Pining after Dan Humphrey, making out with Nate Archibald, canoodling with Chuck Bass – most girls would kill for these opportunities, but it’s all in a day’s work for Gossip Girl’s Jessica Szohr. If there’s one thing the role of Vanessa Abrams has taught the Milwaukee-native, it’s not how to handle boys, “The show has given me a whole new perspective on fashion that I didn’t have before. I’ve always been interested in fashion, but I didn’t necessarily follow it – I’m a lot more aware of trends and designers now.” Szohr reveals that although her character gets some of the most interesting and colorful costumes on Gossip Girl, Szohr is, “more of a jeans and t-shirt girl” in her personal life.
Growing up in Wisconsin, acting was never part of Szohr’s plan; she began modeling at age six and scored her first national commercial when she was 10, but Szohr always intended to go to college, “I didn’t see one movie in particular or pay attention to a specific role or someone’s career and think, ‘I want to be that,’” the actress confesses. “But I already had an agent who kept telling me, ‘you need to go out to L.A. for pilot season, you need to go out to L.A. for pilot season.’ I graduated early from high school so I figured I’d go and give it a shot. I only intended to be out there for a couple of months and then go back to Chicago where I was enrolled for college, but here I am, still working!”
Taking a break from her duties as Dan’s outspoken best friend on Gossip Girl over summer hiatus, Szohr abandoned the drama of the Upper East Side to face a foe even more deadly than catty rich kids – a lake full of man-eating piranhas in Alexandre Aja’s Piranha 3D. “I play Kelly, the local girl who has a crush on Jake, one of the guys who is back from college and visiting the lake for spring break,” Szohr explains. “She’s kind of over the whole party scene, but she’s liked this guy for a long time, so she steps out of her comfort zone and on to one of these party boats to be close to him. But then the piranhas attack and it all goes a little crazy!”
Describing the challenges of filming on Lake Havasu in Arizona, Szohr admits it wasn’t all fun in the sun. “The heat was usually around 120 degrees every day, which was intense. And at night, on a lake in the dark, imagining there were hundreds of killer piranhas in the water – it was eerie. I learned a lot about myself from all the water scenes, working underwater was a real challenge for me.” Although the lure of spending a summer by a lake was part of the movie’s appeal, it wasn’t the location that attracted her to the role. “I like to be entertained,” she laughs. “I think that this is just a fun, entertaining movie where people can go and be scared.”
And what of her small-screen alter-ego? Szohr remains tight-lipped on the subject of spoilers, bound by strict confidentiality agreements to keep the show’s much-discussed plotlines a mystery, but she is eager to drop a couple of hints.
“Vanessa has gone to college and she’s starting a new chapter in her life – I think NYU is a really good fit for her,” the actress muses. “Hilary Duff is coming on as her roommate; she plays a movie star and because Vanessa is really into filmmaking and movies and she knows about directors and actors, it’s very interesting for her to have this movie star living with her. And some stuff happens with Hilary’s character and some of my friends…” When pressed for details, Szohr laughs apologetically, insisting, “I always want to spill everything and then I get in trouble – it’s really hard to keep secrets!”
Pictures have leaked online that reveal Duff locking lips with Penn Badgley, who plays Vanessa’s best friend, Dan Humphrey, but Szohr will neither confirm nor deny the rumors. Other special guests this season include Tyra Banks, who will be linked to Duff’s character through a movie they are shooting, while Gina Torres will make an appearance playing Vanessa’s mother, “I was really excited to see who they would cast,” Szohr enthuses. “Like, ‘yes, Vanessa’s finally gonna see what her mom looks like!’ And [Gina] was great to work with, she’s such a warm, wonderful person and it was so much fun.”
But why is the elusive Mrs. Abrams finally making her debut after two years of letting Vanessa do her own thing in New York? “Vanessa’s parents live in Vermont and they were okay with her going to the city a couple of years ago to declare her undying love for Dan Humphrey, but we find out that they’re not so approving of the whole college thing, they’re kind of super-hippies,” Szohr explains with a laugh. “Vanessa has to give the freshmen speech at NYU so she invites her mom to come support her; it’s like a really big deal for her to be giving this speech so it’s important that her mom is there to see it. But in true Gossip Girl fashion, things don’t go so smoothly.”
The hype around Gossip Girl has reached fever pitch, with magazines spending as much time dissecting the personal lives of the show’s stars as the eponymous titular character spends gossiping about Serena, Blair and Chuck. But Szohr hasn’t let fame change her routine, insisting, “I like going to shows, concerts, plays, really taking advantage of New York. I do yoga, I like to ride my bike around a lot…” At this, she pauses to laugh to herself before explaining, “It’s funny, I have this old bike which has this über big basket, so I’m riding around with this huge basket and I’m sure people who see me are like, ‘what is this girl doing?’ but my grandparents sent me this bike purposefully so I could put my dog in the basket, so I don’t care if I look ridiculous.”
Although fame may not have changed Szohr, the 24 year-old admits that it has certainly changed the way the world treats her, recounting a recent on-set encounter that left the actress considerably shaken. “I love Hello Kitty,” she explains with a self-deprecating laugh. “And I was coming out of the make-up trailer one day and there was this girl waiting outside the barriers, maybe around twenty, and she had this stuffed Hello Kitty for me. And of course I just took it without even thinking about it, but the security guard on set said ‘I need to see that’ and he started squeezing this toy. I was like, ‘what are you doing to Hello Kitty?!’ but he found something hard inside it. So we had to take it into the wardrobe trailer and ask the wardrobe girl to find the seam, which looked like it had been sewn up a little weirdly – and,” she pauses, sounding scandalized, “He ripped poor Hello Kitty’s head off! But we actually found a speaker inside, and I don’t know what that was about, whether it was an obsessed fan or something. I would’ve just taken this girl’s Hello Kitty home and never known – it was very weird.”
Steering the subject back to safer territory, Szohr evaluates her fashion sense, unable to find a description that fully defines her, “I wouldn’t necessarily say I have a particular style – I’m all about comfort,” she reflects. “I guess I’d say it’s kind of boho-chic? I always think that if an outfit is too put together it loses a little of its personality, I think if people can follow the trends, but put their own spin on it, that’s more important.”
