Post by SECRET on Sept 2, 2008 0:35:19 GMT -5
“There is a lot of change on the horizon,” says actor Penn Badgley, sounding more like a carnival fortune-teller than one of the newest members of hot young Hollywood. But Badgley, who plays Dan Humphrey on the CW’s Gossip Girl, has reason to tread carefully when discussing the show’s upcoming second season.
Although Gossip Girl does not bring in big ratings, the teenage soap opera is an online phenomenon. Its fans are a fiercely devoted and savvy group who swarm its New York set, then scrutinize findings and photos on the inordinate number of blogs dedicated to recapitulating the show’s episodes. Having only 18 episodes to choose from after the debut season was cut short by last year’s writer’s strike, Gossip Girl groupies are foaming at the keyboard, so to speak, for more drama to dissect.
“We’ve only gotten the first three scripts, and I don’t know how much I can reveal contractually,” Badgley continues. “But I think no matter what fans are divided over—whatever couples they like and all that stuff—they’ll all be happy because there is pretty drastic change from season one as far as relationships go. Thinks are shaken up a bit.”
On a season finale that left a nation of tweenagers (and adults who temporarily feel like such) desperately texting over the future of lovebirds Dan and Serena, Badgley offers only this: “Over the summer, Dan’s been doing a lot of pontificating over Serena, and he finally gets a resolution there.” As for what else is in store for his character, the 21-year-old actor says Dan will explore his “Chuck Bassian side,” a reference to the calculating Chuck Bass character, whom Badgley describes as “a grimy, dirty individual.”
Plot lines are not the only topic on which Badgley has learned to be guarded. His relationship with on-screen love interest Blake Lively was well-documented over the summer, each new paparazzi photo of the couple together spawning dozens of Web headlines. (“Photo evidence that Dan and Serena are dating in real life!” read an entry from New York magazine’s Daily Intel blog when the first picture surfaced.) As a result, Badgley became admittedly “cryptic,” not confirming the relationship for several months, and still discussing it as little as possible as he navigates his way through his overnight fame. “When I say the word celebrity when describing myself, I feel like it’s cheesy and that someone’s going to be like, ‘You’re not a f*cking celebrity!’ But in New York, when we roam the streets, it definitely feels that way. We can’t go anywhere without getting stopped and recognized,” he says.
Fortunately, the show’s writers are helping Badgley deal with his new teen idol status good-naturedly. “There are actually some lines in a new episode where a girl comes up to Dan and is giving him shit about what he’s doing because she’s reading about his life on the Gossip Girl Web site in the show, and a conversation takes place between my character and a 12-year-old girl that’s very much like what a conversation would be like between me and a fan of the show,” the actor reveals with a laugh. “It’s very witty—a wink to the audience.”
Badgley, who previously starred in the campy high-school comedy John Tucker Must Die, also has plans to balance his teen-oriented roles with a different kind of project. “There’s a line we all have to walk because we’ve had the commercial success,” he says in reference to the Gossip Girl cast. “Now we have to find critical success, and for the next film that I do, I would love to do a darker, grittier independent project—only to break away from what I’ve been doing.”
During the break in taping the first season due to the writer’s strike, Badgley shot a horror film called The Stepfather, a remake of the 1987 film starring Lost’s Terry O’Quinn. “It’s a hark back to the simple, story-driven thriller that is psychological as opposed to gore-filled,” Badgley says. “When we were making it, the name Hitchcock kept getting thrown around, which is pretty grand, but I think we did succeed in our attempt to mimic a more Hitchcockian thriller. It is simple and there’s not even a whole lot of blood, but I think it will surprise people in how good, just simply good, it is. It’s not going to change the world of film, but I think it’s definitely going to surprise people in how solid of a scary movie it is.”
The film is set to be released within the coming year, and the second season of Gossip Girl hits the air on September 1. As Gossip Girl herself would say, stay tuned …
Although Gossip Girl does not bring in big ratings, the teenage soap opera is an online phenomenon. Its fans are a fiercely devoted and savvy group who swarm its New York set, then scrutinize findings and photos on the inordinate number of blogs dedicated to recapitulating the show’s episodes. Having only 18 episodes to choose from after the debut season was cut short by last year’s writer’s strike, Gossip Girl groupies are foaming at the keyboard, so to speak, for more drama to dissect.
“We’ve only gotten the first three scripts, and I don’t know how much I can reveal contractually,” Badgley continues. “But I think no matter what fans are divided over—whatever couples they like and all that stuff—they’ll all be happy because there is pretty drastic change from season one as far as relationships go. Thinks are shaken up a bit.”
On a season finale that left a nation of tweenagers (and adults who temporarily feel like such) desperately texting over the future of lovebirds Dan and Serena, Badgley offers only this: “Over the summer, Dan’s been doing a lot of pontificating over Serena, and he finally gets a resolution there.” As for what else is in store for his character, the 21-year-old actor says Dan will explore his “Chuck Bassian side,” a reference to the calculating Chuck Bass character, whom Badgley describes as “a grimy, dirty individual.”
Plot lines are not the only topic on which Badgley has learned to be guarded. His relationship with on-screen love interest Blake Lively was well-documented over the summer, each new paparazzi photo of the couple together spawning dozens of Web headlines. (“Photo evidence that Dan and Serena are dating in real life!” read an entry from New York magazine’s Daily Intel blog when the first picture surfaced.) As a result, Badgley became admittedly “cryptic,” not confirming the relationship for several months, and still discussing it as little as possible as he navigates his way through his overnight fame. “When I say the word celebrity when describing myself, I feel like it’s cheesy and that someone’s going to be like, ‘You’re not a f*cking celebrity!’ But in New York, when we roam the streets, it definitely feels that way. We can’t go anywhere without getting stopped and recognized,” he says.
Fortunately, the show’s writers are helping Badgley deal with his new teen idol status good-naturedly. “There are actually some lines in a new episode where a girl comes up to Dan and is giving him shit about what he’s doing because she’s reading about his life on the Gossip Girl Web site in the show, and a conversation takes place between my character and a 12-year-old girl that’s very much like what a conversation would be like between me and a fan of the show,” the actor reveals with a laugh. “It’s very witty—a wink to the audience.”
Badgley, who previously starred in the campy high-school comedy John Tucker Must Die, also has plans to balance his teen-oriented roles with a different kind of project. “There’s a line we all have to walk because we’ve had the commercial success,” he says in reference to the Gossip Girl cast. “Now we have to find critical success, and for the next film that I do, I would love to do a darker, grittier independent project—only to break away from what I’ve been doing.”
During the break in taping the first season due to the writer’s strike, Badgley shot a horror film called The Stepfather, a remake of the 1987 film starring Lost’s Terry O’Quinn. “It’s a hark back to the simple, story-driven thriller that is psychological as opposed to gore-filled,” Badgley says. “When we were making it, the name Hitchcock kept getting thrown around, which is pretty grand, but I think we did succeed in our attempt to mimic a more Hitchcockian thriller. It is simple and there’s not even a whole lot of blood, but I think it will surprise people in how good, just simply good, it is. It’s not going to change the world of film, but I think it’s definitely going to surprise people in how solid of a scary movie it is.”
The film is set to be released within the coming year, and the second season of Gossip Girl hits the air on September 1. As Gossip Girl herself would say, stay tuned …
