Serena van der Woodsen is often the subject of talk on the CW’s Gossip Girl, and while Blake Lively, the actress behind the blonde teen socialite, knows what it’s like to be the center of gossip, she says that she is far from her television persona.
“Serena was brought up very differently than I was brought up,” Lively told the Associated Press in between scenes. “Serena was given everything her whole life. … I grew up in a small little town in California — Burbank. I went to high school [and] what we would do on our nights off [was] go to a school fundraiser, go to a football game, where these people have masquerade balls or go lounge at The Palace Hotel and sip martinis…”
She added, however, that in terms of coping with fame and popularity, she and Serena are the same in that they try their best to be a “good person” amidst all the pressure of being in the spotlight.
“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,” Blake Lively said. “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. And I really try to steer clear of that. So, you know, we’re like that in the same way.”
There’s also the fact that they “both giggle a lot” and look alike.
How different or the same Blake Lively is from her Gossip Girl character may change over time, but what is certain at the moment is that the 20-year-old actress is fast becoming one of the most popular stars among viewers – both old and young – today.
“It’s pretty crazy. [I get recognized] not only [as] Serena van der Woodsen, but people know my own name,” Lively told the Associated Press. “[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. It was so strange how many people would just get giddy over it. And it’s people that you would not expect at all.”
Tune in to Gossip Girl every Wednesday night on the CW.
-Lisa Claustro, BuddyTV Staff Columnist
Source: Associated Press
(Image Courtesy of the CW)
Staff Columnist, BuddyTV
