Spotted: Blake Lively feeling nostalgic.
In honor of the 18th anniversary since Gossip Girl’s premiere, Serena van der Woodsen herself celebrated the show by posting a carousel of behind-the-scenes snapshots taken throughout its six-season run.
“This show was my college. It was my education, my social life, my hardwork, my late nights and early mornings, my teacher,” the 37-year-old captioned the never-before-seen pictures she posted on Instagram. “New York City and Silvercup Studios (& sometimes Paris) was my campus for SIX years.”
Many pictures include Leighton Meester, who played Blake’s on-screen best friend and sometimes nemesis Blair Waldorf, and other notable cast members from the series such as Chace Crawford and Ed Westwick—a.k.a Nate Vanderbilt and Chuck Bass.
“So many memories,” Blake continued. “What. A. Decade. What a University.”
Blake also shared a throwback picture with Penn Badgley, who at the time was Blake’s onscreen and offscreen boyfriend, while filming the season one episode “Hi, Society.”
Over the years, the cast has shared insight into that time in their life, including Penn, who detailed his dynamic with Blake even after their 2010 breakup after three years.
“I’m pretty sure we were exes for nearly half of the run of the series,” the actor behind Dan Humphrey explained of his and Blake’s relationship on a September 2024 episode of his podcast Podcrushed. “We were always very professional. We had to do all kinds of nutso stuff. Having a fake marriage by the end of it. I don’t even think, in my memory, there was not one bit of strangeness. It wasn’t even a thing.”
And in the more than a decade since the show’s 2012 end after six seasons, there have been plenty of onscreen cast reunions.
In June, Blake reunited with Zuzanna Szadkowski—who played Blair’s housekeeper Dorota Kishlovsky—to advertise her summer flavors of her canned beverage line Betty Booze.
Plus, come October 23, Leighton will share the small screen with the voice of Gossip Girl herself Kristen Bell—as well as IRL husband Adam Brody—in season two of Nobody Wants This.
“This cast is really close, we have a very active text chain, sometimes too active, a lot of people making jokes,” Kristen told Extra in February about Leighton joining the Nobody Wants This cast. “I mean folding Leighton into it just seems natural and wonderful.”
To learn some secrets about Gossip Girl, keep reading.
Chuck and Blair’s Relationship Was Inspired by Leighton Meester and Ed Westwick’s Onscreen Chemistry
Spotted: Leighton Meester and Ed Westwick delivering major chemistry.
Watching the final scene of the pilot—that saw Ed’s bad boy Chuck Bass and Leighton’s queen bee Blair Waldorf witness her former BFF Serena van der Woodsen (Blake Lively) leave a party with outsiders Dan (Penn Badgley) and Jenny Humphrey (Taylor Momsen)—gave co-creators Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage the idea to create the iconic couple.
“There was just a connection between them…that was immediately so palpable and fun,” Josh said of the scene. “That was where it kind of really first landed.”
“It was like a revelation to watch,” Stephanie added. “It’s like Dangerous Liaisons. It’s like Valmont and Merteuil…they love each other but they hate each other, and they do schemes together. That was such a juicy story to lean into.”
Ed Westwick Knows He Had “Great Chemistry” With Leighton Meester
Yes, Ed was well aware that there was something there with Chair.
“I had an amazing time working with Leighton,” he gushed to former costar Jessica Szohr on her Gossip Girl rewatch podcast XOXO with Jessica Szohr in February 2022. “And people really were taken with that relationship. It means so much to people, which is so cute and funny.”
As for his true dynamic with Leighton, he told Jessica, who played Dan’s childhood bestie turned something more Vanessa Abrams, “She’s an incredible talent. I miss her dearly. We just had this great chemistry, and we used to make each other laugh, and I felt protective over her at times. Yeah, she probably made me better.”
Ed Westwick and Chace Crawford Were Roomies
Ed and co-star Chace Crawford (who played his onscreen bestie, the privileged Nate Archibald) got extra close, because they actually lived together for the first two years of filming.
As Ed revealed on XOXO, “Chace and I agreed to live together on the pilot. He was like, ‘Do you want to room together?’ I’d never lived outside my parents’ house and I was like, ‘Yeah, sure, whatever.'”
The British actor explained, “He went and looked at some places, and he sent me the strangest photos. It was like the corner of a ceiling with a little bit of the floor.” Laughing, Ed noted, “I was like, ‘Alright, sure. Whatever dude, looks fine!’ And so we lived together for the first two years.”
This Mega Star Almost Played Serena
None other than Jennifer Lawrence auditioned to play series lead Serena, the part that ultimately went to Blake.
“We did not realize this at the time, but Jennifer Lawrence really wanted to play Serena and auditioned,” co-creator Josh told Vulture in 2017. “This story came to us secondhand, but we were told she definitely auditioned and was bummed to not get it.”
Penn Badgley Buzzed Off Most of His Hair on the First Day of Filming
When Penn was auditioning for the part of Brooklyn-based “Lonely Boy” Dan, he was rocking what Josh and Stephanie recalled as long, “snowboarder” locks. The actor ended up chopping most of it off on his first day of filming, shocking the crew and network execs.
“Everybody was like, ‘What is happening?! He shaved his head!'” Josh recalled. However, once they all saw the new ‘do, everyone agreed: “Oh damn, he looks good.”
Lily Collins Auditioned for This Role
Gossip Girl wouldn’t be the same without Taylor Momsen. So it’s hard to believe that Lily Collins almost played Dan’s eager-to-fit-in little sis. The Emily in Paris actress shared that she went through the entire audition process, lamenting to Glamour, “I wanted it so badly.”
These Celebs Were in the Running to Play Young Lily Van der Woodsen
Gossip Girl casting director David Rapaport dished to Jessica about the Gossip Girl spinoff centered on Serena’s mom, Lily van der Woodsen (Kelly Rutherford), with a pilot that starred Brittany Snow and Krysten Ritter.
“I remember for that Dakota Johnson came in and Rooney Mara, and a lot of other women who are now kind of big names but at the time didn’t have that kind of stature,” he recalled on XOXO. “And you know who did the best read for that? I’ll tell you, because I think you’re friends with Nina Dobrev, that was one of the best auditions I had ever seen, and for that role specifically.”
David said he called the network and told them, “She is a super star.”
The issue, however, as he recalled on the podcast was that “she does not look like Kelly Rutherford, because she was supposed to be a young Kelly Rutherford.”
Still, she stressed to the network that they needed to keep the Degrassi: The Next Generation star on their radar, “‘and you guys need to find something for her,'” he recalled. “I just remember thinking, ‘I am going to think about this girl in a couple of years and be like, ‘Oh god, I missed that opportunity.’ She was so incredible!”
Chuck Bass Was Only Supposed to Be in a Few Episodes
As Ed shared on the XOXO podcast in 2022, “Chuck Bass was supposed to be a recurring role and was only supposed to come in for a few episodes.”
The actor said he feels “lucky” that the mogul became a bigger part of the show, adding of his audition process, “I kind of got around one of the testing aspects there, because I didn’t have to test like a series regular. I did two auditions and then a screen test but I never had to test for network.”
Jessica Szohr Was Cast After Being Scouted at a Pool Party
Is this considered a meet-cute? Gossip Girl showrunners Josh and Stephanie knew that they had found their Vanessa when Adam Brody, who they had worked with on The O.C., brought her along as a guest to a Fourth of July pool party.
Stephanie said on an episode of XOXO that she and Josh immediately ran to a computer—after all, this happened all before the iPhone came out—and Googled Jessica to see if she was an actress.
Ed Westwick Almost Lost His Role of Chuck Due to Visa Issues
According to Josh, casting Ed “was a whole situation.” Not only had the English actor initially auditioned for the part of Nate, but his role of Chuck nearly went to somebody else as well.
“He got cast as Chuck and then couldn’t get his visa to come shoot in the U.S. in time, because he was a citizen of the U.K.,” Josh recalled on an episode of XOXO with Jessica Szohr, adding that the network was pressuring him to recast the part.
“They were saying to us as we got closer and closer to start of the pilot, ‘Guys, you need to figure out who your back-up Chuck is gonna be because we don’t think this is gonna work out,'” Josh remembered. “And we were just like, ‘There is no backup Chuck. It’s Ed.'”
Since Josh and his co-creator, Stephanie, were adamant on having Ed play Chuck, the network waited for his visa to get approved.
Christina Ricci and Selma Blair Were Considered to Voice Gossip Girl
Although Kristen Bell was the top pick for the voice of Gossip Girl, both Christina Ricci and Selma Blair were “in the mix” as possible candidates, according to Stephanie, who also served as executive producer.
Kristen was ultimately cast after Veronica Mars—which also featured her voiceover work as the series’ titular star—was canceled after three seasons.
