The next-generationGossip Girlis more diverse, more self-aware, and far more lavishly produced.
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Its a classicGossip Girlsetup: a holiday designed to sow discord while supposedly being about gratitude.
Fourteen actors float in the door and out of frame in one continuous shot.
I asked you first!
If we hurry, Dad, we can still make the 5 p.m. seating at Le Bernardin!
Julien, dressed in a slinky-shimmery dress, sighs.
I was like,How many people?
How much drama can I make?
says Josh Safran, the reboots showrunner and this episodes director.
(Whats todays color?
Its more of a dusty rose, he says.)
Hes clever and meticulous about every detail.
There should be more cracks in that characters phone, he notes between takes.
And shouldnt that actor have more wine in her glass?
He tells me that he has to feel overstimulated just to be stimulated.
I dont do cocaine because Im afraid its going to neutralize me.
The point was never who Gossip Girl was.
The show is about people who try desperately to be good but are unable to resist their worst inclinations.
The point is drama heaped on top of drama, topped off with a few scoops of chaos.
Its not real life; itsGossip Girllife.
The requirement at the door is that you take to bedlam like a pig in perfumed slop.
It may seemlike a strange idea to bring back a status-obsessed show like this right now.
VariousGossip Girlspinoffs and brand extensions never amounted to much since the original went off the air.
Would it be the same cast?
says Schwartz, who is an executive producer on the new show.
We explored a couple of different options with writers that we hadnt worked with prior.
Ultimately, that idea was abandoned; the story of that quintet was done.
Much of the first run of the show had Safrans fingerprints all over it.
He graduated from Horace Mann.
Nate Archibalds relationship with his tormented father is based on Safrans own family.
Growing up, I didnt know how much our apartment was on the Upper East Side, he says.
I had no idea.
Penn Badgley bravely complained every single chance he got about being typecast by the show.
And Safran was harboring some regret over leaving before the final season.
I mean, I left.
I felt like I left my wife or my husband.
Savage and Schwartz seem bemused by this comparison.
He really loved musicals, Savage says.
And we were like, Great!
In the meantime, the world of TV had been upended by streamers.
And so Safran and Savage and Schwartz met over breakfast.
I thought about it all weekend.
Im not allowed to tell you what that idea was, but it works.
Just a little more attention.
As opposed to it being one jewel in a crown of many jewels, it became the crown.
(When I tell Bloys this, he laughs and insistsGossip Girlis a jewel among other jewels.)
The first time, there were no expectations, says Savage.
Nobody knew what the show was.
We had to beg every location to let us shoot there.
That would be the hope in the script!
But it would end up being some bistro we wouldnt even name.
The new show spends the kind of money the old show could only dream of its characters having.
He had so many lofty ideas, and he has such high-end taste.
Hes like, I dont want people thinking its going to be this teen soap opera.
I really want to make it the HBO way.
So whats theSuccessionversion ofGossip Girl?
A second season seems inevitable.
Gossip Girlhadalways been a show about money and the way people with money skated around Bloombergs New York City.
The first show whimpered about rich-people problems, which worked for that time.
but part of their coming of age can include deciding how much the money matters to them.
These kids, they dont know where a door is.
They dont even know where a bathroom is, Safran told Karena Evans when she was directing the pilot.
Last time around, the richest kid was the most guilty and the most redeemed.
This time around, the richest kid feels the most guilt over his parents substantial earnings.
Kids know how much money their families have, Safran says.
Its therefore a bit more sophisticated.
The old show was a little soapier, a little twistier.
It wasnt camp, it wasnt not-camp, but it also wasnt camp on purpose, Safran says.
It was a descendant ofDynastyand all of those shows.
The girls pushed each other in a fountain, someone pushed someone into the Seine.
This version is more like a comedy of manners.
Whats more: Safran knows where he wants everyone to eat, to live, and to hang out.
They should be heading west if theyre coming from [this characters] place, Kania recalls.
I ask Safran later.
Well, he begins.
Safrans wishes now have Kania happily in a tizzy.
Is there an arms race of sorts between theGossip Girlpeople, theBillionspeople, and theSuccessionpeople?
If its a fashion show, its at the Armory.
If its a black-tie gala, its at Manhatta, the highest restaurant in New York, Safran says.
But none of them was famous.
Meaning they wereGossip Girls.
Meaning they were a collection of perfect smirks, perfect sighs, perfect Cleavage Rhombuses, perfect sneers.
Can they play this age?
Can they work these hours?
Do they want the Chanel campaignGossip Girlcan get you?
Do they want to do a movie in a year?
COVID complicated the process, leaving many roles to be cast without in-person chemistry reads.
Kulukundis put out an open call to cast the subjects of Gossip Girls musings.
Theres also formerRookieeditorTavi Gevinson, now playing a flustered teacher.
Too many actors came in wanting to play a version of Blair or a version of Serena.
(How many people auditioned wearing headbands?
There were a lot, Kulukundis says.
There were little plaid skirts, little jackets.
I didnt even think young people had pearls.)
The old archetypes remain, but those characters dont.
But the character is a caretaker uninterested in power grabs.
Her somberness is a little closer to the surface.
She is more openly insecure.
you’re able to see the similarities in some of the characters, Kulukundis says.
But then we blur it.
When characters have threesomes, they can be same-sex, and no one freaks out about it.
We see one get into bed with her hair tied up in a bonnet.
Thats the biggest example of the evolution withGossip Girl, says Evans, who directed the first two episodes.
She politely deflects the question.)
Did she make a match in this cast?
No, no, no.
Back on the Thanksgiving set,Safran hasnt slowed down.
Maybe it makes it feel more real, like one day it will actually come out.
In my mind, the best shows are specific.
If its generic, on some level it’s possible for you to feel it.
Gossip Girlpremieres on HBO Max July 8.
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