XOXO, Upper East Siders. Chuck Bass is getting married and Lily Van Der Woodsen is invited.
“I miss that character, but I am still in touch with almost everyone from the show. I am going to Ed’s [Westwick] wedding and I am so excited,” admitted “Gossip Girl” star Kelly Rutherford at French TV festival Series Mania.
In the “still relevant” show, she played the impossibly glamorous mother of Blake Lively’s Serena.
“It was before this whole super politically correct time. We were on the verge of it and there is just a different energy about it. After the first season, we knew [it was huge].”
“Gossip Girl” ended in 2012.
“The women I grew up with were very chic, but I hadn’t really seen a mother like that on TV. I didn’t realize how much people loved Lily – until now. At first, it was all about these kids. We were just parents. Then, they started to write for us more.”
“Lily was a fierce mum, but when you are young, you don’t realize all the things your parents are dealing with. They have their own issues, they make mistakes. [In ‘GG’] you got to see that parents aren’t perfect. That’s what’s so cool about it,” she noted, admitting she would “love” to do it again.
However, the show’s now-cancelled reboot, which premiered on HBO Max in 2021, featured a brand new cast.
“It would be interesting if it was like ‘Star Wars’ and a few of us came back to pass the torch, or the lightsaber. I guess they thought it was just easier to create a new environment.”
Rutherford enjoys looking back on the show’s craziest moments, she said.
“There were times when we would read the script in the morning and some people would go: ‘I would never say this, I would never do this.’ Oh yes – you would. We all have this lovely perception of ourselves, but we are dynamic beings. Lily would mess up and recover, and to be able to admit it as a parent was huge.”
New mom herself at the time of filming, she brought her son to the audition.
“It was a last-minute thing. You can barely shower as a new mother, but I showered, went there and just read off the page. My son was 6 months old when we started. Later, I was pregnant during the third season, gave birth during the hiatus and came back right away. It was a gift to play a mother like Lily.”
Recently cast in French Prime Video series “Escort Boys” by Ruben Alves – “I grew up watching Deneuve, Bardot and Moreau and ‘The Double Life of Véronique’ is one of my favorites. It was another way to expand as an actress” – Rutherford also opened up about her early days in soap “Generations.”
“I was so nervous. I called my mother and said: ‘I don’t think I can do it.’ She replied: ‘Just hit your marks and say your lines, and don’t worry about it being great.’ The really nice thing about doing soaps early on in your career is that you do a whole script in one day. It’s like bootcamp, really,” she recalled.
“I had to go and ask for my own raise on the show, which was interesting. That was my first experience of being brave.”
Later, on “Melrose Place,” she got to act alongside last year’s Series Mania guest Marcia Cross as an escort hired to sleep with her husband, who then became her close friend.
“You have to start somewhere with these characters and the more outrageous things are, the better. We had so many episodes, so the writers had to come up with some crazy stuff,” she laughed.
“I was always such a tomboy, so to play this role was so funny. To play ‘the sexy lady.’ It was one of the first shows where fashion was an important part of it all. Aaron Spelling wanted it to be fashionable. He paid us very well and not everyone does that. And he remembered everyone’s name! What an extraordinary producer.”
She continued to express herself through fashion, earning millions of followers along the way and describing her style as “not too showy, but still nice. I think that’s what that whole ‘quiet luxury’ is about.”
“I’ve always loved it and that went into the acting. It helped me to ‘feel’ my roles,” she said, commenting on some of her “empowering” characters.
“When it comes to female empowerment, it’s more about being it rather than talking about it. Sometimes we forget that we are all here to shine a light and we have to find ways to do it. It’s like Jedi training. We have to connect with that aspect of ourselves that is powerful. We are already empowered – we just have to rise to it.”
Although she already got to run from Ghostface in “Scream 3” as Cotton Weary’s ill-fated girlfriend – “Funnily enough, Liev Schreiber was rehearsing his lines for ‘Hamlet’ at the same time” – she would love to tackle an action movie next, she said. Or, yes, even “Star Wars.”
“I could be a Jedi mom, to continue with that whole mom thing. Or Chewbacca. He has a GREAT outfit.”
