Summary
- Serena van der Woodsen’s character in Gossip Girl was 16 years old when the events of the series began. By the end of the show, she was around 26-27 years old due to a time-jump in the series finale.
- Actress Blake Lively was 20 years old during the filming of Gossip Girl, making her around 25 when the series ended. The age similarity between Lively and her character helped in portraying a balance of maturity and freshness.
- Serena’s character underwent significant growth throughout the show, becoming less interested in social events and more responsible and mature. Her relationship with Dan contributed to her character development, making her less privileged and snobby.
The main characters in Gossip Girl were a lot younger than they looked, including Serena van der Woodsen (Blake Lively), but exactly how old was Blake Lively in Gossip Girl? Gossip Girl is a teen drama series based on the novel series of the same name by Cecily von Ziegesar, and developed by Josh Schwartz (The O.C) and Stephanie Savage. The series premiered on The CW in 2007 and came to an end in 2012 after six seasons and a lot of drama between the main group. Gossip Girl follows the lives of privileged upper-class teenagers living in Manhattan’s Upper East Side and is narrated by the unknown but omniscient blogger known as “Gossip Girl” (voiced by Kristen Bell).
Though the series focuses on the group of Serena van der Woodsen, Blair Waldorf (Leighton Meester), Nate Archibald (Chace Crawford), Chuck Bass (Ed Westwick), and Dan Humphrey (Penn Badgley), Serena is the Gossip Girl lead character, whose return to the Upper East Side kickstarts the events of the series. While the show’s big question revolves around the anonymous Gossip Girl, there are other essential questions about the characters that aren’t easy to answer, including how old are the Gossip Girl characters in season 1, and more interestingly, how old was Black Lively in Gossip Girl.
Serena’s Age At The Start Of Gossip Girl
Gossip Girl begins with Serena’s return from a boarding school after disappearing all of a sudden a year earlier, and she soon finds that readapting is not easy, more so as she’s hiding several secrets. At the beginning of the series, the group is in high school, and Serena’s date of birth is listed as July 14, 1991, meaning she was 16 when the events of Gossip Girl began. In Gossip Girl season 1, the group celebrates Blair’s 17th birthday, which makes the ages of the rest way easier to follow. Blair’s birthday parties are actually the best way to keep track of everyone else’s ages, as in season 2 she throws another big party to celebrate her 18th birthday, with Cyndi Lauper showing up.
Serena’s Age At The End Of Gossip Girl
Each season of Gossip Girl covers a year, once again confirmed by Blair’s parties, so by the end of the series, Serena was 21-22. However, the series finale had a time-jump of five years, in which the group reunited for Serena’s Gossip Girl wedding with Dan. Taking that into account, Serena was 26-27 by the (actual) end of Gossip Girl. As happens with most movies and TV shows with teenage characters, the actors weren’t actually teenagers, and that was the case with Blake Lively too.
Lively was 20 years old when Gossip Girl was shot and released, meaning she was 25 when the series ended – around the same age as Serena when she married Dan. The lives of the main characters in Gossip Girl don’t really match the perception of 16-year-olds, as they pretty much lived in a world of their own, but at least there wasn’t a big age difference between Serena van der Woodsen and Blake Lively, which certainly helped her performance as she brought a good balance of maturity and freshness.
How Serena Grew Over The Course Of Gossip Girl
Over six seasons, Serena grew in Gossip Girl more than any other character. By the end of the series, her friends were no longer worried about what scathing comment would come out of Serena’s mouth next. While the character was introduced as a party girl who loved to drink and socialize, Serena gradually became less interested in social events and found hobbies that she spent time on instead. Serena also became more responsible and mature, learning from the mistakes she made in earlier seasons. Thanks to her relationship with Dan, Serena acted less privileged and snobby, and she became more easy-going and pleasant to be around.
This story originally appeared on Screenrant
