Door dit nieuws zul je je ongetwijfeld heel oud voelen: de eerste aflevering van Gossip Girl werd uitgezonden op 19 september 2007. 2007! Ter ere van dit tienjarige bestaan publiceerde Vanity Fair een uitgebreid interview met de gehele cast in 2017 (behalve Penn Badgely a.k.a. Dan Humphrey, maar hij was toch altijd al een true Lonely Boy). Hier lees je het hele interview. Wij pikten vast de meest juiciest stukken eruit. Gaan we:

1. Co-producers Josh Schwartz en Stephanie Savage zochten contact met Blake Lively voor de rol van Serena nadat fans van het boek op verschillende fora lieten weten haar het geschikst te vinden voor de rol. 'We zagen niet veel andere meisjes voor de rol van Serena,' vertelt Schwartz. 'Ze moest iemand zijn die front row bij Fashion Week zou kunnen zitten.'

2. Lively wilde het acteren bijna opgeven en weer gaan studeren toen haar de rol werd geboden. Ze probeerde het eerst af te wijzen, maar de producers praatten haar om.

Lively: 'I said, "No, I want to go to college. Thank you, though." Then Schwartz and Savage said, "Okay, you can go to Columbia [University] one day a week. After the first year [of the show], it'll quiet down. Your life will go back to normal and you can start going to school. We can't put it in writing, but we promise you can go." So that's why I said: "Okay. You know what? I'll do this. (...) This is advice to anyone: when they say, "We promise, but we can't put it in writing," there's a reason they can't put it in writing. But no, the show didn't slow down. It just got more and more.'

3. Leighton Meester deed auditie voor de rol van Serena, maar liet de producers weten dat ze zichzelf meer geschikt vond voor de rol van Blair Waldorf.

4. Meester wilde deze rol zo graag dat ze haar haar donker verfde.

Schwartz: 'She came in and she was really funny, and really smart and played vulnerable. But there was one problem: she was blonde. And Blake was blonde, obviously; Serena had to be blonde. So, Leighton went to the sink and dyed her hair. She wanted it.'

5. De eerste keer dat Chace Crawford (Nate Archibald in de serie) Meester ontmoette, zag hij haar niet als een Blair.

'I thought I just don't see her as Blair Waldorf. I can't see it.' Then Meester turned slyly in her chair with Blair's iconic headband and went into character. That sold Crawford. 'I just remember thinking, 'That girl can act. She's the perfect girl for this.'

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Leighton Meester en Chace Crawford.

6. Meester had niet gedacht dat Gossip Girl zo'n fenomeen zou worden.

Meester: 'I think it was just the normal, typical pilot season audition for me. I auditioned and then I tested once and then we did a screen test with everybody. And then, that was it….I dunno. I got it.'

7. …maar Lively had al zo'n gevoel dat het het einde van haar anonimiteit zou betekenen.

'I'm actually a very shy person and the idea of losing my anonymity was one that was scary to me,' zegt ze. 'I remember saying when I read this script, "Whoever does this will not be able to walk out of their house ever again and be the same as before they started this." You could tell it was a cultural phenomenon. That was both exciting and thrilling, but also very scary.'

8. Ivanka Trump en Jared Kushner hadden een gastrol 'voor het geld'.

Schwartz lacht erbij als hij het vertelt. Ze werden gefilmd in club Boom Boom Boom.

9. Gossip Girl was zeven of acht jaar geleden de vaakst illegaal gedownloade serie in China. Liet het Chinese bestuur voormalig CW-president of entertainment Dawn Ostroff destijds weten.

10. Crawford en Ed Westwick (Chuck Bass) deelden samen een appartement in Chelsea tijdens het filmen van de serie.

11. Westwick deed eerst auditie voor de rol van Nate.

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Ed Westwick en Leighton Meester als Chuck en Blair.

12. Zelfs voordat de eerste aflevering was uitgezonden, werden Westwick en Crawford al achternagezeten door meisjes.

Crawford: 'We had these girls coming up to us at an Arctic Monkeys concert, and they were kind of freaking out about it: "Oh, we love the books." Ed and I kept looking at each other like, shit, man.'

13. Fans en paparazzi bezochten de set van Gossip Girl en het was krankzinnig.

'I opened up my trailer door to see, literally, on my first day, I think 40 paparazzi,' vertelt Michelle Trachtenberg (Georgina Sparks). 'That's when I was like, "Okay, I need my own bodyguard." Meester had this quip about the girls who came around: They weren't there for her or Lively; "I think they were mostly there for the guys."'

14. Gossip Girl had een grote invloed op de verkoop van (merk-)kleding. Veel designers wilde na het eerste seizoen hun kleding in de show.

'When we came back with season 2, so many designers were lining up and wanting to be a part of it. They wanted their stuff on either Blake or Leighton,' vertelt kostuumontwerper Eric Daman.

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Leighton Meester op de set.

15. Mannen vertelden Zuzanna Szadkowski (Blairs rechterhand Dorota in de serie) dat ze de serie keken om meisjes te scoren.

'A guy coming up to me who had a suit and a briefcase, this total Wall Street Guy, and he was all like, "Oh my god, Dorota!" He told me — and a couple of other guys have told me this, too— that they used to watch the show because it was a great way in with the ladies.'

16. In tegenstelling tot de berichtgeving in de bladen, was er geen wrijving tussen Lively en Meester.

'It's funny," zegt Trachtenberg, 'Because when we were filming, there was, "Leighton hates Blake, Blake hates Leighton, everyone hates Blake, everyone hates Leighton, everyone hates Chace,"' and blah, blah, blah. It really wasn't. We were all chill. It was cool.'

17. De vrouwen waren geen vrienden, vertelt co-producer Joshua Safran, maar waren wel vriendelijk tegen elkaar:

'Blake and Leighton were not friends. They were friendly, but they were not friends like Serena and Blair. Yet the second they'd be on set together, it's as if they were.'

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18. Meester gedroeg zich op de set wat gereserveerd.

'She was very removed and very quiet, and, after her scenes were done, she would wander the stage. I had this image of her just in these gorgeous dresses with a book in her hand, sort of a little bit out of focus out in the corners.'

19. Lively was iets extraverter.

Safran: 'Blake is very much in the moment. Blake knows what's happening. She knows this movie's coming out, this band is happening. You talk to Blake on a very contemporary level, and she would be like: "I'm doing this thing tonight. Have you been to this restaurant?"'

20. Lively en Penn Badgley (Dan Humphrey) hielden hun relatie zo privé dat niemand het doorhad toen het uitging.

Safran: 'The shocking thing was, I found out on the set of the season 2 finale that Blake and Penn had broken up months before. They kept the breakup hidden from the crew, which you could never do now. I don't even know how they did it. They kept it from everybody which is a testament to how good they are as actors. Because they did not want their personal drama to relate to the show.'

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Blake Lively en Penn Badgley.

21. Lively was bang dat haar bazen erachter zouden komen dat ze iets met Badgley had, totdat ze begreep dat ze júíst wilden dat de cast met elkaar datete.

Lively: 'I remember there was one point where we were just afraid of how our personal lives overlapping our work life could be perceived by our bosses. But then we were like: "Oh no, that's exactly what they want." They wanted us all to date. They wanted us all to wear the same clothes that we're wearing on the show. They wanted that, because then it fed their whole narrative. People could buy into this world.'

22. Badgley wilde liever niet in de serie spelen.

Safran: 'Penn didn't like being on Gossip Girl, but…he was Dan. He may not have liked it, but his character was the closest to who he was.'

23. Toen Lively een setje vormde met Leonardo DiCaprio, maakte ze tijdens het filmen van de serie foto's van een pop om te documenteren waar ze was en stuurde deze naar hem.

Safran: 'When I think about shooting the L.A. episodes, Blake was dating DiCaprio at the time, and she had this thing where she had a doll that she took photos of that she sent to Leo. Blake was way ahead of the curve. It was pre-Instagram. She was documenting her life in photographs in a way that people were not yet doing.'

24. De scripts van Gossip Girl werden gehacked.

Een producer van de serie vertelt Vanity Fair: 'All season, our scripts were ending up online, and we couldn't figure out how. We hired a private investigator. We didn't understand what was happening, because everything was getting leaked, every detail. …A teenager, I think either from Russia or Bulgaria, had hacked one of the writer's e-mails, and was selling scripts on eBay. But they were underage, so they couldn't be prosecuted. It was a fucking production nightmare. We would have to 'X' out every script. We would have to print on red paper. ….It was like there was a "Gossip Girl" in our system.'

25. De echte Gossip Girl zou geen meisje zijn. Zowel Nate als Eric van der Woodsen, Serena's broer, werden door de schrijvers gezien als meest voor de hand liggende identiteit van de blogger.

26. Westwick weet nog steeds niet wie de Gossip Girl is. (Hoe dan?) Dat schreef hij in een e-mail aan Vanity Fair.

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27. Lively en Meester staan open voor een reünie. Hoewel Lively hier dan weer iets meer voor openstaat dan Meester.

Leighton Meester: 'I guess I hear that reunion talk in fits and starts here and there, but it's hard to say. If everyone was into it and if the timing was right, you know? I don't want to say, "No, never…"'

Blake Lively: 'Of course. I'm open to anything that's good, that's interesting, and that sort of feels necessary. …I imagine we all would consider it. I can't speak for everyone else, but we all owe so much to this show, and I think that it would be silly not to acknowledge that.'

Lees het volledige artikel hier.

Van: ELLE US