Gossip Girl

Hey, Upper East Siders.

Gossip Girl here.

(Ball Park Music's "It's nice to be alive" playing)

It's exciting to look back in celebration

of the last six years.

You'd really go out with some guy you don't know?

Well, you can't be worse than the guys I do know.

It's been a long, fantastic ride.

Everyone's enjoyed it immensely.

I'm Chuck Bass, and I love you.

I could've never expected that I would be able

to play a character for six years

that's so well-written and challenging.

Haven't you heard? I'm the crazy bitch around here.

We're shooting in Manhattan.

It doesn't get any better than that.

I feel a little like Alice in Wonderland.

Manhattan'll do that to a girl.

It was just such a love affair with the city

and everything that it has to offer,

from fashion to food to music.

New York has never seemed more perfect.

There's an it girl on every corner.

We went into it really hoping that this would make its mark

as the new fashion TV series.

And pop. (Laughs)

The formula of the show

was what made it what it is.

Good morning, beautiful.

It was very surreal for me.

I had people coming up to me on the streets,

telling me they hate me.

There was literally 40 paparazzi

and 200 girls screaming

and gathered around our trailers.

I think the storytellers are really excited

to be bringing the story to fruition.

The feeling right now, it's... it's a poignant one. It's good.

Not the sad, empty nest phase already.

It's been a wonderful character and I've enjoyed it thoroughly.

We were the only thing that matters.

I am going to run down Broadway naked with champagne.

Aah!

It's gonna be sad not seeing everybody

and seeing their face every day.

Think we oughta say a proper good-bye?

It's gonna be really strange to not have that every day,

and I think we're all gonna go through a bit of withdrawal.

You can let go now.

I don't want to.

Spotted at Grand Central, bags in hand...

Serena Van Der Woodsen.

I was coming off the end of "the O.C."

And had very little interest in doing another teen drama.

And then I got sent the first book

in the "Gossip Girl" book series,

and I was like, "I may be ready to leave high school after all".

Don't ever go to high school, Dorota.

The girls are spoiled, stupid, and ungrateful!

Stephanie savage is one of

the smartest, most talented people I've ever met,

and she got really excited about it as well,

and we were off to the races.

The setting in New York City

and this elite Upper East Side society...

that's, for sure, a world that is really alluring.

Are you following us or something?

No. I... I... I go to your school.

The books really laid it out very well.

They're juicy and salacious and fun

and everything is said with a bit of a wink.

What's that, your stripper money?

"Sex and the City" had gone off the air.

There was really nothing on TV

that had that romantic version of New York,

and I really missed that just as a fan.

And then, of course, the anonymous online blogger

who was watching everybody's moves and reporting it.

Is that true?

What? You were in jail?

That was something that felt like

it was a real hook to the show.

And who am I?

That's one secret I'll never tell.

When Cecily wrote the book in 2002,

uh, Perez Hilton and TMZ didn't even exist,

so she had really kind of imagined something

that ultimately came to pass.

Oh, my God. You'll never believe what's on "Gossip Girl."

Someone saw Serena getting off a train at grand central.

The tag line for the first season was,

"you're nobody until you're talked about."

It definitely was ahead of the trend.

The lives that these kids were living

was so fascinating

that there was a web site devoted to them

that they had to read endlessly,

and I think it just really captured the moment

of the world we were in.

It was really important to us

that we actually shoot the show in New York.

That's the thing they say about New York,

is you point the camera in any direction and it looks good,

not to mention this... the authenticity.

Hey, Serena. Why don't you get a room?

Oh, that's the plight of the Manhattan teenager.

No cars. (Chuckles)

A lot of shows are "based in New York" but film in L.A.

And so you don't get the magic of walking down, you know,

a street in Soho and seeing all the things happening

and all the cabs going around in the background.

It's very much one of the most important elements of the show.

Dan! Oh, my God! This is what I love about this city.

You're always bumping into people.

Stephanie went and kind of immersed herself in the, uh,

in the girls prep school world.

I stayed at the Carlyle Hotel and I did research,

talking to about a dozen girls,

asking them questions about their lives.

I reviewed your record.

If Constance has a shining star, it's Blair Waldorf.

I know. I'm the perfect one.

Stephanie is so involved in every single detail.

She typed out her own little essays

of girls who lived on the Upper East Side,

and they were even more wild than the books.

I've been drinking on an empty stomach.

I heard you didn't do that anymore.

Special occasion.

Oh.

I don't know exactly how I tune in

to that kind of upbringing or lifestyle,

because that's not how I was raised at all.

I'm from South Florida. That's not what it's like.

I cannot believe that daddy decided to stay with Roman

instead of having tea at the Carlyle with me.

It was taken people into a rarefied world

and a world that is seductive but also problematic.

So you're actually hiding him? He tries to take his own life,

and you're worried it's gonna cost you mom of the year?

Serena, as happy as I am to have you home,

you have no idea what it's been like.

We really wanted this idea of, like, family and relationships,

all these things that are so universal to, uh,

any coming-of-age story, to be true here.

We deal with the same things, at the end of the day.

At first, we didn't have a lot of access in New York City.

It was like, "well, what is this show? I don't know."

But very, very quickly, I think people recognized

that if you were on the show, it was a good thing.

Welcome, all, to the McKittrick Hotel.

At the beginning, that was great

because every... every new location

was somewhere, you know, we hadn't maybe seen before...

the backroom of some cool bar, you know,

and "oh, I wanna come back here."

We always saw the show

as a real love letter to New York City.

Now there are "Gossip Girl" tours of New York City

where you go by the locations that the characters visited.

When Mayor Bloomberg was here,

and it's like, "oh, my God. That's amazing."

Therefore, I, Michael R. Bloomberg,

mayor of the city of New York, do hereby proclaim

Thursday, January 26th, 2012, in the city of New York

as "Gossip Girl" day.

It's been everything we hoped it would be.

Without quite sounding arrogant or anything,

it's like the show's become one of the things

the tourists like to come to New York for,

and I just find that remarkable, you know. It's...

in the beginning, you have no idea or expectations that large

'cause you can't really relate.

All right, Dan, Jenny. Humphrey hug.

Aah!

Eric and Lily, get in here, too.

(Dan) Aw.

Mm.

Hey.

When's the party?

Saturday, and...

You're kinda not invited.

Josh and I are psychos about casting,

and we really did feel, with "Gossip Girl,"

that we had something special.

At the time, I was living in L.A.

And I was auditioning every single day for pilots.

And automatically, I was like, "I love Blair.

I wanna play that character."

So I auditioned for it probably, like, 20 times.

It was, like, probably my number four read.

Wow.

I kinda sit in this little swivel chair, and... (Chuckles)

this girl just kind of swivels around