15 'Gossip Girl' Set Secrets You Didn't Know

The fall of 2007 was a pretty magical time. Sure, it had all the normal things that we love about the autumn season, from pumpkin spice lattes to beautifully golden leaves to sweaters and boots and plaid scarves. But it also meant the premiere of a pretty incredible show, and that's Gossip Girl. For six seasons, this series followed a group of super wealthy and super clever teenagers as they grew up, came of age, and looked fabulous while doing it. The show is known for its juicy storylines and thoughtfulness about wealth, growing up too fast, female friendship, love, and backstabbing. Okay, and it's also always just plain fun to watch. But there is so much that you didn't know about this incredible teen drama. Here are 15 Gossip Girl set secrets you didn't know. If you want to go ahead and re-watch the entire series, we're in total agreement and we support you.

15 Dan Had No Idea

Okay, this is a major spoiler, but hopefully, if you're reading this article you're already a massive GG fan and totally know what happens. But here's a recap: the bookish Dan was really Gossip Girl all along. And the actor had no idea that he was the entire point of the show. Talk about a crazy revelation. Can you imagine being him and reading the script and going, "Oh crap, I'm Gossip Girl?!" It's also funny since, you know, he's not a girl. What's also funny about the guy behind Dan, Penn Badgley, was seriously done with the whole acting thing until he got the part. He didn't even say yes at first and they had to ask a few times because he finally agreed to play Dan. Yeah, just let that sink in for a few seconds. The show would not be what it was without this specific Dan, so that's a pretty crazy thing to realize.

14 Different Actors Were Almost Cast

So you now know that Dan almost said no to playing that role, but Chuck and Blair were totally going to look different, too. Apparently, Lindsay Lohan was going to be Blair… but it's not even what you think. Originally, the series was going to only be a film, and Lindsay was going to star in it. Sounds crazy, and it's pretty hard to picture the show being a movie since we had six glorious seasons. Ed Westwick, who played Chuck, wanted to be Nate but was told that there was no way he could pass for that kind of character. Which is super fun since of course, that's true. Chuck is such a bad boy and Nate is such a boy-next-door kind of character. So the show could have looked very different. We can't imagine Chuck not being, well, Chuck and Dan not being Dan and Lindsay Lohan playing Blair. We just really can't.

13 The Actors Weren't Super On Board

If you think that the actors on this show were always super into what was going on, you would be totally wrong. Penn Badgley has said that finding out that he was Gossip Girl all along just wasn't super great for him. He told the media that it "didn't make sense" and then said, well, it kind of did since his character was super into writing. But we kind of have to agree there. But the actors also didn't seem to be having fun 100 percent of the time that they were on set because apparently Serena and Blair weren't BFFs in real life. Yes, really. Isn't that super hard to believe? Well, maybe it's not, since there must be a lot of competition between two female stars of a popular and beloved TV show. The characters seemed to be always fighting and so maybe the actresses were actually fighting for screen time, too, so to speak.

12 There Was A Planned Spin-Off

Do you remember that end of season two episode that focused on Serena's mom Lily's backstory? It was super fun and interesting to see her as a teenager and to learn a bit more about her, since besides her on-again, off again romance with Dan and Jenny's dad Rufus, we never really see much of her. Her entire life seems to revolve around who she's dating or marrying or whatever, and we always thought that there must have been more to that character. But did you know that was going to be a spin-off that focused on Lily as a young woman? That was called a "back-door pilot" which means that a show will have an episode that is essentially the first episode of a new show. This would have been a really fun show since this was a really well-done and fascinating episode, but sadly, it was not to be. We have to be content with the six seasons of Gossip Girl that we did get.

11 There Was An O.C. Connection

What would have been totally and completely interesting about the planned spin-off was that apparently, it would have had younger characters from The O.C. too. Our response to that? OMG. Times a million. Imagine your two favorite shows becoming one… a real dream. We really wish this had actually happened because that is a show that we would watch… and obsess over. And be totally addicted to. Now we're super sad so we kind of wish that we didn't have this knowledge. With knowledge comes power and with power comes responsibility, as they say, but it can also make us pretty sad. Of course, Leighton Meester (aka Blair) is now Mrs. Seth Cohen (aka Adam Brody) so it's almost like the producers and writers knew that this was going to happen and they wanted to connect both shows. Such a cool thought. And so depressing that this never, ever worked out.

10 The Sets Are Real

Well, real in a sense that they exist as actual buildings and not made-up sets that could be taken down at the end of a long day of filming. The school that Serena and Jenny and Blair go to is actually a museum. And you know how they always sit on the museum steps? That's really The Met. So if you're thinking that most of the sets were museums, you're pretty much right on the nose there. But the hotel that Chuck buys is also a real hotel, and you can even order a cocktail there that is totally based on the series. How cool would that be?! What was so great about the show was that you felt like they were real people really living in New York City… instead of it being a Hollywood set that was super fake and unrealistic. We think this made the show so much more watchable since let's face it, NYC is pretty much the most photogenic city in the entire world. It's so beautiful.

9 Blair Was Actually Super Chill

Okay, so Blair Waldorf and the word "chill" just do not go together. She really does need a chill pill. She is a super highly strung person, she is super Type A, and she always gets what she wants. She would never, ever leave the house without looking 100 percent beautiful and perfect, and we wouldn't really have it any other way because that's just of her charm. She's a stress case… but she's a stylish stress case. But Leighton Meester is actually super chill, and the media has focused on how different she is in real life from her most famous on-screen character. She would show up on set with normal hair and normal clothes. That's pretty cool to know since we really respect and love celebrities that don't always have to essentially look like celebrities. If they can look like regular people, we're much more interested in following their careers.

8 There Were Mistakes

Most importantly, the producers and writers realized that, oops, Dan and his family were supposed to be incredibly poor… but they lived in a massive loft. Seriously, how beautiful and cool and funky is that loft?! We all wished that we could live there, that's for sure, and it seemed like a more interesting place to live than the fanciest hotels and apartments that the other, richer characters lived in. So that was definitely a big mistake since it didn't make sense that poor people would be living in such total and complete luxury. Another mistake? They supposedly lived in Williamsburg, Brooklyn but it was clear that their place was actually in an area in Brooklyn called DUMBO. So there were quite a few real estate related issues that the creative team had to deal with. But it's okay. We forgive them because after all, real estate on TV is total wish fulfillment. Like Carrie Bradshaw could afford her apartment… penning one column a week?!

7 There Was A Tech Goof

We might not remember this, but there was a scene when characters on the show were using a tablet called the HP TouchPad. It was front and center and was pretty much the star of the show. But the problem? That technological product wasn't even on sale after that and never was again. So that's a pretty big tech goof. That can be chalked up to a little thing called product placement since there is pressure to feature certain products at certain times on every show, although it can be more obvious sometimes. There was a scene in the new 90210 that heavily featured the characters taking lots of Dr. Pepper on a road trip. No, not just any type of soda. Dr. Pepper. They showed the soda and talked about it by name so many times, it was pretty clear what was going on there. So this was the same thing on an episode of Gossip Girl.

6 The Creator Missed The WB

Josh Schwartz, who created The O.C., was one of the creators and show runners on Gossip Girl (along with his creative partner Stephanie Savage), and he said in one interview that he missed "the glory days of The WB." That was apparently the reason that he wanted to work on this show in the first place. In this one article, he referenced amazing teen dramas like Dawson's Creek and Felicity and said that he wanted to work on a CW show that had a similar theme going on. The thing is that at face value, Gossip Girl seems worlds apart from those sweet, slow teenage dramas featuring lots of monologs and thinking and feelings. It's a faster-paced show, it has juicy storylines, and it focuses on beauty and fashion (and lots and lots of hooking up, let's be real here). But when we realize that Josh Schwartz missed those old shows and was trying to work within that genre, it does make sense, because at its core GG is about the characters and how much they care about each other.

5 Girls Swarmed The Set

We know that if we ever came across Gossip Girl filming in NYC, we would be super excited and would pretty much freak out. But we like to think that we wouldn't exactly swarm the set. The cast and crew have revealed in an interview with the Hollywood Reporter that at one point, as many as 300 girls were around the set, trying to see what was going on and get as close as possible to their beloved actors and actresses. We think it's pretty amazing that this didn't happen every single day that the show was shooting since it would make sense that fans would figure out where they were filming and would want to see it for themselves. When we think about it, the show first aired in September 2007, and while we had cell phones and all that back then, we weren't as iPhone and social media obsessed. If the show started today, we think this would have happened much more often and it would have been impossible for them to get any work done thanks to the constant fans.

4 NYC Loved The Show

You might think that a city wouldn't be super into the idea of a successful show filming for six seasons. Well, not that a city has opinions or thoughts or feelings, but you get the idea. We mean the city officials and all that jazz. But apparently, according to the cast and crew, people who lived in New York City really loved that they were filming there. They even made the cover of New York Magazine which really proved once and for all that it was a positive thing for the city that never, ever sleeps and that everyone is pretty much obsessed with. We think that this show would not be the same at all if it wasn't filmed in real NYC and was on a lot somewhere, since it has such a great city vibe and we get to see Dan's cool hipster Brooklyn life and the rest of the characters' opposite wealthy and sophisticated life in Manhattan. The show really benefits from its real and true locations.

3 The Writers' Strike Almost Was The End

The show was on the air during the 2007-2008 strike by TV writers, and the cast and crew weren't super sure if their show would be allowed to continue. It sounds like a very stressful, unhappy time since they were so excited about this new project and they really wanted to stay on the air. We don't really remember this too much because we were so much younger back then, we just knew that we loved the show and wanted to see it stay on the air. It's hard to imagine a world where Gossip Girl wasn't allowed to run its course, because we had to know who the mysterious blogger was, and whether or not Dan and Serena ended up together. And of course, we were dying to find out about whether Chuck and Blair's love story had a happy ending (even though we pretty much knew that it absolutely had to work out well for them).

2 The Network Had Influence

Of course, we get that TV networks have a ton of say in what episodes end up airing of any show, and that was definitely true of Gossip Girl. We all can remember the ads that seemed to almost be super thrilled about the fact that the show was becoming pretty shocking. They were those ads that showed the characters in pretty intimate and compromising positions and they featured such statements as "Every parent's worst nightmare." Well, the secret behind those ads is that they were actual things that people said about the show… in particular, people who were super against it since they thought that no teenagers should be watching it. Josh Schwartz told New York Magazine that he wasn't super sold on those ads since it made him feel "weird." We can totally see where he's coming from because we always found those ads kind of strange too since they seemed to be way too obvious about how surprising they show was trying to be.

1 Everyone Dated

And we mean everyone. Okay, maybe not every single cast member, but still. Did you know that Dan and Serena dated in actual life? Well, you definitely do now. Chuck and Vanessa were an actual couple too. It's always fun to realize that your favorite actors dated when starring in a movie or on a TV show, and while it always seems like such a juicy scandal when you think about it, it's really no big deal. And it makes perfect sense. After all, if you're working closely with someone for a long period of time and you're around the same age range, you're going to bond with them. And feelings might even develop. And then there you are, totally in love and officially together. Of course, things don't always work out super well and none of these couples are still together now. But if you feel sad about that, don't worry, because Seth Cohen and Blair Waldorf are now totally and completely married. That's better, right?