LMAO, when i re-read it i was like woah. your so right haha.
cute little interview, brief, but nice.
INDEPENDENT.CO.UK: Gossip guy: Ed Westwick, the Upper East Side’s hottest heartthrob
A strange thing happens ahead of my meeting with Ed Westwick aka ‘Gossip Girl’’s smooth-talking, flash-dressing bad boy Chuck Bass: I start to get inundated with texts and phone calls from England, all of them asking the same thing: “Have you interviewed him yet? What’s he like? Phone me immediately you’ve finished and let me know.”
The people making these phone calls are otherwise sane, rational human beings of both sexes, yet their interest in ‘Gossip Girl’’s most devious gossip boy appears to verge on obsession. Not since a long ago interview with a pre-’Shameless’ James McAvoy have so many people been so keen to ask me what an interviewee is really like.
The answer is that, like McAvoy, Westwick is likeable, candid and down-to-earth. When we meet on a cold Sunday night in a Manhattan bar, he starts talking the instant we sit down, pausing only to order a beer: “Sorry if my voice sounds a bit odd, we were just doing this crazy shoot for ‘Rolling Stone’ and they made us pretend to have a pillow fight so the feathers got everywhere and now I keep thinking that I’ve got some stuck in my throat. I’ll probably start choking or something.”
Stray feathers apart, it appears that little fazes Westwick who manages to be refreshingly open about life in the spotlight while remaining both unbothered by the idea of fame and by the notion that it might stop him doing whatever he fancies. “It can be crazy,” he admits referring to the attention devoted to ‘Gossip Girl’’s young cast by the New York paparazzi. “But I came to a decision once everything started taking off that I wasn’t going to be imprisoned by it [success]. I didn’t see the need to restrict myself, if I want to go out and get pissed up then I’m going to go out and get pissed up. As long as it’s not damaging me or anyone else then I don’t think it’s a problem.”
It may not be a problem but surely it’s somewhat exhausting? Westwick is regularly papped outside of some of New York’s hottest bars, his every move seems to be tracked by both the ‘New York Post’’s Page Six and, more light-heartedly, by New York blogs such as Intelligencer and Gawker, meanwhile his love life is the source of much speculation (he’s rumoured to be dating cast member Jessica Szohr aka Vanessa Abrams, who pops in during our interview). “I’m a 21-year-old in New York and New York is like London on crack or, no, New York’s like London on speed, it’s incredible,” says Westwick with a grin. “I’d be lying if I said I didn’t love living here.”
Dedication to having a good time or otherwise there’s also no doubting Westwick’s commitment to the role that is making his name. Born in Stevenage, Westwick originally auditioned for the part of preppy golden boy Nate Archibald but, while the show’s creators, Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage, loved him, the network felt that he looked more like a serial killer than a romantic lead. He was given the role of Chuck instead and, despite a wardrobe that teeters on the verge of parody, turned the character from potential sleazebag into the show’s romantic heart.
“I think the reason people like Chuck is because more people prefer to see a bad person grope towards redemption than to see a good person go to the bad,” Westwick says. “And also he and Blair have a relationship that echoes classic films, plus, of course, they get all the witty lines.”
Nor is it just viewers who have fallen for the strangely seductive Chuck Bass. The Chuck/Blair pairing was cited in almost every US magazine’s end of year review. “It has been amazing,” Westwick admits. “I really miss London in the summer,” he says. “But the rest of the year… when I go back it’s like a glimpse of what my life might have been if I hadn’t got lucky and what it still could be. At the moment I’m here and it’s fun and I’m making the most of it. Wouldn’t you?” Sarah Hughes