The one role Blake Lively called “personally compromising”
Hollywood is chock-full of overlooked actors, often filling supporting roles where they receive far less plaudits than they deserve. Stars like Karl Urban, Djimon Hounsou and Blake Lively, to take just three, certainly deserve far more of the limelight, with the latter having collaborated with some of the greatest filmmakers of modern cinema, including Oliver Stone, Ben Affleck and Paul Feig.
Very much a contemporary star, Lively only made her first proper steps in the industry in 2005, appearing in a number of middling romantic comedies before taking a starring role in the beloved TV drama Gossip Girl. While appearing in over 120 episodes, Lively found the time to appear in Affleck’s Oscar-nominated 2010 crime movie The Town and even dip her toes into the DC superhero universe with 2011’s Green Lantern.
Despite her rise to the Hollywood fold, Lively’s time in Gossip Girl remains her most influential role, with fans falling in love with her character, the popular socialite Serena van der Woodsen. Alongside the likes of Penn Badgley, Chace Crawford and Ed Westwick, Lively launched a successful career, though, looking back on her time in the film, she’s not entirely thrilled with what her character ended up representing.
Speaking in an interview with People, Lively called her character in the series “personally compromising” in regards to her moral stance on the representation of female role models in the media.
“People loved it, but it always felt a little personally compromising,” she stated, “You want to be putting a better message out there…I would not be proud to be the person who gave someone the cocaine that made them overdose and then shot someone and slept with someone else’s boyfriend”.
Honest about her part in bringing the show to life, in a separate interview, Lively doesn’t shy away from the reality of the show’s fast-paced production and pop-culture popularity. “You didn’t have the pressure of having to act well because you didn’t have the time to act well,” she stated in an interview with Collider, “They would give us our lines at the very last second”.
Lively took a step back from the screen following her time in Gossip Girl to raise her child, but more recently, she has returned with a number of more challenging roles. Included in this is the upcoming collaboration with major award-winners Edward Zwick and Marshall Herskovitz, The Making Of, where she’s due to collaborate with the likes of Richard Gere, Lin-Manuel Miranda and Diane Keaton.
Take a look at Lively speaking about her time on Gossip Girl in the interview below.
