A leader needs followers and, in Gossip Girl, Blair Waldorf has hers in Penelope (Amanda Setton), Isabel (Nicole Fiscella), Nelly (Yin Chang), and Hazel (Dreama Walker).

In person, though, Gossip Girls' Mean Girls - who are all New York-based - seem highly unlikely to ever deliver sniping undercuts to anyone, much less each other.  They giggle and joke throughout the photo shoot, snapping poctures of each other and excitedly calling their moms, their energy never flagging as the day drags on.  "Us girls, we click.  It makes the experience on-set so much better," Setton says.  Chang agrees.  "I feel lucky that I get to work with amazing co-stars and we get along so well." 

For all four, Gossip Girl has been their first major role.  Setton and Walker had cameos in Sex and the City, and Chang and Walker in various versions of Law & Order, but for Fiscella, a model who auditioned for the show at the urging of her agent, it's her first role ever. 

"At first, I didn't really care, because I was never an actress.  But once I got into the second and third round, I was like, okay, I really want this," she says.  "I remember everyone at my agency saying, 'Make sure you look really, really attractive for this one.  This show is ridiculous!  So I was like, 'Oh my God!' and spent forever doing my hair and makeup!"

"One of the most obvious things that makes the show fun is the fashion," Setton adds.  "Just getting to wear those clothes is great, especially because Penelope's style is so different from mine."

And as much as the four are Blair's followers, they are also her foils, displaying a loyalty to each other over Blair and showing occasional flashes of empathy and morality, especially in the case of Nelly Yuki.  "Nelly is a nerd.  But she's not only book smart.  She really struggles to fit in and conform to the group," Chang says, then adds with a laugh, "But she's still a fashionable nerd."

They're also often the comic relief, and Walker - who jokes that the only succesful person from her hometown of Tampa, Florida is "Nick Carter from the Backstreet Boys, and I'll forgive you if you don't know who that is" - will soon appear in the Ricky Gervais-directed This Side of Truth with Jonah Hill and Tina Fey, and as the lead in indie flick In The Meantime.  The over-the-top satire of Gossip Girl is something she relishes.  "The lines are so bitchy, you don't really have to put a lot of bitch behind them," Walker says.  "Sometimes all you have to do is add a little smile, and they become that much meaner."
--KATE WILLIAMS

See the Gossip Girls on NYLON TV!
Dreama's MySpace
Nicole's MySpace
Amanda's MySpace
Yin's MySpace

---

RATE THIS STORY
Your Name (*)
Your Email (*)	Your email address will not be shown
Rate (*)
Comment (*)
Enter the code shown in the image (*)