‘Gossip’ is a big step for Lively
Wide-eyed teens watch excitedly as “Gossip Girl” star Blake Lively films a scene.
Take after take in New York’s Stuyvesant Park, the youthful onlookers linger on this cold autumn day, providing some evidence that the low-rated CW series attracts its target demo: BlackBerry-holding, DVR-using Gen-Yers.
Lively, 20, who got her big break as a soccer-loving teen in 2005’s “The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants,” plays Serena van der Woodsen on the glossy soap, based on the popular young-adult novels about rich Manhattan private school kids whose lives are dishy fodder for an anonymous blogger.
Q: Do you get recognized on the street?
A: It’s pretty crazy … (everyone) from young girls, teenage girls, women in their 30s and 40s to, like, Guido-type guys, like frat boys. One day these, like, thuggish guys were, like, coming out, rolling out of their Escalade and they go – they’re like, “Man, that’s gossip girl!” And they were, like, freaking out.
Q: Are you anything like Serena?
A: No, not at all. Serena was given everything her whole life. … (But) at the heart of it all, Serena really wants to be a good person – despite all odds, despite all the chaos that’s going on around her and all the other people in her life. So I think that I strive to do the right thing and not fall into the norm (like) so many young people in Hollywood who – because they were raised differently – get caught up in some of the nonsense. So, you know, we’re like that in the same way. We both giggle a lot. We look alike.
Q: On a recent episode, Serena kicked butt playing (the video game) “Guitar Hero” at a party. Did you do any research for that?
A: The reason they wrote it in was because I’m such an amazing “Guitar Hero” player. I saw clips of it. It doesn’t really debut my skills so well, which I was very disappointed about.
Q: Did you grow up knowing that you wanted to act?
A: I had no clue what I wanted to do, but I knew it was not acting – just because my whole family (her parents and siblings, including sister Robyn Lively, who starred in 1989’s “Teen Witch”) was in it, and it was the only job I really knew of. And I thought, “That’s really cool but that’s not something I want to do.” So I worked my whole life to go to Stanford, and the summer between my junior and senior year of high school … my brother decided I would love acting. So he made his agent send me out on a few auditions. I went on two auditions and I got “Sisterhood.”
The birthday bunch
Actor George Lindsey (“The Andy Griffith Show”) is 72. Actor Ernie Hudson (“Ghostbusters”) is 62. Actor-comedian Eugene Levy is 61. Actor Barry Livingston (“My Three Sons”) is 54. Actor Bill Pullman is 54. Director-producer Peter Farrelly (“There’s Something About Mary,” “Dumb and Dumber”) is 51. Actor Sean Patrick Thomas is 37. Actor Giovanni Ribisi is 33. Actress Milla Jovovich is 32. Actor-singer Nat Wolff (“The Naked Brothers Band”) is 13.