I was coming off of The O.C. and had very little interest in doing another teen drama. And then I got sent theGossip Girl book series, and I was like, 'I might not be ready to leave high school after all.'

I am the kind of person that takes everything as is and then look at it from the outside looking in.

The fun thing about TV is you get the opportunity to discover things, and somebody who starts off in a smaller part can really emerge and surprise you.

At first we didn't have a lot of access to New York City, but very quickly, I think people recognized if you were on the show that was a good thing. We always saw the show as a love letter to New York City.

I was coming off of The O.C. and had very little interest in doing another teen drama. And then I got sent theGossip Girl book series, and I was like, 'I might not be ready to leave high school after all.'

I want every character be an outsider in some way.

Like they said about The West Wing, you can't do a show about Washington until you can.