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Variety Women's Impact Report: Stephanie Savage

BuzzSugar — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 11:30:49 -0700

Variety has issued its annual Women's Impact Report, highlighting women who have made an impression at all levels of entertainment. Just like last year, the list includes executive powerhouses, household-name performers, and lesser-known talents. Over the next couple of weeks, I'll be spotlighting some of the women whom I find particularly noteworthy. Today's pick: producer Stephanie Savage.

Josh Schwartz gets most of the credit for The OC and Gossip Girl, but Savage, his co-producer, should get a ton of credit for Schwartz being a phenom in the first place. As the Variety profile points out, she was working for McG's production company when she "plucked Josh Schwartz from obscurity" and gave him a chance to run The OC.

That move made Schwartz a household name, but Savage has stayed more behind the scenes. Still, it gave her a boost as well: With Schwartz's help, she segued into writing, and now she carries a lot of the weight for Gossip Girl when Schwartz is looking after Chuck. She told Variety she loves writing about teens; to see what she had to say about them, just read more.

Savage explained her love for teens this way:

"Teens have a sensational narcissism and genuinely believe that their experiences are unique and can't be explained to adults. But we forgive them for their mistakes and naivete."

She certainly seems to know how to get into the teenage mind, what with the popularity (though not necessarily ratings success) of both Gossip Girl and The OC. Does Savage have any secrets? Not really, she said; she likes what she likes, and that just happens to translate into being strikingly hip.

Well, maybe it's not a total accident. She's also got a great career motto helping to drive her: "Show up, shut up and shine."

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PaleyFest: More of the Gossip Girl Gossip

BuzzSugar — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 13:31:58 -0700

Earlier today, I shared with you a few of the highlights from the Gossip Girl panel at PaleyFest. Well, that's not all the cast and creators had to say. Read on for some more funny bits and stories from how this group of ridiculously attractive people came together for the show:

With apologies to FabSugar, my fashion awards for the panel: Snazziest Blazer Award to Ed Westwick, Tallest Heels Award to Taylor Momsen, Best Emo Hair award to Chace Crawford, and Best "Oh, I Just Threw This On" Award to the casual-chic Lively.
Speaking of styling, Entertainment Weekly's Tim Stack, who moderated the panel, really could not stop complimenting Lively's hair, at one point calling it "the best head of hair in Hollywood." I know Molly would agree.
Speaking of Lively, executive producer Josh Schwartz said that when they started casting the series, they found a lot of fan sites for the books that mentioned her as a choice for Serena if the series were ever made into a movie or show, which convinced them to go meet her.
Penn Badgley, meanwhile, had done three other WB series before Gossip Girl and wasn't keen on doing another, but he'd worked with executive producer Stephanie Savage on The Mountain (which got scattered cheers from the crowd; Savage attributed the clapping to her mom and sister) and decided to give it a shot.
On what should happen with Rufus and Lily: "It's 2008," said Matthew Settle. "I think they should have a double date with the kids!" He then let loose with an extended ode to Rutherford: "I look at you and I feel warm . . . my wife can't see this, right?"

Lots more - including what Gossip Girl series author Cecily von Ziegesar first thought when she heard the folks from The OC were adapting her work - plus some video from the panel if you read more.

Von Ziegesar said she was "overwhelmingly happy" with the way Schwartz and Savage had adapted her books but admitted that her expectations were incredibly low. She said that, never having seen The OC, she imagined that the OC folks' version of Gossip Girl would have Serena as a beach volleyball player, Nate as a lifeguard, and Blair as "a teen mom by day and a stripper by night."
While the idea of making a series out of Gossip Girl would seem like a slam dunk, apparently it wasn't so easy: The material had been developed twice before, once as a movie and once as a pilot for Fox. Obviously, neither attempt was successful. The big difference with this adaptation, the producers said, was that Schwartz and Savage gave Serena more drive.
On filming in New York: Producers said it can be a pain to have crowds stopping to gawk at the shoots, and Kelly Rutherford said she gets nervous about paparazzi darting in front of cabs to get their shots. Lively and Leighton Meester seemed most annoyed about the photographers eating food from their craft service table.
Speaking of Rutherford, she's so Lily van der Woodsen, it's scary. I had a hard time remembering she wasn't in character.
Will Blair and Chuck ever reconnect romantically? Meester said there will probably always be some sort of tension between the two because in a way, they're perfect for each other. "He understands her like nobody else does," she said.
If the show goes on for years, Schwartz and Savage have a plan for continuing it without making everyone be 25-year-old high schoolers. "New York is more of the franchise of the school than high school is," he noted - and Savage pointed out that school is such a small part of the show, they don't even have a classroom set.

The Paley Center's official highlights are still to come, but you can watch almost the whole panel on YouTube. Here's a clip:

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PaleyFest: The Goods on Gossip Girl

BuzzSugar — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 06:30:11 -0700

Hey, Upper East Siders. BuzzSugar here, with all the dish from Saturday night's Gossip Girl panel at the Paley Festival in Los Angeles. The sold-out crowd got some hints about what's coming up when the show returns with five new episodes starting April 21 and some of the scoop straight from the set - including the truth about Blake Lively's Guitar Hero skills, the plot lines that Gossip Girl series creator Cecily von Ziegesar would like to see included in the show, and how the fictional Gossip Girl blogger got her voice.

The evening started with a clip of the "Angela + Jordan = total sex in his car!" scene from My So-Called Life, which was greeted with appreciative cheers from the crowd - which was split pretty evenly between the MSCL demographic and the current teenage set. If not for the strike, we would have then gotten to see a new episode of Gossip Girl, but because none had been completed, we got a package of highlights from the season instead - including a mini gag reel of screw-ups from the set. (You know how every show seems to have that one cast member who can't help but drop an f-bomb every time he flubs a line? That's Penn Badgley.) The whole cast slipped into the auditorium to watch after the lights went down, so there was a lot of whispering and clapping going on in a row just to my left.

After clips, the cast and creative team took the stage. All of the main cast attended, along with creators Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage, author von Ziegesar, and two of the show's other producers; the only obvious missing stars were Connor Paolo (Eric van der Woodsen) and Nicole Fiscella and Nan Zhang, who play Blair's dress-alike sidekicks Isabel and Kati. (Zhang apparently headed back to college during the strike, a fact Josh Schwartz said he only learned when they got back on set). Lively seemed to get the most applause, but there were plenty of squeals for Ed Westwick and Badgley, too.

Of course, the juiciest part of the evening was getting hints about what we'll see come April, so for the scoop (and update: here's part two!), just read more.

The biggest thing we'll be seeing: more Bad Serena! A lot of that will be thanks to the arrival of Georgina Sparks (Michelle Trachtenberg), a key figure from Serena's past and someone Blair fears.
Teased Lively: "Maybe the fact that [Serena] slept with Nate isn't the real reason she left, dot dot dot . . . "
Also, Serena and Chuck are getting used to the idea of being siblings, Dan is going to get dirtied up a little, and Blair and Jenny are going to war. Jenny will still be the queen bee when we return, just "learning her power," Taylor Momsen said.
Serena and Eric's father is going to show up eventually, though nobody would say when. Also, the five episodes will be building up to a wedding, Schwartz said. Hmm, who's getting married - Lily and Bart Bass, perhaps?
We'll also be seeing a lot more Vanessa - and not just in the Serena and Dan story. She's going to be getting some plots of her own, possibly including a little something with Nate.
Speaking of Vanessa, finding Jessica Szohr to play her was something of a happy accident. Schwartz and Savage were having a tough time casting the role, but then Szohr turned up with some mutual friends at a barbecue at Schwartz's house. "I had to go home and IMDB her to make sure she was actually an actress," Savage said.
One of the other great casting stories was Leighton Meester's. She was blonde when she auditioned, which proved to be a sticking point for the CW. "The network was like, 'She's great, but she's blonde,' Schwartz said. "We were like, 'She can also be brunette!'" But asking an actress to dye her hair during pilot season is a stretch, so Meester tried wearing a brown wig, which didn't work out so well. Eventually, she did take the plunge and dye her hair.
Lively's requirements for signing on to a series: no having to be locked in a cage, no being brainwashed by an old lady, and no pet monkey. "I would love to be a part of the show," she said she told Schwartz, "but I can't act with a monkey." Thus, Chuck lost his pet monkey - a shame, according to von Ziegesar, who said the monkey just makes Chuck "gayer and gayer and gayer" in the books. Hmmm, could he be the guy coming out of the closet?
The moderator (Entertainment Weekly's Tim Stack) asked Lively if she's as good at Guitar Hero as she was when Serena kicked ass at a party earlier this season. "I'm actually much better," she replied, revealing that she goes to tournaments in Brooklyn, covered in fake tattoos. She takes this stuff seriously: Originally, she was supposed to lose Guitar Hero to Vanessa, but she pleaded with the writers: "Let her get the guy, make her more beautiful, make her more talented, make her better in every way - but don't take away Guitar Hero!"
She then revealed she can actually only play well on medium - though she can apparently spin the guitar around her neck.
How did they pick the voice of Gossip Girl? Kristen Bell declared herself for the role, Savage said. But everyone was vague about whether we'd ever see the blogger in the flesh.
Noting that all the parties on Schwartz/Savage shows seem to end in fisticuffs and tears, Stack asked the two to explain what happened to them at parties that so scarred them for life. Savage: "Every party I ever went to ended in fisticuffs and tears." Schwartz: "I was never at one."

Here are the rest of the goodies from the GG panel. xoxo . . .

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