Loved it or hated it, you were probably reeling the last time Gossip Girl was on the air, aka the moment where Blair chose Dan over Chuck. In Monday’s new episode, Queen B and the boy from Brooklyn are going to try their darndest to consummate their unlikely couple status by… well, you know. (The show, of course, will throw obstacles in their way, like parents inconveniently hanging around.)

But whether or not they succeed, there will be plenty working against Ms. Have and Mr. Have Not. Will they come out of Season 5 intact? When exactly did the writers decide Dan and Blair should be together anyway? Where does that leave Chuck? And what about Serena, whose heart was also broken? Is Gossip Girl’s laptop going to spell war between B and S? We grilled series executive producer Josh Safran about the origins of Blair’s choice and what it has wrought. Plus: He tells us exactly how much flak he and the writers have taken for making Dair happen instead of Chair.

Blair chose Dan over Chuck and then the show went away for more than a month. During that time, what kind of reaction have you gotten? Some people are pretty mad…
Josh Safran: The Blair-Dan camp has been as vocal throughout the whole season as they are now. It was not like, “Oh my gosh, she made that choice!” I believe the audience understood that choice was coming, you know? Also, we cannot change where the stories are going now because the finale wraps in three days. It’s that strange thing where you hear from the fans, and some people are very happy and some people are unhappy, and there is really not much you can do about it.

The one thing I can say, though, is that we are very grateful and feel very lucky that people, five seasons in, feel so passionate about these characters and about these relationships. We know that is very rare and we do not treat it lightly. You cannot plan for that. There is no way to engineer that. It’s magic.

You just said it isn’t as though you can change the direction of the story. But would you do anything differently if you could?
Safran: I don’t think so, because we are telling the story that we believe in. Obviously, people have different points of view and that is the whole point of… existence. [Laughs.] So we respect and we understand different points of view, but this is the story that we want to tell and that is the story that we are telling.

What’s the split of Dair to Chair fans? 50-50?
Safran: I would like to think that. It’s not like we arrived at Dan and Blair because we thought, “Let’s just put them together.” We arrived at Dan and Blair because we felt that is where we were going. I would like to think that there is a larger portion of the audience who understands that. There are people who do not like it and, you know, all I can say to them is I’m sorry.

Now that Blair has made her choice, what will her new challenges be?
Safran: There are some really fun vintage Blair story lines coming up in her desire to return to her former self, or become an even better version of her former self. One of my favorites coming up is a great Blair and Dan story where they try to find their place in the world as a couple and find it easier said than done.

Does “vintage Blair” means the minions will be back for good? I loved Blair’s bridesmaid auditions.
Safran: It is definitely along those lines. And the minions do make an appearance in the next episode after Monday’s, but what I mean by “vintage Blair,” at least in this one case, is that she’s going to come up against an antagonist that she sets about trying to change. But that antagonist is actually not a person. It is a thing. I’m excited about it so I don’t want to spoil anything. I want people to be surprised. • Read full story…

The countdown to the Gossip Girl finale begins Monday when the CW soap returns with the first of seven all-new episodes. Below, showrunner Josh Safran gives TVLine a sneak peek at what’s going down on the Upper East Side as the season draws to a close (hint: a ton).

TVLINE | Dan and Blair go public with their romance in “Salon of the Dead” on April 16. What obstacles do they face beyond that?
The obstacles are always going to be that Dan knows just how big of a presence Chuck has been in Blair’s life. And that’s something Blair works very hard to put Dan at ease about, but I think the harder she works at putting Dan at ease about that the more uneasy he feels. And, obviously, their relationship is hard for everybody around them because Serena was and maybe still is in love with Dan. And Chuck has his issues that he’s dealing with. And whenever Chuck is dealing with issues, Blair often wants to help.

TVLINE | Is Louis no longer a factor?
He is no longer a factor.

TVLINE | So Georgina takes care of that situation?
The situation will be taken care of. I’m not sure it’s ultimately Georgina who takes care of it.

TVLINE | If Ivy loved having a family so much, why is she alienating the Van der Woodsens? What’s her endgame?
She definitely still wants to be a part of the family. But she’s upset because no matter what she has tried to do they don’t accept her. So, at this point, she feels like she has nothing left to prove because they’re not going to accept her anyway, so she’s just going to look out for herself. • Read full story…

Leighton Meester, best known for her indelible portrayal of rich-girl snobbery and capriciousness as Blair Waldorf on Gossip Girl, is getting her bowl on at Frames, a low-key alley abutting the Port Authority, Manhattan’s main bus terminal and one of the last vestiges of Times Square’s gritty past. She enjoys bowling — this is her second outing in a week. Which is not to say Meester is skilled at bowling. Because she is not.

“I never played sports,” she explains, before releasing her ball with an indifferent thump. “I wasn’t any good at them.” She watches the ball drop into the gutter with limp finality. Unfazed, she throws again, hurling it down the lane, knocking over a handful of pins. A second gutter shot follows. “I guess I need a bigger target,” she says flatly.

On growing up:
“My family has a crazy history. Probably the craziest I’ve heard of. I look back now and I see it in a nice light. It wasn’t uncomplicated. But I played outside. I went to the beach. There were happy, fun times.”

On having little use for self-pity:
“You can take what is handed to you and use it as an excuse to mess up. But I’ve always handled what was given to me by life. I consider myself lucky. I was never lied to. And I was loved.”

On not having or wanting a true childhood:
“I worked a lot, even though I was just a kid. It seemed normal to me. I couldn’t relate to kid stuff. ‘Jimmy doesn’t like me!’ Who cares? I was worried we didn’t have gas money or food. Those were my concerns.”

On getting stronger through suffering:
“When you see how you react when you suffer, that’s when you know what you are made of.”

On her indifference towards relationships:
“I never had a boyfriend until I was 18. It’s nice, I guess – when you like them. But it isn’t the most important thing. I’m not sure I ever want to get married. The only time a relationship is good is when you really love them. I don’t want to hang out with some guy I just like.”

Meester is no stranger to such things.

One of those rare children born with both full-blown ambition and the determination to avoid even the slightest derailment, Meester has been aiming at big game since grade school. Part of this is a rejoinder to circumstance. Meester’s mother, Constance, gave birth to her while serving federal prison time for drug trafficking.

Meester was not, she has oft clarified, born in jail. She was delivered in a hospital, then transferred to a halfway house for three months, after which she was sent to live with her grandmother until Constance’s release. Her father, Doug, also served time for drug-related offenses.

He and Constance would later divorce. The difficult facts of her childhood provided Meester with matchless perspective. Also, an ineffaceable blueprint of what not to do.

Source: Marie Clarie

Penn Badgley says Chuck is Blair’s soulmate, Ed Westwick likes kissing Leighton Meester, Chace says something about his character and Blake talks about the royal wedding.

Nobody gives good love triangle like Gossip Girl. It’s one of the biggest reasons the show has made it to a whopping 100 episodes, which the cast celebrated this weekend in (where else?) NYC. And E! News was on hand to dish with Chace Crawford, Penn Badgley, Leighton Meester, Blake Lively and the rest of the cast.
So do the show’s über-popular duo Chuck and Blair still stand a chance? What about Dan and Blair? And which guy is Blair’s “soul mate”? Penn’s answer may surprise you…

“I think they will always have feelings for each other in a certain capacity,”Penn says of Dan and Blair.”I can’t really say where it is going to go, nor do I know…They have had plans for them since the beginning, only in the sense that they are a certain intellectual match for one another. I think Dan is unfortunate in that he loves Blair and I think Blair is his soul mate—but he is not Blair’s soul mate, because Blair and Chuck belong with each other, obviously. I think that the fans all love Chuck and Blair together, but you know, maybe you’re wrong.” • Read full story…

She just keeps expanding her horizons, and Leighton Meester’s latest gig is as the face of Vera Wang’s new fragrance Lovestruck.

The “Gossip Girl” hottie recently filmed a new commercial for the scent, looking fabulous in a maroon gown made by Ms. Wang especially for the occasion.

Leighton told press, “The concept is really cool, it’s like a modern day Romeo and Juliet and it’s very much about that rush you feel when you’re lovestruck, so that definitely speaks to me.”

“It’s really an honor to be picked by this campaign. I admire Vera so much … she really has a great eye for what women want and her style is so iconic and classic yet modern, so I think it speaks to women of all ages, myself included, so I’m really excited about it.”

Source: Celebrity Gossip

I’ve added an interview video of Leighton Meester & Selena Gomez at the “Monte Carlo” press junkets.

Watch the video interview of Leighton Meester and the casts of “Monte Carlo” talks about the movie.

In the last original episode of the addictive CW drama “Gossip Girl” that aired in February, straight-arrow Dan (Penn Badgley) and queen bee Blair (Leighton Meester), two very different characters who have been slowly building an unstoppable attraction for each other all season, finally shared a kiss that not only wow’d the characters but also those viewers who have been patiently waiting for a coupling to commence.

Now, as the remaining episodes of the stellar fourth season begin to air tonight, the question is will we see “Dair” blossom into a new super couple on the show and how will the others react? Who are the new characters being added to an already crowded cast tonight? How does a show with such a strong base of younger viewers get away with pushing-the-envelope-sayings like “What the wuck?” Our Jim Halterman went right to the sources and rang up Executive Producers Stephanie Savage and Joshua Safran to get all the answers about “Gossip Girl” and also to see how Savage’s newest project, the ABC pilot “Georgetown,” is shaping up.

Jim Halterman: Let’s jump in with the Dan and Blair pairing. How much thought went into it before you thought ‘OK, let’s go there!’

Stephanie Savage: We feel that that dynamic went back to season one. That very first episode that Josh wrote had a critical Dan and Blair bonding scene and I think when we saw the actors together we realized that even though we had created these characters to be polar opposites they actually had a lot in common. It takes a certain level of maturity and it seems like something that happens to you in college instead of high school when you can actually feel comfortable being with someone who is so different from who you thought you were supposed to be with.

JH: I feel like Blair has really come into her own this season and isn’t defined by her relationships like maybe she was in the past. Was that a goal this past year?

Joshua Safran: In episode nine this year, Blair says ‘I need to become powerful on my own before I’m attached to somebody who is powerful.’ I think that was very much a decision we had made. You have to stand alone and find the strength within yourself to be not only powerful for the world but powerful for a relationship.

SS: Blair was really put through the ringer at the end of season three so we wanted to give her her space to get grounded and find herself a little bit.

JH: You have so many characters to service but yet you introduce new characters in this first episode back. Can you talk about bringing Carol (Sheila Kelley) and Charlie (Kaylee DeFer) into the mix?

SS: Carol and Charlie are a part of this family so adding them was very organic. Aunt Carol in Miami is mentioned in the pilot so we feel like she’s always been with us and we had a great time involving her character in our flashback episode with Krysten Ritter so we knew we would always meet adult/grown-up Aunt Carol. Lily’s pending incarceration felt like the right moment for that. • Read full story…

It’s being called “the kiss four seasons in the making” and it has started a civil war amongst “Gossip Girl” fans.
On Monday, Apr. 18, viewers will finally learn the outcome of Dan (Penn Badgley) and Blair’s (Leighton Meester) first kiss… and how it impacts all the show’s characters, especially Chuck (Ed Westwick) and Serena (Blake Lively).

Zap2it had spoken with “GG” executive producers Stephanie Savage and Josh Safran before about the decision to explore the odd couple’s chemistry. In the same interview, we asked if they have pre-determined end games in mind for certain characters.

“There’s definitely some stories that we have an end game in mind for. Some stories definitely have end points, end games,” Savage revealed at the time. “Others, it seems like those characters’ journeys are much more about finding their way so it gives us a little more space to explore different possibilities.”

In a recent interview with TVLine, Safran echoed the sentiment, saying, “One thing we are very conscious of — and I know some fans get upset about this — is we really try to treat the characters as living, breathing, well-rounded individuals. And we’re often surprised by where their journeys take them; they open new doors for us all the time. It’s not like we’re saying, ‘No, there’s only this one couple and that’s it.’”

Instead of focusing on end games that have yet to be determined or asking about spoilers that are all over the web, we decided to focus on the feedback they’ve been receiving from fans when we chatted with Savage and Safran about the show’s final five episodes of the season. (Death threats via e-mail included. Seriously.) They’ve seen all your complaints, praises and hashtags. Yes, fans, they even know about the #bringbackchuckandblair and #redeemchuckbass Twitter campaigns.

What can fans expect from the last five episodes of Season 4?
Safran:They can expect all the stories that have been moving seemingly side by side coming together in a major way like we like to do at the end of a season, where they sort of link up and everybody’s all together. You can expect a lot more romance. Well, there’s already been romance, but even more romance. Some adventure, I would say. I just think that the core dynamics that we always try to place with are still there: Serena and Blair having their issues over what just happened as you’ve witnessed, Chuck and Blair having their issue about what just happened. Across the board, all the balls we have in the air are going to land.

Obviously fans have been very vocal about the Dan and Blair storyline, something we’ve really been loving this season. What reaction have you been seeing the most from fans?
Safran:The funny thing is that, and I think it’s true of sort of any factions of fans, the people who love Dan and Blair we don’t hear from right now because they are loving the story and the people who don’t love the story are the ones you hear from and then vice versa. If that were to change or whenever there’s a change, you sort of hear from the angriest group the most. They have been very angry and I have been hearing from them a lot. I just keep wanting to say Season 4 is wrapped, just wait and see because I think there’s something for everybody. That’s my thing about the end of the season is I feel like you’d be hard-pressed as a fan to not be happy in some way about some part of what’s going on. • Read full story…

Yes and no. First the good news: Dair haters can breathe a sigh of relief—that Dan (Penn Badgley) and Blair (Leighton Meester) nomance nonsense appears to be over. That doesn’t mean they’ve stopped kissing…but their last liplock is just for show (but to a much bigger audience than they intended, oops). And now for the really bad news:

BonnieClyde19: Anything else happening with Chair on Gossip Girl? How about Chuck, will we see him mature?
Mature Chuck (Ed Westwick) does make a brief appearance in the coming episodes—but so does Party Chuck and Player Chuck, whom Blair wants nothing to do with.

wrightst3: Is there anything coming up on Gossip Girl for Chair fans to get excited about?
If by “excited” you mean “distressed and overwrought,” then yes, you are about to get very excited. And speaking of excitement, Queen B herself has caught royal wedding fever, but not even the opportunity to wear Princess Di’s dress is enough to lure Blair back to Chuck’s side. Especially when another Prince Charming sweeps her off her feet. Want more Chair stuff? Of course you do, so check back later this week for more on the Upper East Side gang from Gossip bosses Stephanie Savage and Josh Safran, including promises about Chair and a really tantalizing tease about…Dan. Yes, you heard us: Dan goodies. You know you want ‘em…right?

Source: E Online