Archive for May, 2009
Chace Crawford has landed the lead role in Footloose and it’s official! The Gossip Girl
actor has previously tried out for the part of Ren McCormack, a role originally played by Kevin Bacon, after High School Musical star Zac Efron decided to drop out, reportedly saying that he wanted to take a break from musicals. Sources say that Crawford did really well during the audition but there hasn’t been any confirmation that he landed the part until now.
The film, which follows a Chicago teen rebelling against anti-dancing laws in his new town, was first made in 1984 and starred Bacon, Lori Singer, Dianne Wiest, and John Lithgow. Despite mixed critical reviews, it grossed approximately $80,000,000 in the U.S. box office and was eventually spun off into a Broadway musical in 1998.
The remake of Footloose, which is set to begin shooting in March 2010, will be produced and directed by High School Musical producer Kenny Ortega. Crawford’s movie credits include The Haunting of Molly Hartley, Loaded, The Covenant, and Long Lost Son. Aside from the Gossip Girl actor, other stars have also auditioned for the movie, including Heroes actress Hayden Panettiere, Amanda Bynes and Dancing with the Stars pro dancer Julianne Hough, though word on the street is that Hannah Montana star Miley Cyrus is in contention for the Ariel Moore leading lady role. Meanwhile, Crawford appears to have a busy summer ahead of him because aside from filming Footloose, he will also be working on the third season of Gossip Girl where he plays Nate Archibald, a young socialite living on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. Additionally, he has also been cast in the drama film Twelve, and is rumored to appear in the movie Upstate with The O.C. actress Mischa Barton.
You may know as Jessica Szohr as Vanessa Abrams on Gossip Girl. Despite the widespread fan hatred for her character, the 24-year-old actress of Hungarian and African-American descent is a certified hottie.
Following Rolling Stone’s lead in blending hot Gossip Girl stars and food (the cover of Blake Lively and Leighton Meester sharing an ice cream cone is still seared into our brains), Men’s Health asked Jessica Szohr to indulge in some sweets.
How sweet an idea that was …
In the magazine’s May issue, the Gossip Girl star explains what foods turn her on. All you have to do, apparently, is give the girl a burger to satisfy her. “After ten years of eating vegetarian I tried my boyfriend’s,” says Jessica, who has been dating her co-star Ed Westwick for several months at least.
“I was completely overwhelmed. It was orgasmic. When I have a craving for something, I just can’t hold myself back.”
One of the most buzzed-about parts of Monday’s Gossip Girl season finale was Georgina Sparks’ surprise appearance at the end – and the self-proclaimed bitch’s declaration that she will be attending NYU in the fall … and rooming with Blair Waldorf!
But with Michelle Trachtenberg, who plays Georgina, starring on a new series, Mercy, next fall, is she really joining the Gossip Girl cast, as this season-ending scene implied?
In sad, but not wholly unexpected news, the Gossip Girl spinoff starring Brittany Snow as a younger version of Lily van der Woodsen coming of age in 1980s L.A. has officially been nixed from the CW’s plans for this fall, according to a report today on EW.com.
The new Melrose Place, Vampire Diaries and Beautiful Life got the nod instead. With three spots to fill in its fall lineup, the CW said thanks, but no thanks to the Gossip Girl spinoff, which we saw a glimpse of May 11, as well as a second season of Privileged.
What can you do. At least the Gossip Girl season finale was awesome.
Watch Promo of Gossip Girl Season 2 Episode 25 “The Goodbye Gossip Girl“
Download “The Goodbye Gossip Girl” Episode
Lily van der Woodsen. During tonight’s “Gossip Girl” hour, we’re flashing back more than 25 years to her teenage days, and if all goes well, those flashbacks will morph into a whole new spin off series this September. Sounds exciting to me, so I decided to bother executive producer Stephanie Savage with a bunch of questions about it…
80s. Love it. Already on board. But exactly what year will things begin, will we know?
SS: We’re going to try and be somewhat vague about that, just so we don’t get trapped in nitpicking, but we’re starting somewhere around 1983. The idea is that it’s Lily in high school, so we wanted to give it a nice long run before it turns into the 90s when she’d be meeting Rufus.
The “Gossip Girl” episode during which Lily made a list of all the men she’d slept with… should we have been pausing our DVRs and looking closely at that list? Any of those guys going to pop up should the show go to series in the fall?
SS: Well the names on that list were mostly our crew members’ names, and that’s largely just for legal reasons. A lot of the guys that would have been on Lily’s list, that are on the list in her mind, are guys that are older and have families now and they don’t necessarily want to be associated with Lily’s past. But we’ll still be telling those stories, definitely.
How would you describe the tone of the show? Comparable to “Fast Times”? “Valley Girl”? “Less Than Zero”?
SS: It’s kind of, I think, a combination of all of those. We definitely didn’t want it to be joke-y and campy and we worked really hard, and I think succeeded — knock on wood — in terms of the fashion and the music and the production design, to make something that felt fun, definitely, but also grounded in a reality where we could tell dramatic stories. So you’re not, like, having an emotional scene where you’re [distracted by] their makeup or their ponytail or their shoulder pads. We wanted to keep the show aspirational, in terms of the clothes and the music. Young women who watch “Gossip Girl” to get ideas about fashion will also want to watch this to get ideas about fashion. They’ll be slightly different ideas, but it still feels aspirational and like something that you’d want to be a part of, rather than make fun of. And we hope we can turn people on to music that they don’t know, or movies or TV shows that they may have heard of, but never really watched.
Not going to lie, I’m psyched for the fashion.
SS: When we were shooting it, we were looking around at each other going, Oh my God, my hair is so flat, I have no volume, my clothes are really boring, I have to work on my accessories.
And what about the music, will it be more mainstream 80s or edgy…?
SS: Well both, we definitely have different worlds represented in our show. The Los Angeles punk scene is represented. And then there are the more obvious KROQ radio hits. Jumping between these two worlds is important to the show. Lily is living with her sister in the Valley and kind of hanging out in the punk rock scene, but she and her sister come from a wealthy family and their parents are more aligned with a Pacific Palisades/Beverly Hills/Malibu, “Less Than Zero” world. So her struggle, kind of as it is in “Gossip Girl,” is to try and figure out what kind of world she wants to be in.
Will the music include songs that were actually recorded and released in the 80s or will you be using new bands that have kind of an 80s sound and feel to them?
SS: The music that the characters are listening to will be true to the period. But we definitely want to use newer music that has an 80s feel to it as well. And we also want to have new bands who can kind of do cameos as a period band.
Anyone you have your eye on?
SS: Well, in our first pilot episode that is going to air as part of “Gossip Girl” [tonight], we have “No Doubt.” They are playing “Snowed Out,” their fictional 80s counterparts!
Love it. Last thing, I have to know, if the show gets picked up, are you really going to cast actors to play the 80s versions of “O.C.” characters Jimmy Cooper and Kirsten Nichol?
SS: I don’t think it would be a huge part of the show, but it’s always been in the back of our minds that Lily’s character comes from California and, coming from Montecito, she may have crossed paths with our Newport Beach characters. They grew up around the same time. And it’s something we’re able to do because Warner Brothers and [executive producer] Josh [Schwartz] control those characters, so we can bring them to life if we chose to do that. It could be a lot of fun…
