Gossip Girl's third season premieres this Monday on the CW and the fans are rabid. With the swine flu, sorry, H1N1 virus already posing a public threat, the last thing we need is a rabies epidemic infecting the population. I've come up with a solution to this particular strain of Gossip Girl rabies, and it's sooo much better than getting a shot.Two days ago, I began posting portions of my interview with Gossip Girl writer and co-executive producer, Josh Safran. So far, he has covered everything from leaked kisses to queen misses. Today, in the final installation, Josh administers the very last drops of what he is able to discuss about the coming season without giving it all away. Let's just hope there is enough to deter Gossip Girl rabies.Adrienne Gruben: Let's get some of the intrigue out of the way early. What can you tell us about this love child situation?Josh Safran: All I can say about him is that he definitely figures prominently in the show as the season opens, and that he has a complicated romance with one of our leads. You know, by you even saying the term "love child", it just strikes me as funny. It's such a soapy turn of phrase. And we might call him the love child too, in the writer's room. But yet the show never seems soapy to us. Even if the stories seem outlandish - I'm dating an artist who happens to be the son of my best friend's mother's new boyfriend -- the relationships between the characters, and the characters themselves, are always grounded.AG: It was announced that Hilary Duff will be on the show this season, and also Tyra Banks, who is a huge fan.
JS: Hilary plays a well-known actress named Olivia Burke who comes to NYU. We try to rip stuff from the headlines, so she's like Natalie Portman at Harvard, Claire Danes at Yale, Emma Watson going to Brown. That was our jumping off point. Hilary is so kind, so charming. I love the chemistry she has with Dan, with Vanessa. She fits into the world of Gossip Girl completely. And Tyra came in and just ran with what we gave her. Her attitude was, "I am here as an actress, use me," and she really went for it. She's excellent. That whole episode (Episode 4) is a blast.
AG: You mentioned trying to rip stuff from the headlines for Hilary Duff's character. Is this a common practice for the writers?
JS: Yes. Like Law and Order does it. Socialites are in the news, and our show is very much based around, socialites, the Upper East Side, heiresses and the like. We'll read about things happening to them, and it's like, "Hey! That would make a great Gossip Girl."
AG: What else can we expect from season 3?
JS: The other thing to expect from the season is we are very clear that these characters are bridging into adulthood. College is one of the last transitional periods of your life, so we've taken that idea and ran with it. There is a scene in Episode 2, "The Freshmen", written by Amanda Lasher, that to me contains one of the major theses of the season, which is who are you going to be now that you're out of high school? Do you like who you are? Change happens now -- can you actually create your own path now that you're no longer under your parents' thumb? Stephanie has always been proud of the fact that we have never entered a classroom in the show. And I agree with her because the show is not about school - and it never was, so in that way the show isn't changing. The show has always been about kids and their families in New York. It's just now viewed through the prism of a time of change.
AG: The characters will be in different places in New York, and also out of state. How will you deal with that?
JS: I think kids who grew up in New York tend to circle back to New York after they go to college. I went to Tisch after high school, but I had friends who went to Yale, to Brown, to Sarah Lawrence -- you were never too far away to come home on weekends, or when you didn't have class. Blair and Georgina are at NYU, Nate is at Columbia, Serena is at Brown. Chuck is not going to college, he's going to run Bass Industries, Jenny and Eric are still in high school. Just know that on the whole, you are going to find people in different places than where we left them. Some, in part, because of their transitions having left home, gone to college. From moving out from their family. And with the adults, Rufus and Lily are engaged.
AG: What is the writer's room like? What do you guys talk about?
JS: The writer's room contains some of the smartest, funniest people you've ever met. It's like group therapy you actually can't wait to go to. We just laugh so much. They're all fantastic people. I can't imagine not seeing them everyday. We talk about our lives, our childhoods, we come to the table with our favoritepieces of literature, of art. We'll talk about things that inspire us, take strong stands on films like Metropolitan and Adventureland. Each writer connects with each character personally. Jessica Queller, a writer from the first two seasons, just had a way with a Blair line, that sardonic, exasperated wit of Blair just flowed from her. She would come in and plop down and at some point during the work day, she was doing it to be funny, but she'd sigh (does high voice) and say, "I want to die!" And [executive story editor] Robby Hull ended up putting a "time of death chart" on the wall because over time, she would say it earlier and earlier in the day, so it went from 6:15PM, to 3:50PM to 2:21PM and by the end of the season she was saying it at, like, 9:02AM. And either moments like that between all of us or the tone they set would go back into what we were writing.
AG: The characters are all so different, and the couple dynamics are all so different. The scene where Chuck and Blair wake up in the limo outside of Georgina's camp, and they both immediately check themselves in the mirror, and Blair takes out a mint and Chuck uses mouthwash, that is writing that wouldn't work for any of the other characters, and of course the humor is amped up since it is a couple (they're weren't yet, but they were getting there) behaving that way. Writing for them must be a really fun. Do you have as much fun writing for everyone else?
JS: I feel like all the characters and couplings are fun in different ways. Each couple, be it Dan and Serena, Lily and Rufus, Chuck and Blair -- each one represents different things we love writing, seeing play out. Chuck and Blair are our longest standing teen couple on the show, so their dynamic is going to reflect that, their history, their issues, but I feel like when you look back, Serena and Dan also had amazing chemistry, they were super fun together, the way their issues played out, and even if they're no longer a couple, they still have that chemistry in their scenes. Just like Nate and Dan have great friend chemistry together. Their scenes together always make me smile. Writing for Chuck and Blair takes a different part of your brain, the more dastardly, manipulative, bon-mot tossing part, but I'm also grateful to be able to write Serena's knowing sense of humor, her soul searching, her strength, Jenny's bold determination and irreverence, Rufus' steadfastness. All the different sides to each character and coupling is what makes the show interesting, and I don't weight one over another. You need a well-balanced meal.
AG: Your fans discuss every detail of the show online, and they're very thorough. Anything they've missed?
JS: You know what we talk about a lot, and we are surprised people don't seem to notice is that one of the things that sets this show apart from other teen shows is that, like Sex and the City, we have a structure every week. Gossip Girl has an event every week. It has never not had an event.
AG: Maybe that is why I've always wanted to do a drinking game based on Lily saying theword "caterer." By the end of each episode, I'd be trashed.
JS: That never occurred to me before. The room is going to love that! But yes, we structure it so that every week, the episode leads to an event. I feel like it is much like a procedural, and you might think you are watching something a little soapy, but there is actually a procedural element in it. The event of the week can be small, like Blair's birthday party, or as large as graduation. Bart's funeral. Blair's annual sleepover. We didn't consciously decide it. But starting somewhere in the beginning of the first season, it just happened that way and I love that about the show. The writers, we love building to that, it grounds us, it grounds the stories.
AG: Right, it's like, everybody gets to be in the same room, the excitement of getting ready, everybody saying, "Will you be my date?"
JS: Or the story of not everybody getting to go, or wanting to go. For "The Wrath of Con," the event was Poppy and Georgina's Russian Tea room tea, where it was just the two of them, except it wasn't because everyone was actually there, secretly, watching from the sidelines. That's another great thing about Gossip Girl -- getting to shoot places like The Russian Tea Room. New York is just such an amazing place to shoot. As a city, it's really opened its arms to us. You get so much production value just from shooting on the sidewalk. Whether it's Jenny and Dan's expansive view of the city from their roof, or getting to shoot in the National Arts Club, like [Executive Producer] John Stephens got to do in the amazing upcoming episode he directed -- you just can't build that kind of history, that kind of beauty.AG: This question will seem outlandish to some, but if people knew what an animal lover you were, it would seem totally normal. If your two dogs, Jimmy, a jindo, and Isobel, an Australian shepherd mix, and your cat Henry were in high school, what group would they fit into?
JS: Henry, would be the head of the chess club. Or maybe Henry would be a cool rider, like Maxwell Caulfield in Grease 2. Isobel is like the really beautiful girl who is also goofy. Jimmy is an anime character.AG: Any final thoughts on the show before Monday?JS: It bothers me when people think of this show merely as a guilty pleasure because I think it's more than that, and I hope it'll stand the test of time. The show is smart, sharp. The writing staff is full of emotionally intuitive people who pull from their own personal histories as much as they do from headlines. And, of course, we draw from classic works like "Les Liaisons Dangereuses" and "The Great Gatsby" as much as we do from pop culture. Blair can quote Chekhov and Britney in the same breath. I feel like it's that strange mix that makes Gossip Girl special.