IN A TAXI WITH CHACE CRAWFORD
Daily Mail 27/11/10
A substantial percentage of the world’s female population would give their right arm to be squeezed into a London taxi with Chace Crawford. And squeezed in I am – though admittedly I’m joined by a photographer and a rather large tripod.
We set off from the Soho Hotel where the 24-year-old has been conducting four days of promotions for Gossip Girl, the hit US TV show that has propelled its actors to superstardom since it first aired in 2007. It has also made Chace an international heart-throb. As we leave the hotel foyer, a gaggle of teenage girls elbow each other out of the way in a bid to touch him, yelling his name and frantically Tweeting details of his whereabouts to other fans.
‘You’ve got to go with the flow,’ he says in a Texan drawl that would give even the sanest of women palpitations. ‘It isn’t going to last for ever, is it? In any case, British girls are a lot more polite than American ones,’ he adds, waving to paparazzi and screaming fans as we whiz by. Fame, it seems, hasn’t fazed him in the slightest.
On set in New York where Gossip Girl is filmed, he says a man in his 30s brought personalised lunchboxes to the set for the cast one day to show his devotion. Teenage girls, though, do tend to have the monopoly when it comes to getting a slice of Chase. Crying and underwear-throwing are not uncommon behaviour among his dedicated fans, nor is mistaking him for his on-screen character Nate (Nathaniel) Archibald, the preppy, brooding son of Manhattan socialites. ‘I’d like to think that I have more of a sense of humour and am less uptight than Nate,’ he laughs. ‘I also lack his passion for all things navy!’
A little blurry eyed and dressed in a plaid shirt, baggy jeans and boots after a night out, Chace does have some similarities with his Gossip Girl alias, however. Like Nate, he comes from a fairly privileged background, growing up in Texas with his teacher mother, dermatologist father and younger sister Candice. He combined journalism studies at Pepperdine University, California, with a spot of modelling, but couldn’t seem to settle on a career path.
‘As a kid I was always quoting movie lines, but it was my sister who really wanted to be an actress,’ he says. His mother encouraged him to pursue acting. He was snapped up by the first talent agent he visited and, very shortly after, landed the part in a new series about New York’s upper-crust, Upper East Side high-schoolers. Since launching here in 2008, Gossip Girl has attained cult status and gained an obsessive fanbase. It has also seen Chace join an elite group of young, lusted-after actors including Robert Pattinson and Zac Efron – the new Georges and Brads.
Filming for the fourth series of Gossip Girl is underway, but Chace has plans to take his career to the big screen. ‘I’d like to progress into films and work with some of the iconic directors I really respect – Cameron Crowe, Quentin Tarantino and the Martin Scorseses of the world.’
He’s also keen to break out of the Nate mould and play something a little more left-field. ‘Maybe a role like Christian Slater in True Romance, or a character in Snatch… It would be good to play someone crazy.’ In fact, Chace’s latest role is in a big-screen thriller, Twelve, in which he stars alongside 50 Cent, playing a teenage dropout selling drugs to former classmates. In the meantime, he claims to have no master plan for his career and prefers to take things ‘one step at a time’.
Back home in New York City he insists he’s a bit of a ‘home buddy’. He’ll escape Manhattan and play some golf, shoot some pool or just listen to music – Brit bands the Kooks, Stereophonics and Oasis are, he says, long-term favourites. The perfect weekend, though, would include court-side basketball tickets to the Knicks at the city’s famous Madison Square Garden.
As far as leading ladies go, ‘Starring opposite Kate Beckinsale, Penélope Cruz or Kate Hudson wouldn’t hurt. They all seem a little crazy – I like crazy girls.’ And the million-dollar question? ‘No – I don’t have a girlfriend right now!’
why is Chace standing so far away from Romo? Get in there and show some brotherly love!
