This regular British lad dips into a few things to help him get into the role of a delightfully obnoxious character on the new TV series Gossip Girl – including looking to fashion for a statement.

THERE is a rock star quality about Ed Westwick. Maybe it is the way he sits – his back neither straight nor slumped and his left elbow resting comfortably on the table at a suite in Shangri-La Hotel in Sydney, Australia. It could be the cool green tee and jeans he has on, and the Pete Doherty-like hairstyle he sports. Or it could simply be because the actor is the lead singer of The Libertines-soundalikes The Filthy Youth back in Britain. Whatever the reason, he’s got it.

On some other 20-year-olds, it would’ve come off as pretentious or even conceited. But with Westwick, the occasional twinkle in his beautiful eyes when he speaks, aided by swift hand gestures, dispels the brooding mannerism.

As English as can be – don’t get him started on football (he supports Chelsea) and David Beckham (he adores the footballer and could talk about him all day) – the guy shrugs off fame, saying he is quite boring and was a bit of a bum during the recent Hollywood writers’ strike. “I woke up in the middle of the afternoon, did nothing other than meeting friends … treating it as a long Christmas holiday,” Westwick confesses before a gathering of Asian journalists in an interview set up by Warner Bros International Television in February.

Thus, it is easy to presume that it is these contrasting qualities that convinced the folk behind Gossip Girl to cast Westwick in the role of bad boy Chuck Bass – who may or may not have a heart – although Westwick initially auditioned for the role of Nate Archibald (which is eventually played by Chace Crawford).

Chuck Bass is a b*****d, to put it simply. He is cocky, manipulative and chases after every skirt within sight. Like almost every character on the show, he is the son of an immensely wealthy man in New York City who lives in a hotel room and attends a snooty prep school at Manhattan’s Upper East Side. The exclusive school is where a whole lot of backstabbing, scandals and gossip take place, with Chuck being guilty of instigating some of them. And these happenings will get reported by the anonymous blogger Gossip Girl – with Chuck being guilty of feeding some of the information.

There is, however, a side to Chuck that he hardly makes public or lets surface – the lost boy who craves his father’s approval, and someone who can be loyal. In other words, Chuck is as flawed as the next guy.

So what’s the appeal of this villain that everyone loves to hate yet likes anyway, Westwick is asked?

“Chuck is very witty … and likeable. He dresses very cool … (he’s) unique in that way. He is also kind of mischievous and spiteful and arrogant, which are things that people don’t like. But the way he carries himself has this attractive thing about it. He has this don’t-give-a-f*** attitude which is a projection of confidence … or arrogance,” says the guy with a definitive accent, albeit one that disappears and becomes American on Gossip Girl.

Despite his effusive comments, the actor has absolutely nothing in common with Chuck. The bloke drew inspiration from various sources to portray the character in the debuting series, which has been well-received in the United States so far. There were his own observations of people, from the script and a little bit of Philip Seymour Hoffman’s suspicious Freddie Miles from Anthony Minghella’s dramatic thriller The Talented Mr Ripley (1999). “I remember thinking that’s like Chuck in 15 years. He was in his late 20s, 30s maybe; they were on holiday, the old rich Americans in Italy. I thought the character of Chuck could relate to him really well.”

Another important clue that helped the 5’10” actor fit into his role as Chuck came in the (surprise!) wardrobe department.

Westwick acknowledges: “Being on a TV show is progressive, where you get to know the character more and more as the story develops and the episodes go. After the pilot, I’ve only got one tiny portion of information for the character. When we knew we were going to go make a full season, I went into my wardrobe fitting for the next episode and I remember looking on the wall and there were all these fashion pictures of like Ralph Lauren that Eric Daman, the wardrobe guy, had used to help him construct his image….

“Things like that help you get an image together. If you flick through GQ or something like that, you’ll see all these guys in Ralph Lauren or Calvin Klein posing like this and that. You can say that’s Chuck, that’s Nate. These guys come alive. It gives you a good sense of understanding.”

Hmm, so it’s true what they say – clothes maketh the man.

But as mentioned earlier, Westwick and Chuck are as different as chalk and cheese. Westwick was born into a middle-class family in Hertfordshire, east of England, on June 27, 1987. Both his parents are academicians and he himself attended “a normal kind of public state school”. The lad got involved in drama groups at a young age before joining the National Youth Theatre in London. A couple of TV spots and supporting roles in films such as Breaking and Entering, Children of Men (both 2006) and Son of Rambow (2007) then led him to Gossip Girl. Soon, he will also be seen in the horror flick 100 Feet, starring alongside Famke Janssen. Before he moved to New York, where Gossip Girl is filmed, he had also performed in small venues with his rock punk band.

When asked if there is anything else he wants to do, the guy who turns 21 in two months cheekily answers: “I don’t know … hotel management! I’m young and I don’t want to do too much and then burn myself out, so I will take my time. Whatever happens, happens.”

As for playing music, it has certainly been overtaken by his budding acting career, never mind that two of The Filthy Youth’s tunes were featured on Gossip Girl. Westwick is clear about keeping both careers separate and not using one to benefit the other.

“Someone asked me earlier: ‘Are you kind of just like in a band to propel that forward through a TV show?’ He said it very subtly, though.

“My answer was no. It is inevitable that some people might think that but I’m in a band because I enjoy doing that. My band is not like this constructed band of musicians from all over the world. The guys (Benjamin Lewis Allingham, Jimmy Wright, Tom Bastiani and John Vooght) live around my street in my hometown. They are my friends and we play music because we all enjoy making music, and our friends enjoy listening to it. That is what it is all about. If someone wants to pay me a hundred million pounds to go on a world tour, then yeah, I’ll do it. But at the moment, I’m just having fun.”

Source: star-ecentral.com