Interview

Nate Archibald, the prep-school poster boy of all things physically right about American youth today, has a terrible father but a family legacy that keeps him afloat in Gossip Girl limos and designer cardigans. Last we saw Nate, he was headed to Columbia University, but not before he and Blair broke up at the prom and he headed off to Europe on a backpacking trip with his former flame Vanessa. Nate Archibald’s real-life counterpart, on the other hand, has an extremely supportive father—and mother for that matter, who during this interview was helping her son move from the apartment he shared with Gossip Girl co-star Ed Westwick to his own two-bedroom in Manhattan’s Financial District—but the 24-year-old actor had no Hollywood legacy to help him coast into the loafers of one of teenage fandom’s dreamiest heartthrobs. In other words, for all his innate good looks, Chace Crawford has spent the past few years working very hard to get where he is today. And this year, the Texas native is refusing to stand still and smile pretty, taking on two projects that he hopes will prove he’s serious about his craft. In the spring he wrapped up director Joel Schumacher’s dark thriller Twelve, in which he plays an impoverished teenage drug dealer who tries to figure out what caused the death of his cousin during the epidemic of a new street drug called Twelve (a drug favored by Upper East Side Gossip Girl types). And after much hoopla over Crawford’s replacing Zac Efron in the upcoming remake of Footloose, he gets a chance to show a little more wild enthusiasm—and breakdancing—than Nate usually summons during those tender walk-and-talk Gossip Girl street scenes. The eternally rich Nate Archibald is slowly growing up, it seems, but Crawford already has. He’s single, still in his early 20s, and he finally has his very own bachelor pad.

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CHRISTOPHER BOLLEN: I hear you just moved out on your old roommate Ed Westwick.

CHACE CRAWFORD: Yeah. My mom’s here saving my ass, helping me out. She did a little pre-planning on the move, so it went smoothly.

BOLLEN: What prompted the move?

CRAWFORD: Well, I’m turning 24 in two days, so I think it was about time, you know? I mean, I was a little bit on my own in California but mostly living with fraternity brothers. So initially Ed and I became roommates here in New York because we didn’t know if the show was going to last or not. Ed had never lived away from home, let alone in a different country. We got along and figured it would be a smart move financially. And really, it was also just kind of out of laziness.

BOLLEN: Did you and Ed have different living styles? Was one of you the better roommate?

CRAWFORD: No. It was very much a give-and-take. Sometimes you fall into those kind of brother-brother arguments. But you know what? All this stuff about the place being messy is from people who haven’t even stepped foot inside the place . . . Personally I’m obsessive-compulsive about the placement and cleanliness of my things. But I’m not always the best, so I had a housekeeper come every two weeks. It was pretty immaculate, I have to say. It had its down points, but Ed and I ran a good ship there for a while. We have some good memories.

BOLLEN: Is Ed staying put in the old apartment?

CRAWFORD: I don’t know. I think it’s up in the air. He might knock down a wall, shake some things up. Hire a decorator. . . [laughs]

BOLLEN: So it wasn’t a matter of you two being tossed together by the show in some actors’ dorm?

CRAWFORD: No, it was much more casual than that. Much less thought out. I wanted to live in a really nice building, and he really didn’t care. I also didn’t want to be paying an arm and a leg for rent. They give you, like, a $7,000 relocation fee, which goes a long way if you’re like my buddy shooting Friday Night Lights in Austin, Texas, but in New York you have to deal with a $7,000 broker’s fee. It takes more than double that to move and set everything up. Ed’s girlfriend was in town most of the time for the pilot we shot in ’07. So we hung out a little bit and talked about getting a place. We talked to Penn, too, but he had shot a show in New York before and was living, I think, with Milo Ventimiglia. Penn said, “No, but good luck. I’m over the roommate situation.” So I called up Ed and was like, “Hey, man, I’m going to New York tomorrow. Do you want to room with me?” He’s like [faking British accent], “Yeah, why not?” So I looked around and sent him a few pics of the place I found and he said [faking British accent], “Is there any extra room for guest bedrooms?” I was like, “What are you talking about? This is New York. What do you want, a game room? Let’s just make space for a ping-pong room as well.” [laughs] Ed had no idea. But the apartment was in a nice building, and it had a great roof deck. We’d hang out up there all the time with our friends, and it was private.