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!
The success of Gossip Girl is opening up new doors for Penn Badgley.
The latest is a co-starring turn in a remake of the 1987 movie The Stepfather. Nip/Tuck’s Dylan Walsh will star in the film, with Variety reporting that Sela Ward and Penn Badgley will round out the family tree.
Adrianne Palicki, currently heating up the screen on Friday Night Lights, is also in negotiations to join the horror project.
The film is a Hitchcockian-style suspense story that revolves around a teenage boy’s relationship with his psychotic stepfather. Things take a turn for the worse when the boy (Badgley) discovers that his new dad may have killed his previous family. That’s always awkward.
Ward will star as the mom, while Palicki will play Badgley’s girlfriend.
In a recent interview with The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Penn Badgley actually admitted that he didn’t try out for the role of Dan.
The actor said:
“…initially I wanted to play Chace’s (Crawford’s) role, Nate. [GG Executive Producer Stephanie Savage] said, ‘I’m not sure you can play the floppy-haired, nerdy, sensitive guy anymore, but just take a look at this.’
Eventually they found Chace, and once I saw him I was like, ‘Nah, I’m not that guy. I definitely can’t do that.’”
Well, it all worked out for the best if you ask us. What do you think? Could Badgley have played Nate? Let us know now at our Gossip Girl forum.
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.”
The following interview is courtesy of GossipGirlOnline.net…
Q: How are you and your character different in real life?
Taylor Momsen: She cares a lot about what people think of her obviously. She really cares what Blair wants. She really wants to be accepted in that crowd and be popular where as me as long as I have my good friends. I’m cool with that and I’m cool with myself so it’s like we’re different in that way but we have a lot of similarities too.
Q: Do you get along with the cast really well?
TM: I do. We’re like a big family. It’s so great. I love, love working on [Gossip Girl]. We’re like really a family. It’s like a family away from a family. (Laughs).
Q: Do you feel out of place being the youngest cast member?
TM: Not really. I’m use to being the baby except for my real family I’m the oldest. But I’ll tell you that I’ve always been the youngest in my class and the youngest on everything so you know it’s good, you know it’s fun. They look out for me.
Q: Do you like shooting in New York?
TM: I do. I love it. I’m so excited we got to film the show here you know oppose to LA because New York is the character and you can’t recreate that. It’s great
Q: How did you find out and get involve with Gossip Girl?
Penn Badgley: I actually worked with Stephanie Savage before who created the show with Josh Schwartz. I met Josh when they were trying to do a spin off with Willa Holland I think for the OC. I knew them both and I had a relationship with Stephanie and they sent me the script of Gossip Girl and they told me about the books. I knew nothing about them. It seemed like an amazing opportunity to work with them to be a part of something that could be big so I signed on.
Q: Do you get along with the cast really well?
PB: We actually get along incredibly well. We’re all great friends. I was actually just texting Blake. We’re really close. In fact, one of the things I’m most thankful for in this show, the whole experience has been the friendships. That’s no shit. That’s no lie. (Laughs).
Q: How do you relate to your character?
PB: I think everybody relates to Dan. He’s the most easily relatable because he’s the most real. He’s the most vulnerable. I think he’s the most teenager - like out of everyone because they all live such ridiculous privileged life styles and he’s from Brooklyn. He literally lives in a really incredible apartment even though he’s poor. He lives the most normal life. He’s the most regular.
What makes Gossip Girl characters act so scandalous? You might not care, as long as it’s entertaining.
But here’s what Penn Badgley had to say on the topic:
“All these kids, excluding my character, have this pressure on them to become their parents and to uphold all this wealth and the whole image that comes with that.
It’s something kids shouldn’t have to deal with, and that’s why they are so conflicted and torn, and they’ve got really awful personal lives.
The ones that are having sex and doing the drugs and living the ‘glamorous’ lives will have to deal with the repercussions of that. The ones that have the most sex are the ones that feel the most empty.”
As we get ready for a new episode of Gossip Girl tonight, we’re excited to publish this interview of Penn Badgley by E! Online.
In it, the young actor speaks on the success of the show, as well as comparisons to a certain other Josh Schwartz character…
Were you guys expecting [to receive a full-season pick up by The CW already]?
I wasn’t really surprised. People who expected us to do better [ratings] right off the bat were being unrealistic, because the CW is still trying to establish itself as a full-fledged network. I think a show like Gossip Girl is just going to keep building an audience. It seems to be doing that slowly but surely every week.
Are you getting recognized already?
Actually, multiple times a day. If I go out in the city, chances are it’s going to happen, especially if Blake Lively and I are together. We have this Serena and Dan complex going, so people freak out if they see the two of us.
Have you guys been hanging out together off set a lot?
Yeah, the whole cast gets along really well. I think I’ve made some pretty incredible friendships.
I don’t think this would be happening if Gossip Girl weren’t a Josh Schwartz show, but people are making this comparison between Dan and—
Seth Cohen?
Exactly. Have you been getting that a lot?
No, not at all. I can’t imagine why anyone would compare me to Seth Cohen! That’s just absolutely crazy! [Laughs.] No, I think, on the page, Dan started out like a Seth Cohen in New York. But that’s one of the reasons why, I think, Stephanie probably wanted to bring me on.
Because I’ve worked with her before, and I typically play the “Dan role,” but one of the things I think has worked well for me is I try to bring as much dimension to that character as possible. I try to make him unique and not just a bumbling, awkward kid but a charming and innocent kid. You know, Adam Brody has his thing, and he’s great at that, but I wanted to do something a little different.
People are probably going to see the similarities at any chance they can and be like, ‘Oh, he’s just trying to be Adam Brody.’ I’ve already gotten that in a lot of the reviews, but I think if you pay a little more attention, I’m actually doing something very different.
Are you familiar with the Gossip Girl book series at all?
I read about 40 pages of the first book, just to get the idea and the tone. Then I realized there’s really no point, because we’re not emulating the books. We’re only using the premise as a platform to go off and do our own thing. But fans of the books won’t be disappointed, because we’re going to bring the same kind of fun entertainment: a little bit of trash but a lot of substance.
Producers recently cast a new character that was a major part of the book series but has yet to appear on the show: Dan’s former flame Vanessa.
Yeah, yeah. We’ve actually shot two episodes with Jessica Szohr already. It’s really great having her on. She adds a nice dynamic to the show, and she’s a great actress. I’m excited to see where Dan and Vanessa’s relationship could possibly go. So far she’s recurring, but I think given the character’s prevalence in the book series, she could easily become a series regular. I mean, she definitely shifts things around a little bit, and I think it works.
In the books, Dan has a bi-curious element, no? He has questioned his sexuality.
Yeah, I think he’s straight-up gay in the books. But I don’t think network TV really has the balls to make one of their [teenage] series regulars gay. Let’s say the show builds up to become a big hit, then I think they’d maybe explore it in year three or four. It would be an interesting thing to do. It could bring in a whole different demographic.
We’re still trying to wrap our minds around the possibility that Chace Crawford is dating Carrie Underwood.
But in the meantime, check out this picture of Penn Badgley, following his appearance on Fuse TV’s show, “The Sauce.” Seriously, it’s a real series…
Penn Badgley was our favorite actor on the season premiere of Gossip Girl. He made us feel Dan’s loneliness, awkwardness… and absolutely pining for Serena.
Below, the actor talks about the role:
Q: Can you tell me more about Gossip Girl and your character, Dan Humphrey?
A: Gossip Girl itself as a show, I think walks a nice line between you know flair and glamour and gloss and gossip. And all that that culture is. And then it also has a nice heart and soul to the show. That is most represented by the Humphrey family. Like Dan and his sister Jenny and his father Rufus. The Humphrey’s, they live a much less-privileged lifestyle than the rest of the characters. So what they lack financially, they make up for (like any other family) in the more rewarding things. They have…
Q: Soul?
A: The heart and soul. So Dan being so sensitive with so much heart is an outcast. All his life, he has pined after the girl who represents…
Q: Everything that he does not.
A: Right, exactly. And it’s also a lifestyle… he doesn’t want to encourage it and he doesn’t really agree with the extravagant life. You know what I am saying? So he kind of battles with that. The girl that he loves embodies everything that he…
Q: Doesn’t.
A: You know? Doesn’t have, yeah, but I don’t think he wants that. He wants, I think, the social aspect of it all but he’s not planning for Prada shoes or anything.
Q: Totally, totally. Are there any similarities between you and Dan?
A: I think definitely. I would like to think that I have the same integrity as his character. I am a little more socially-confident. I am not the loner.
Q: You’re not the guy that hides behind the dress. (Laughs).
A: No. But I was very introverted as a kid. So there are more similarities in that way than people might at first think. But yeah, overall, I think we are very similar. And on a television show, over time, the character really becomes you or rather you become the character. You kind of switch into that mode very easily. As time goes on, you might see more similarities.
Read the full interview here.
They may be biased sources, but Gossip Girl stars Chace Crawford and Penn Badgley (pictured here in character, as Dan Humphrey) are psyched about the premiere of their new show.
“I love the pilot I was really impressed with everything I mean there’s not a dud aspect of the show. All the actors are phenomenal the show looks unbelievable and sound’s great. The soundtrack is excellent,” Crawford said.
Because Gossip Girl is based on Cecily von Ziegesar’s book, many of the show’s cast members feel pressure to live up to the expectations of the popular novel series. Fortunately, the guidance of Schwartz has made it easier for the cast to identify with the teen drama.
“He’s such a normal cool guy. Josh [Schwartz] is so fun to hangout with. He’s so relaxed and down to earth but he’s hugely successful… He’s the creator of The O.C. and he really knows what he’s doing so it’s really interesting to watch the dynamic on set and how he runs it because he comes from such a pedigree,” Badgley said.
“I think the show is gonna stand out well on its own,” Crawford added.
