Chace Crawford
Aug 6, 2008
Comes From A 'Moral Background'
Chace Crawford Talks To ‘The Independent’

Gossip Girl heartthrob Chace Crawford recently sat down for an interview with the British newspaper The Independent and talked a bit about various things associated with his hit teen TV series … like the way his moral system conflicts with some of his scenes, they way he doesn’t really mind taking his clothes off on screen and those pesky rumors about a possible relationship with co-star Ed Westwick. Here are a couple pics that accompany this new interview and a portion of the interview itself:

Chace Crawford says he can sometimes get uncomfortable with the racy undertone of his CW hit Gossip Girl. “Is that a weight on my conscience?” Crawford says in a new interview with London’s The Independent. “Well, yes, I think it is. I come from a moral background, and I can see the power of the show, and imagine my old school teachers cringing, or my grandparents thinking, ‘Oh, my God,’ when they see me, say, having sex on a barstool. But you have to remember, this is not a reality show. It’s supposed to be pure entertainment. I don’t actually think people give enough credit to teenagers who watch the show,” he adds. “They’re not stupid, and it’s not like we’re making an instruction manual telling them how to drink and do drugs, or have sex. We’re just laying out how it is. My character is very conflicted, and even in the episodes where he’s having sex then dumping girls, there’s often regret. You know, there are repercussions to certain sorts of behavior that come full circle” … Sometimes he says he’ll put a limit on how much skin he’ll show. Recently, he convinced producers to let him keep his shirt on. “I never actually said I disliked having my top off; it was just that on that occasion it didn’t make sense,” he explains. “Nate was supposed to be waking up, hungover, on his buddy’s couch. So why would he be in his boxer shorts? I don’t actually mind taking my clothes off most of the time – it’s why I go to the gym,” he says. “As an actor, you pick and choose your battles.” Achieving fame so fast “can be a double-edged sword,” Crawford admits. “But right now, I couldn’t ask for more, and I certainly never complain about it.” He says he laughed off rumors that he and co-star Ed Westwick are having a fling. (Crawford was also romantically linked to JC Chasez, though both vehemently deny gay rumors.) “It’s kind of funny,” Crawford tells the paper. “I guess some people assume there’s a seed of truth to it. People think where there’s smoke, there’s fire.” He says he wasn’t sure who started the rumors — and doesn’t care. “I just don’t even want to speculate on that. It’s just one of those things that rolls off my back,” Crawford says. “There’s not one seed of truth to it, so it’ll just go away in the end.”

Ah, young fame. It’s interesting to see how some young actors handle certain aspects of their fame … some of them seem to run buckwild and burn thru their new celebrity as fast as they can and others, like Chace, seem to have their heads screwed on pretty securely. In the end, tho, I honestly feel like there will be constant speculation about his romantic life, folks that pretty are cursed with the fact that everyone finds them attractive and everyone will hope and speculate that they might have a chance. It’s all part of the celebrity game. Chace seems to know what’s what … in the end, I hope he’s able to remain true to who he is and keep his moral footing. Click HERE to read the full text of Chace‘s interview with The Independent.

After the jump, check out a few photos from a newish shoot that Chace did with Tony Duran …

Aug 4, 2008
Surf's up and handed out
The 2008 Teen Choice Awards

Last night the 2008 Teen Choice Awards infiltrated and took over the Gibson Amphitheater at Universal City in Hollywood, CA in order to honor the previous year’s stellar achievements in categories which include music, movies, sports and TV, as voted on by teens aged 13-19. As usual, all the hottest young stars came out for the event … here are a few of the folks who walked the red carpet last night:

The “It” Girls were in attendance as were the new kids on the block — members of the cast of 90210 made last night’s Teen Choice Awards their unofficial coming out party to hang with the cool kids. There are a whole slew of pics to check out from last night’s fête. After the jump, check out some pics from the show itself, some pics of the couplely couples who were in the audience, some of the winners with their surfboards and, of course, a lot of Beckhamness …

Jul 25, 2008
'Gossip' is in session again
Chace Crawford Gets Back To School

Chace Crawford was snapped filming new scenes for the upcoming season of Gossip Girl in Long Island City in Queens, NY this week and homie was all dolled up like he had places to go … like home room. Here are a few pics of pretty Chace on the Queens streets set of Gossip Girl:

You can always count on the specter of Back to Schoolness to rear its ugly head right around the end of July … that is when the stores start advertising all those Back to School sales, encouraging parents to drag their kids into their stores to buy new Fall clothes and school supplies. Seeing Chace all dressed up like school is already back in session doesn’t really help matters. It always seems like summer vacation is gone almost as soon as it begins — there is still a month left of summer vacay in the US and it kinda already feels like it’s September. Thanks a lot, Chace :(

[Photo credit: Splash News]

Jul 20, 2008
At least, he pretends to
Chace Crawford

Gossip Girl hottie Chace Crawford was on hand at Two Trees Farm in Bridgehampton, NY for the opening day festivities for the 2008 Mercedes-Benz Polo Challenge lookin’ very much like a big polo fan … but I suspect the lad has no real prior experience with the sport and was just there to pretty up the event. Here are a few pics:

Aww … it really looks like they handed him that huge polo mallet and asked them to just pose with it as if he knew what he was doing. To tell the truth, I don’t even care. He can stand there and hold in his hands whatever he wants and I think I’d be okay with it. It’s too bad his GG co-stars Ed Westwick and Penn Badgley weren’t around to attend the event with him … I like it when the GG boys horse around together. OY! What that terrible? Yeah, mebbe just a touch.

[Photo credit: Wireimage]

Jul 15, 2008
‘Batman: The Dark Knight’ Premieres In NYC

Batman: The Dark Knight held it’s first premiere, a black carpet event, at the AMC Loews Lincoln Center in NYC last night. All of the principal stars of the movie were in attendance (many of them matched up with their partners) including members of the late Heath Ledger‘s family (who opted out of talking to any press as they walked the carpet). Here are a few pics from the black carpet arrivals at last night’s premiere:

There were lots of jubilant smiles and happy faces … it’s nice that the stars of The Dark Knight can celebrate their new movie (reportedly a tour de force for Heath Ledger) without having to cast any mournful sadness on the event over the loss of Heath Ledger. After the jump, check out more pics from the black carpet arrivals at the movie premiere and a few photos of some of the attendees at the movie’s afterparty at the Mandarin Oriental

Jun 30, 2008
'Vanity Fair' names the next wave of 'Bright Young Hollywood'
‘Fair’ Thee Well, ‘Gossip Girl’

The young cast of Gossip Girl is featured in the August issue of Vanity Fair magazine wherein the mag pontificates on the state of Young Hollywood (as it is wont to do from time to time) and names the new members of the next wave of, what they call, Bright Young Hollywood (also on the list Johan Hill, Emma Stone, Josh Peck, the Jonas brothers and more). Here is the mag’s photo of the Gossip gang all decked in in their best designer finery, walking brazenly into the wind:

It’s been only five years since V.F. took a reading of Hollywood’s youthquake—featuring the likes of Lindsay Lohan, the Olsen twins, and Shia LaBeouf—but the celebrity terrain has gotten rougher … As for the class of 2008 pictured in these pages, they inhabit a far more predatory media-parasite environment, a Grand Theft Auto of “gotcha,” which so far they’re handling with aplomb. Easy to track, hard to trap, they belong to the iGeneration, for whom texting and Twittering are as natural as popping orange Tic Tacs, inhabiting and trailing invisible clouds of information wherever they go in the digital eco-system, where online and off-line, real life and Second Life, overlap. Boundaries dissolve everywhere they turn their pretty heads. It’s a short, sharp hop from the wholesome happy perk of Disney’s Hannah Montana, whose Miley Cyrus can’t show a little bare shoulder without the world flipping its bonnet, to the spite-laced hangovers of the CW’s Gossip Girl, where decadence is in full Baudelairean flower. There, every Coach bag contains wanton secrets. Treachery and bitchery gleam from every compact mirror. Youth and beauty have their privileges, among them being the ability and agility to roll out into the hazy dawn following the squalors of the night before and still possess the throwaway glamour of a Bryan Ferry song. A fan craze and a critical fetish, Gossip Girl has hit the sweet spot of the Zeitgeist, the X mark where sex appeal and pop sociology intersect and the story lines hold an illusion of seamlessness, as if they sprang full-blown from the brow of Entertainment Weekly.

Uh huh. Yeah, this article has a whole lot of big words which, I assume, is meant to take the topic of being young, rich and famous in Hollywood and elevate it to something akin to a post graduate thesis. Under normal circumstances, I’d be down … but I had a hard time getting thru this article (which you can read in full HERE) without kinda wanting to die a little bit. I mean, I get it … you write for Vanity Fair, you can mix and mingle big words with up-to-the-second pop culture references with the best of them. It all reads just a smidge too seriously for me but … whatevs, I get it.

But just to keep the Gossip Girl love going, here are a few photos of the Gossip guys all grouped together in a new photoshoot, styled to within an inch of their lives:

After the jump, more photos of Chace Crawford (who, according to VF mag prefers the iPhone over the Blackberry), Penn Badgley (iPhone) and Ed Westwick (BlackBerry) individually from this same photoshoot …

Jun 27, 2008
Well, not really ... they're actually working but it doesn't look so rough
The ‘Gossip’ Gang Takes A Vacay

While many young folks are getting their summer vacations underway, the Gossip Girl gang are starting to get back to work. Last week, we saw pics of the kids on location in the Hamptons here in New York (mostly hanging out backstage on set) and today we get to see pics of the kids on location in Port Washington, NY and shooting scenes at a beach in Far Rockaway, NY … check ‘em out:

I really love the summer looks that the gang is wearing. Leighton Meester looks really great in her summery frock. Ed Westwick‘s ensemble is fab, as usual. I just love the styling on this show … they do a really good job of dressing the characters exactly the way you’d imagine they’d dress in real life. The gang haven’t been bizzy just filming their dramatic scenes in Port Washington … they’ve also been doing some work in Far Rockaway cuz everyone knows that the beach is the place to be come summertime. More pics after the jump …

Jun 22, 2008
I mean, who doesn't?
Ladies Love Chace Crawford

You know who doesn’t have a hard time procuring attention from the ladies? Yeah, that would be Chace Crawford. In fact, I don’t know that Chace would have much difficulty procuring attention from the gentlemen as well but that is a topic for another day. Here are a few pics of Chace on the Southampton, NY set of Gossip Girl going about his usual biz, not really paying attention to anything in particular backstage … when he stumbles upon a gaggle of bikini-clad young ladies clamoring for a photo. Being the swell guy that he is, Chace begrudgingly obliges and poses for the pic:

Isn’t it really nice of Chace to make these ladies happy by posing for a pic? You can tell he’s a giver … someone who really enjoys making folks happy. I don’t imagine it was any great struggle for Chace to give so freely of his time to his adoring fans but still, when it’s commonplace for some big name celebs to publicly shun the fans that made them famous, it’s refreshing to see young stars appreciate their fanbase. Tho, if Chace‘s star continues to rise, he may too one day shun his fans and stop paying attention to them … after all, he’s already begun to stay away from his #1 fan JC Chasez. Tsk Tsk.

[Photo credit: Splash News]

Jun 20, 2008
‘Gossip Girl’ Begins Work On Season 2

While summer vacation is just getting started for many folks, it’s back to work time for the cast of Gossip Girl. Blake Lively, Leighton Meester, Penn Badgley, Chace Crawford and Ed Westwick have all convened in the Hamptons, NY to begin shooting scenes for the second season of Gossip Girl, scheduled to debut on The CW this September 1. Here are a few pics of the Gossip Girl ladies (and Penn Badgley) hanging out backstage by the trailers on set yesterday afternoon:

It’s unclear if Blake and Penn are having themselves a lovers’ spat or if they’re just exchanging pleasantries (or if Penn is annoyed that Blake is making fun of him for wearing his haircutting smock in public) but I understand that things are still going well for these two lovebirds. I’m not sure what’s going on with those jean shorts that Leighton is wearing … they give her a bit of a mom’s butt, hopefully it’s not an outfit she’ll be wearing on the show. Yeah, there ain’t all that much sexy going on in these pics … for the hatwness, we turn to Gossip boys Chace Crawford and Ed Westwick

Jun 11, 2008
Chace Does London

Gossip Girl heartthrob Chace Crawford has made his way to the other side of the pond to enjoy some downtime in between filming. Chace spent part of his lovely Monday in London, England shopping on Bond street (making sure to drop some cheddar at the Alexander McQueen boutique) as well as curling up with a good script at the park. Here are a few pics:

Photo credit: Bauer-Griffin
Aww … Chace is a cutie. I’m actually surprised that homie is traveling abroad all by his lonesome. I’m not sure if he made his way to the UK with anyone or if he’s planning on meeting anyone while he’s over there (anyone know where JC Chasez is these days?) but I’m really hoping that we get to see new party pics from our dear Chace. He looks like so much fun when he’s all, you know, toasty ;) [Source]