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Gossip Girl Audition Tapes Resurface: Blake Lively, Ed Westwick Slay as Serena, Chuck — Watch Now!

He’s Chuck Bass. Duh. First came the wild news that The CW execs wanted Ashley Olsen and Rumer Willis for the roles of Gossip Girl’s Blair Waldorf and Serena van der Woodsen, respectively. Now fans are obsessing over the newly resurfaced audition tapes from series stars Blake Lively and Ed Westwick

Related: PHOTOS: Blake Lively's cutest quotes

In the clips, the pair act out two separate scenes from the pilot episode, which aired on Sept. 19, 2007. In Lively’s scene as Serena, she is trying to make amends with her bestie Blair (Leighton Meester) while having a drink at Chuck’s hotel. 

Ed Westwick and Blake Lively on the set of Gossip Girl in 2012
Ed Westwick and Blake Lively on the set of Gossip Girl in 2012

Related: PHOTOS: Blake's hot body evolution

Lively’s audition is almost identical to how she eventually played the scene on screen, proving she was the perfect pick for the blonde, leggy Manhattan socialite with a tormented past. 

Related: PHOTOS: Gossip Girl's best looks

Westwick’s Chuck audition features him trying to seduce Serena in the next scene. He tried using both an American and British accent for the playboy heir to his father’s hotel chain. Personally, we were fans of his real English accent, but the show ultimately decided to make him American. 

Ed Westwick Gossip Girl in 2008
Ed Westwick as Chuck Bass on the set of Gossip Girl in 2008

Related: PHOTOS: Gossip Girl stars, then and now

“It was all about beauty and glamour, but being approachable and Blake was the ultimate It Girl,” CW casting director David Rapaport recently told BuzzFeed of Lively’s casting. Of Westwick, he added, “On a network like The CW, where beauty does come first a lot, and you’re selling the fantasy of this world, it was a lot about the looks, so we had to balance that out with the guys and Ed Westwick wasn’t as traditionally handsome as Chace Crawford, but I found him much sexier and darker and edgier.”

Blake Lively Gossip Girl 2007
Blake Lively as Serena van der Woodsen on the set of Gossip Girl with Chace Crawford in 2007
‘Watch the clips now and tell Us what you think of Lively and Westwick’s auditions. 

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