schwartz said in a recent interview with the Chicago Tribune. "A couple of movies we've talked about are Valley Girl and Less Than Zero, which are tonally very different movies. But that period of L.A. in the '80s, the Sunset Strip [music scene] of the time, the idea of coming over the hill into L.A. if you lived in the Valley - that is just something that fascinates us. It's a very romantic, exciting time."

Gossip Girl is based on a book series that has its own spinoff line of novels under the name It Girl. But the producers weren't interested in making It Girl or a clone of the Monday drama about rich teens on New York's Upper East Side.

"We didn't want to do a spinoff just to do it," Josh Schwartz said.

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Regarding the just-announced Gossip Girl spinoff, which will center around a young Lily van der Woodsen (Kelly Rutherford) and debut next fall after a brief introduction in May, executive producer Josh Schwartz had this to say to E! Online:

"I'm writing it right now with Stephanie [Savage] as we speak. We're being very careful that nothing we do will feel like we are biting off from the Gossip Girl original."

So will a young Rufus Humphrey also appear on the new series?

"Not at first," Schwartz said. "He's not one of our characters."

He added: "Maybe at some point, if the show is lucky enough to run for several seasons, it will come up, but it's just really about Lily and her sister Carol - Serena's aunt Carol - who's sort of this free spirit, a wannabe actress who's living in this house in the valley. Her experience on the other side as someone without money going to public school, having to make a whole new group of friends, being cast out from the world that she knew."

The spinoff will be presented as a flashback in the penultimate (second-to-last) episode of the current season of Gossip Girl, which airs May 11.

Josh Schwartz says none of the spinoff characters have been cast as of right now. Note to Josh: If you're looking for suggestions, our little poll from yesterday offered some suggestions, while our forum has some even better ones!

As for the undisputed No. 1 Gossip Girl fan question these days - What will happen with Chuck and Blair? - the big boss had the following to say: "You don't actually want to know the answer to that. The fun is in the journey."

The juiciest story right now is what happened way back when.

Putting the longstanding (and not-happening) rumors to rest, the CW has ordered a pilot for a Los Angeles-set Gossip Girl spinoff, E! News confirmed Wednesday.

The new venture from Gossip Girl creators Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage is not, however, going to be a by-the-book look at Taylor Momsen's rebellious character, Jenny Humphrey, as was speculated for several months.

Instead, they have opted for an original story about Lily van der Woodsen and surely scandalous teen years growing up in the 1980s.

Gossip Girl's May 11 episode will reportedly serve as what is referred to as a "backdoor pilot" for the spin-off, introducing the younger Lily via flashbacks.

A new hot-young-thang will play Lily (maiden name Rhodes), who moves in with her black-sheep sister after a falling-out with her folks, going from a ritzy Montecito, Calif., boarding school to a public school in the San Fernando Valley.

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Gossip Girl executive producers Stephanie Savage and Josh Schwartz recently spoke with New York Magazine and offered some interesting insight on what's to come on this and future seasons of Gossip Girl. Here are a few items ...

• The cast will, indeed, go to college next year. "One of the problems with 90210, for example, was that their stage was high school," Savage said. "We feel like ours is New York." There are many colleges in New York, they explained, pointing out that the education element is not central to the show. They don't even have a classroom set. "And some of them won't go to school, let's be honest," Schwartz joked.

• Even though Kelly Rutherford (Lily van der Woodsen) is pregnant, they won't be writing a baby into the script. "We'll write around it," Savage said.

• New York, and the Palace Hotel specifically, are great places to film - and are happy to embrace even a show that depicts underage drinking, drug use, and limo sex. "When we filmed The OC, we couldn't even get a permit to fly a helicopter over the beach," Schwartz said. "We're grateful New York has lower standards."

• There will be (as one commenter pointed out) a new villain introduced soon: Jack Bass, uncle of Chuck! Dum Dum DUM!

• Savage and Schwartz loved Ed Westwick from the moment he came in to read (for the role of Nate!). "But he looks like a serial killer!" the network protested.

• Some of our beloved characters will be returning! "You might not have seen the last of Georgina Sparks," Schwartz said. "It's hard to imagine a boarding school for bad girls in Idaho would be able to hold her for long," Savage added.

Is Serena's nemesis Georgina Sparks coming back to the Upper East Side?

It looks like it, at some point. In an interview with Nylon, Gossip Girl creator Josh Schwartz admitted when asked about G, “It’s safe to say you haven’t seen the last of her.”

A lot of Gossip Girl fans hated Georgina (played by Michelle Trachtenberg), but that was kind of the point, so it seems safe to say a return would be met with some excitement.

On an unrelated note, Schwartz added this funny anecdote on the subject of Nate and Jenny hooking up, "Chace [Crawford] asked us if he’d ever have to hook up with Taylor Momsen, because she’s so young and that would be weird..."

Little did he know!

Yesterday, we reported on the Rufus and Lily webisodes that the Gossip Girl writers were allegedly creating. Well, hold that thought.

Gossip Girl creator and executive producer Josh Schwartz tells E! Online that the concept won't be going forward, and instead, another Gossip Girl favorite is going to be featured in the new mobile content instead: Dorota!

Yes, Eleanor and Blair Waldorf's loyal, funny and oft-burdended housekeeper and confidante is finally going to get some glory of her own.

According to Schwartz, talks of a Young-Lily-and-Rufus web series were nixed and replaced with "a special Verizon series all about Dorota."

Or, as Blair would say, "DOROTA!!??"

Gossip Girl signed a deal with Verizon late last year that puts a variety of Verizon phones in the hands of our Upper East Side faves and has now paved the way for a Verizon-exclusive look at the secret life of Dorota.

Should be interesting if nothing else!

 Zuzanna Szadkowski portrays the Waldorfs' put-upon housekeeper, Dorota.