If you were a teen in the 2000’s, you recognize the iconic Gossip Girl (Kristen Bell) voice anywhere. This means you also experienced the rollercoaster of emotions waiting for Serena to choose between Lonely Boy and Nate – who recently reminisced about the time they spent on the sets of the hit CW series.
Gossip Girl’s first episode aired in the September of 2007 and came to a close in December 2012. This show won the hearts of people all over the world – so much so that January 26th is officially called “Gossip Girl Day” in New York City.
Eight years later, Chace Crawford (Nate Archibald) and Penn Badgley (Dan Humphrey) reunited virtually for a Variety interview. Besides Gossip Girl being the show they both gained their popularity from, the stars talked about their latest TV shows – ‘You’ on Netlfix and ‘The Boys’ on Amazon Prime. Although, of course, the topic quickly diverted to the six seasons they spent playing Dan Humphrey and Nate Archibald.
Crawford commented on Badgley’s current role playing Joe Goldberg in You, he points out that, “What’s interesting about Joe — it is almost like an odd continuation of Dan.” He added “At the end of Gossip Girl the show, whatever your reaction is on whether it was smart to do that or not, that he’s Gossip Girl — it didn’t really line up with the character of Dan. Right?” Badgley agreed, responding with, “Yeah.”
Badgley also made the correlation between his roles as Joe and Dan – “I’ve always tried to be both transparent and forthcoming and grateful of the way Gossip Girl positioned me to be in a role like this and for it to have the particular effect that it has. Because it’s interesting that regardless of my performance, the fact that it’s simply me, just one of the main characters of the show called Gossip Girl, and I ended up being Gossip Girl — even though we can debate about whether or not that makes sense. And we can debate about whether or not Dan is even really a male lead in the show, because the heart of the show was somewhere else. But anyway, it’s me playing this guy Joe, and it makes a lot of sense in a way … In a way, it’s almost like Dan, just with bloody hands.”
Badgley agreed it didn’t totally make sense for Dan to be revealed as Gossip Girl, saying, “I think it’s emblematic of our time, because back in 2007…People wanted to watch a show like Gossip Girl because it was aspirational. It was like an escape. It seemed like it struck a certain cultural chord because it was this aspirational fantastical vision of excess and wealth. But now, cut to 13 years later, people are not interested in that. And I think rightfully so.” Badgley continued, “Now they’re interested in deconstructing why we’re so fascinated with that in the first place. We’re interested in deconstructing those systems of privilege.”
However, the former co-stars vowed to watch an episode of Gossip Girl together in the near future. “We’re doing that when you come to L.A. We’ll have a drink,” Crawford also made us feel butterflies and making us excited – “Dude, if we live-tweet a viewing of any episode of Gossip Girl, people would love that,” Badgley agreed, acknowledging fans’ prayers everywhere.
When asked about the Gossip Girl reboot for HBO Max, Badgley said he has nothing but well wishes for the new cast. “Dude, I’m so interested to see what it’s like,” he said. “I wish them well. I really am also interested to see how people react to it.”
Maybe we’ll never truly know how the two feel about it, I guess that’s a secret they’ll never tell.
Watch the interview here.
