For so many teens belonging to a certain generation, these two guys will forever be known as the heartthrobs of the Upper East Side. These popular prep school boys found themselves in the midst of six seasons worth of the biggest blunders of the elite, and the most salacious secrets of the high school halls. Dan 'Lonely Boy' Humphrey and Nate Archibald made hearts flutter, and the men who brought them to life are picking up where their characters left off!
Chace Crawford and Penn Badgley recently came together to indulge fans with Gossip Girl nostalgia. Here's what we found out!
10 Chace Saw Parallels Between Penn's Characters
The reunion between Penn Badgely and Chace Crawford kicks off with a bang as both actors begin to delve into their respective projects since Gossip Girl's finale. It's obvious the duo has spent a great deal of time studying each other's roles within their latest projects!
Chace enthusiastically talks about his friend's performance in Netflix's You and the many elements to his character Joe Goldberg. After discussing his character in The Boys, he smiles and compares their performances to the nature of their Gossip Girl characters.
9 Cultural Shifts Are Couture
It doesn't take very long for Chace and Penn's Actors On Actors interview to take an intricate turn! The tone of the two actors, who are clearly old friends by their warm demeanor, and their thoughts on Gossip Girl are so much more thoughtful than the series' one-time reputation of being a controversial show on the CW for teens.
Penn reasoned people watch Gossip Girl for different reasons now than then. He believes people watch the show now to deconstruct its image.
8 Chace Is Reluctant To Revisit
It didn't take long for Chace Crawford to reveal his true feelings surrounding revisiting his days of playing Nate Archibald! Chace was rather blunt in revealing his thoughts: navigating Nate doesn't feel necessary at this point!
Chace compared the idea of watching Gossip Girl again today to "opening a time capsule," and revealed the hypothetical experience of persuading him to revisit his prep-school past would be akin to a rather explicit Clockwork Orange scenario. He went on to further explain "We lived it."
7 Gossip Girl Helped Penn Put A Ring On It
Imagine dating the dashing Dan Humphry. Domino Kirke may not have had that exact experience, but she came very close.
Domino, a singer, met and fell in love with Penn Badgely, and the two eventually wed in 2017. There was one thing the couple had to do before making it to the altar, and it turns out it had to do with Penn's past.
He revealed the duo watched an episode of Gossip Girl about six months after they began dating. XOXO, that's true love.
6 The Past Is So Last Year
Imagine having the most cringe-worthy moments of your youth archived forever, where they could be revisited by anyone at any point in time. The experience might feel totally uncomfortable to watch!
Chace and Penn warmly talk about Gossip Girl's respective personal influences on their lives and agree the idea of revisiting the show might feel nostalgic, but Penn keeps it real by asserting "These snapshots of yourself when you're 21 [or] 22 years old, who can enjoy that?"
5 These Gossip Guys Believed In The Future
Watching characters from Gossip Girl aggressively shut a flip phone or fire off an aggressive text message on a Blackberry might feel like ancient history now, but the tone of the show and the character's use of, and the role technology plays in their lives, was futuristic; Chace and Penn think so too!
Chace and Penn talk at length about technology's advancement since 2007. Chace revealed Penn was the first person he knew to have an iPhone, which was gifted to him by Blake Lively.
4 Penn Got Deep Over Dan
Dan Humphrey was not simply an introspective "Lonely boy" from Brooklyn, to Penn Badgely. His identity was much more special to Penn and much more than the description written on the pages of the script.
Playing Dan was not a one-dimensional job for Penn. He thought about multiple aspects of his character; he revealed it wasn't far fetched for him to argue if Dan was even the show's "Male lead," and that it didn't quite "make sense" for Dan's eventual identity to belong to him.
3 Penn Is Thankful For Gossip Girl
Throughout an artist's career, they may go on to perform many different types of roles, exploring characters each very different from the last. If the artist is lucky enough to land a role that goes on to be a career-defining performance, being known for portraying that character may feel stunting for the actor, an annoying element of their image they cannot shake.
Luckily for Gossip Girl fans, Penn doesn't feel this way about his identity of being known for playing Dan. He describes feeling "Thankful!"
2 "Lonely Boy" Felt Self Conscious
If you watched Penn's versatile performance in You and found yourself thinking something along the lines of "Hey, Joe feels familiar," you were not alone.
Penn revealed that the comparison conversation between his portrayal of Joe and Gossip Girl's beloved Dan Humphrey isn't a surprising comparison. He explained the characters of Dan and Joe, and Chace's Nate Archibald and 'The Deep,' are both "Emblematic, sort of iconic characters, but now they're both terrible." He revealed the comparison made him feel "Self-conscious."
1 Penn And Chace Have Thoughts About That Ending
It was the revelation that sent shockwaves through the Upper East Side and beyond. After six seasons of countless guessing and re-evaluation, the true identity of Gossip Girl was revealed.
Each of "Gossip Girl's" blasts might as well have been signed 'XOXO DAN.'
Wait, what? We're still shaking our heads eight years after the finale, and it's safe to say Chace and Penn are as well. Penn revealed with a smile that it didn't quite make sense that Dan would be "Gossip Girl."