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Spotted. Some familiar faces galavanting among Gossip Girl’s New York elite. While the scandalous 2007 CW series made household names of the main cast, including Blake Lively and Penn Badgley, a number of other young actors like Krysten Ritter and Sebastian Stan have gone on to big careers following their guest appearances on Manhattan’s Upper East Side.
With a Gossip Girl reboot now streaming on HBO Max — which critics are definitely not loving — fans can’t help but remember the controversial fun times of 2007. It's the perfect opportunity to take a look back at the salacious world of our favorite privileged private school students and the many other faces who graced our screens for the OG series’ six-season run. So, who are they? That’s one secret I’ll never tell. JKJK, I just wanted use my Kristen Bell voice again. Let’s take a look at 13 actors you probably forgot were on the original Gossip Girl series.
Sebastian Stan (Carter Baizen)
Sebastian Stan appeared on Gossip Girl 11 times as bad boy (Weren't they all?) Carter Baizen, with Carter always inserting himself into some kind of drama, including swindling Nate at a poker game, consistently pissing off Chuck, and becoming romantically involved with both Blair and Serena. While Sebastian Stan has amassed a number of film and TV credits, he was most recently seen as Bucky Barnes, a.k.a. Winter Soldier, in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier and the accompanying MCU movies, and he bared it all in the relationship drama Monday. He is also set to star as Tommy Lee in the upcoming Hulu biopic Pam & Tommy.
Hilary Duff (Olivia Burke)
Hilary Duff, best known for playing the title character on Disney’s Lizzie McGuire, guest starred in six episodes of Gossip Girl Season 3 as movie star Olivia Burke. Olivia started dating Dan and became Vanessa’s roommate at NYU, which led the former Disney star to engage in some very un-Disney-like behavior when the trio had a threesome. Duff is also known as Kelsey Peters on Younger and is set to star in the How I Met Your Mother sequel spinoff, How I Met Your Father.
Krysten Ritter (Carol Rhodes)
Krysten Ritter plays Lily van der Woodsen’s older, rebellious sister Carol in Season 2’s “Valley Girl,” which flashes back to a crazy night with the college-aged Rhodes sisters that ends in them getting arrested after a fight breaks out at the house party. The Jessica Jones star is also known as Jane from Breaking Bad, her starring role in Don't Trust the B---- in Apartment 23 and guest roles on other popular shows, including Lucy on Gilmore Girls and Gia Goodman in the Veronica Mars cast.
Armie Hammer (Gabriel Edwards)
It’s the rare instance when an actor’s real-life controversy overshadows anything their Gossip Girl character did, but here we are with Armie Hammer, who played Gabriel Edwards in a recurring role in Season 2. Gabriel and his girlfriend, Poppy Lifton, duped the Upper East Side gang into funding a phony philanthropy. There was also an awkward moment when Serena thought she’d married Gabriel in Spain. Hammer is also known for playing twins Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss in The Social Network cast.
Rachel Brosnahan (Pill purchaser)
Rachel Brosnahan makes a brief appearance in the Season 3 episode “It’s A Dad, Dad, Dad, Dad World,” when she confronts Jenny Humphrey for selling her antibiotics instead of OxyContin. The role may have been just a few seconds long, but the line, "I didn't get high, I got a yeast infection," lives forever. These days Brosnahan is known for her award-winning portrayals of Midge Maisel in The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and Rachel Posner in the House of Cards cast.
Sam Page (Colin Forrester)
Sam Page appeared in four episodes in Season 4 of Gossip Girl as Colin Forrester, a guest professor at Columbia who was also a billionaire (naturally). Colin's job at the university was threatened when he became involved with Serena (a student), so he quit. He and Serena broke up anyway, leaving Colin to cry into his billions. Page is known for playing Greg Harris on Mad Men and has had recurring roles in shows including Switched at Birth and House of Cards.
Gina Torres (Gabriela Abrams)
While Vanessa spent much of the original series feeling much like an extension of the Humphrey family, we got a couple of guest appearances in Season 3 from her mother, Gabriela Adams, played by Gina Torres. Torres, who is known for playing powerful lawyer Jessica Pearson on Suits and Zoe Washburne on the series Firefly and movie sequel Serenity, has most recently taken on an emotional role as Tommy Vega on 9-1-1: Lone Star.
Brittany Snow (Lily Rhodes)
Like Krysten Ritter, Brittany Snow only appeared in one episode of Gossip Girl, Season 2’s “Valley Girls,” as a young Lily Rhodes (pre-van der Woodsen), who had just been expelled from boarding school and took off to Santa Barbara to find her sister, Carol (Ritter). The Pitch Perfect cast member is also known for playing Meg Pryor on American Dreams and co-starring in the Netflix movie Someone Great. Snow has also had recurring roles on the series Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, Ben and Kate, and Nip/Tuck.
Sofia Black-D’Elia (Sage Spence)
You might know Sofia Black-D'Elia as the spoiled, trouble-making teen Sabrina Pemberton from Fox's The Mick. But, for nine episodes of Gossip Girl's sixth and final season, Black-D'Elia played the spoiled, trouble-making teen Sage Spence. Sage, who dated Nate, was the teenage daughter of Serena's boyfriend. Yeah, nothing icky about that scenario at all. Black-D'Elia has most recently played Frannie on Your Honor, as a teacher having an affair with a student, and was Heather in To All the Boys: Always and Forever.
Jerrika Hinton (Waitress)
Before she was Dr. Stephanie Edwards on Grey's Anatomy, Jerrika Hinton had a blink-and-you'll-miss-it role in Season 2’s “Valley Girl” flashback episode. Hinton played a waitress at the restaurant where young Lily Rhodes went looking for her sister. The flashback scenes of this episode featured some well-known faces, likely because it was originally written as the pilot for a potential spinoff. Others you might recognize in "Valley Girls" (besides previously mentioned Krysten Ritter and Brittany Snow) include Ryan Hansen, Matt Barr, and there was even a performance by Gwen Stefani and her band No Doubt. Since leaving Grey's, Hinton has had roles on HBO's Here and Now and the Amazon Prime drama Hunters.
Clémence Poésy (Eva Coupeau)
Careful, Upper East Siders, there's a witch walking amongst you, and she's been getting pretty friendly with Chuck Bass! Clémence Poésy, known by Harry Potter fans the world over as Fleur Delacour, played Eva Coupeau for four episodes of Gossip Girl in Season 4. Eva saved Chuck's life after he was shot in Paris, and while the couple played house in France for a while, they couldn't find the same domestic bliss in New York — you know, where Blair lived. Poésy is also known for her roles in films like Tenet, In Bruges and 127 Hours.
Kevin Zegers (Damian Daalgard)
Kevin Zegers appeared in ten episodes across Seasons 3 and 4 as international drug dealer Damian Daalgard. Besides being the go-to person to text anytime drugs were needed, Daalgard had brief relationships with Jenny and Serena, pulling each of them into his dealings (as well as most of the main cast, if we're being honest). Zegers' other television roles include Dr. Nathaniel Flynn as a member of the short-lived drama Rebel cast, and Mel on AMC's Fear the Walking Dead. He is also known for starring in the Air Bud movies, as well as for his roles in 2005's Transamerica and the 2004 Dawn of the Dead remake.
Mädchen Amick (Duchess Catherine Beaton)
Mädchen Amick is widely known for her role as Shelly Johnson Briggs in Twin Peaks, but for four episodes in Season 2 of Gossip Girl, she played Duchess Catherine Beaton, a married woman who was having an affair with Nate (yuck). Catherine's stepson, Marcus, was dating Blair (Yuck), but it was quickly revealed that Catherine was also having an affair with Marcus (YUCK). Amick can currently be seen on Riverdale as Alice Cooper and has had a number of film and TV roles on shows including Central Park West, Gilmore Girls, ER, Witches of East End and American Horror Story: Hotel.
Outside of guest appearances, Gossip Girl was known for dropping A-listers into episodes as themselves. Vera Wang appeared in the series to design Blair's wedding dress. Rachel Zoe was a good sport, getting chocolate fondue spilled on her at one of Blair's birthday parties. Tim Gunn offered his opinion on Jenny's fashion pieces. Former gymnast Nastia Liukin flirted with Chuck at a party. The list of celebrity cameos is long, and for good reason — it lent credibility to the series as being part of the landscape of NYC's upper crust.
Only time will tell if the reboot will use the same tactics to stand the test of time like its predecessor. If you want to go back and find these famous faces (and see how many others you see!), the entire original series of Gossip Girl is streaming on HBO Max, with new episodes of the reboot dropping every Thursday. Also be sure to check out our 2021 Summer TV schedule to find even more things to watch.
