Main Characters

Serena Van Der Woodsen
Seasons: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
Played By: Blake Lively
Former It girl of the Upper East Side and best friend of Blair Waldorf. Recently returned from a Connecticut boarding school for reasons unknown to her friends, as was her departure from Manhattan a year prior to the show’s beginning. Serena van der Woodsen comes across as down-to-earth for someone from the UES, but things, relationships (Dan, Nate) and opportunities (fashion shoots) seemed to be handed to her on a silver platter. Serena’s past as the partying it girl causes her to leave Manhattan for mysterious reasons. Even more mysterious, she abruptly returns to the high society world of Manhattan, causing quite a stir. She is described as being tall with long locks of wavy blonde hair.

Blair Waldorf
Seasons: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
Played By:Leighton Meester
Queen Bee of the social scene; a position she inherited from her best friend after Serena left New York. An only child, she is introduced as the daughter of a divorced fashion designer mother and a gay father and the longtime girlfriend of Nate Archibald although she became involved with Nate’s best friend Chuck Bass and later falls in love with him. Blair is often portrayed as haughty, shallow, intelligent, and scheming. Despite her uptight, frivolous nature, she “works for everything she’s ever gotten”, in contrast to Serena, and despite her snobbish ways, she constantly looks out for those she cares about. She is described as being of medium height with wavy brown hair.

Jenny Humphrey
Seasons: 1, 2, 3, 4 (Partial)
Played By:Taylor Momsen
Introduced as a freshman at Constance Billiard with a desire to carve her own place in the in-crowd, Jenny is impressionable and quickly becomes the pawn of several characters. She, amongst other girls, harbors a crush for Nate Archibald. She also has a tight-knit relationship with her brother, Dan, which proves handy as she finds herself in frequent need of help due to her bad judgement. Jenny dreams of becoming a designer, her efforts eventually pay off after receiving a letter of internship at Eleanor Waldorf’s studio. When Jenny begins to feel that Eleanor is exploiting her talent, she teams up with a bad girl model Agnes to jumpstart her own line, J Humphrey Designs, to disastrous consequences.

Nate Archibald
Seasons: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
Played By:Chace Crawford
Torn between Serena and Blair – both of whom he has romantic histories with, the so-called golden boy also frequently finds himself making life decisions based on the whims of his controlling father, Howie “The Captain” Archibald. His father is determined to enroll him in Dartmouth. His closest friend is Chuck Bass. After his relationship with Blair ultimately falls apart, he has a fling with Vanessa Abrams. When The Captain must flee New York to escape the FBI, Nate enters a relationship with an older married woman, Duchess Catherine Mason Beaton. The relationship turns into an arrangement of sex for money when the Archibalds’ accounts become frozen. He briefly has a crush on Jenny, but it never turns out to be anything seriously. In season 2, he pursues a relationship with Vanessa.

Dan Humphrey
Seasons: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
Played By:Penn Badgley
A loner, he is the son of a rock musician turned art gallery owner, Rufus Humphrey, his absentee mother Allison Humphrey, and the elder brother of Jenny Humphrey. He first meets Serena van der Woodsen at a party where she seemed to be the only person who spoke to Dan when she greeted him. Smitten with Serena, he finds himself immersed in her moon-eyed world where he is made to attend St. Jude’s at his father’s bidding. Dan is an aspiring writer who dedicates his first poem to Serena and later becomes an assistant to a popular writer. He initially dreamed of attending college at Dartmouth, but decided to puruse Yale, believing it to have the better English faculty. His recent break up with Serena eventually changes his luck with women but still has feelings for her.

Chuck Bass
Seasons: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
Played By:Ed Westwick
Cynical, world-weary and suave, Chuck has no qualms about living life on the edge. He possesses near-sociopathic tendencies of abusing and manipulating others who get in his way. The childhood best friend of Nate, his reputation of womanizing and a patron of baser habits make them complete opposites. He is the only son of Bart Bass, and his mother is deceased. Portrayed firstly as the ‘bad boy’ of the group, Chuck demonstrates a nicer side in the succeeding episodes when he lends Nate $10,000 to get out of a shady poker game, falls in love with Blair, and acts as a surprisingly supportive stepbrother to Serena and her brother Eric. He and Blair finally become a couple towards the end of season 1, yet Chuck’s insecurities and fear to let anyone close cause him to leave Blair waiting at the helipad on their supposed trip to Europe. In season 2, Chuck’s activities revolve mainly around winning Blair back, realizing who he is and struggling with his devious nature.

Vanessa Abrams
Seasons: 1, 2, 3, 4
Played By:Jessica Szohr
The childhood best friend of Dan Humphrey. Prior to Dan’s relationship with Serena, she and Dan were inseparable, and the two developed a mutual attraction that was dashed when she moved to Vermont. A year later, she returned to move in with her big sister, just as Dan was trying to make things work out with Serena. Despite her continued attraction to Dan, she backed off when she saw that Dan genuinely loved Serena. Later, she strikes up a relationship with Nate Archibald. Unlike most of the cast, Vanessa is home-schooled, and thus has the free time to man a cafe she added to Rufus’s art gallery during his summer absence.

Rufus Humphrey
Seasons: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
Played By:Matthew Settle
A former rock star whose marriage has fallen apart, he is also an owner of a fledging art gallery. Determined to give his children a quality education, he enrolled them at private day schools which lead him to bump heads more than once with his former flame, Lillian van der Woodsen. He got a divorce from his wife, Alison Humphrey who was having an affair with a man named Alex. He has difficulty, as a single parent, managing his growing children, in particular the strong-willed Jenny, and often enlists Lily’s aid. Although he and Lily attempted to rekindle their old relationship prior to Lily’s marriage, she ultimate chose to remain friends with Rufus and to marry Bart Bass. However after bart’s death, the pair rekindle their romance when they search for their son.

Lily Van Der Woodsen/ Bass
Seasons: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
Played By:Kelly Rutherford
The multiple-divorced, ex-ballerina, and socialite mother of Serena and Eric van der Woodsen, Lillian has a colored history as a former groupie of Dan and Jenny’s father, Rufus, that she would rather not acknowledge. Her most previous marriage was to Bart Bass. Despite her constant concern for appearances and status in high society, it can be assumed that she lived as indulgently as Serena during her wild child years. Her similarity to Serena can especially be seen when she cries and is unable to make any decisions, both of which are behaviours commonly seen in Serena. It is revealed she was also institutionalized at 19 much like her son Eric. It was later revealed that it was not because of a suicide attempt, but because she was pregnant with Rufus’s child. Rufus and Lily returned to New York, and became a couple.

Gossip Girl
Seasons: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
Voiced By:Kristen Bell
The narrator of the show, “Gossip Girl” is an unseen character whose gossip commentary blog is widely visited by the youths of the Upper East Side social scene, often stirring the lives of the main characters. Her identity remains a secret but still manages to lure her readers with her catty wordplay as well as her fresh and scandalous news often supported by a seemingly endless social network.

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