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"I met with Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage — and this was at the height of The O.C. — and they basically said, 'We need the next Mischa Barton and Adam Brody,'" Rapaport recalled of his first meeting with the executive producers. "At the time, they were the biggest names in television. I said, 'Absolutely. Count on us to find them for you.' I don't know where the fuck I thought I was going to find them — I don't even know where I got the ego to say that I could do that, but it was the challenge placed on the table, but I knew that it was something we could do.

"Blake Lively was literally the only person I could think of for Serena. I had seen her in Accepted [a 2006 comedy co-starring Justin Long] and at that time, there were no Lena Dunhams or Zooey Deschanels — it was all about beauty and glamour, but being approachable and Blake was the ultimate It Girl. I was terrified we wouldn't get her or they wouldn't like her because, honestly, they show lived and died on her and I had absolutely no other ideas. And I read so many people. I think at the end of the day, we tested Blake, Katie Cassidy, who is now on Arrow, and this girl who was [Serena] on the Gossip Girl books. Not even her face, just her legs. But it made sense.

"Blake was the front-runner. We did a screen test with her and the note we got back was that she was 'sunny California' and they said, 'I don't think we'll buy her as an Upper East Side debutante.' And Josh said, 'Well, Mischa Barton is from New York and I sold her as a sunny California girl; there's no reason people won't.' So we did another screen test with Blake and all we did was straighten her hair to make her look a little more sophisticated, so to speak. What's ironic is, in the pilot, she ends up having the wavy hair. From there on out, so much of the casting on Gossip Girl became about the hair because Leighton Meester is naturally blonde and the way we got her the job was we dyed her hair. Ultimately they were the best actors for it and brought something really special to their roles."