It's difficult to imagine the original Gossip Girl series without the well-beloved Kristen Bell voiceover. In fact, "xoxo Gossip Girl" has firmly cemented itself as one of the most quotable lines from the show.
However, as recently revealed on the XOXO With Jessica Szohr podcast (looking past the irony of the title), Bell's scandalous voiceovers could have been cut from the series.
The podcast, which discusses all things Gossip Girl, recently interviewed show creators Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage, where they explained that test audiences weren't a huge fan of that element of the show.
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According to Schwartz, test audiences were given a dial to turn as they watched to reflect their interest in certain scenes and moments. And when Gossip Girl's voiceover would appear, there was a decided downturn.
"People were into it and like, 'Who's this voice that's coming in and distracting me?' Do you lose the voiceover? We can't. That's part of the show, and we just have to ride with it,'" they explained.
Luckily, they decided to stick to the original plan which produced such success that Bell returned to the HBO Max reboot of the show.
Schwartz said that Bell may have been "one of the most critical pieces of casting in the whole thing".
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"When we did the new show which we knew would be a new generation… the one piece we needed to have was Kristen. The one piece that would make it feel like Gossip Girl because she set the tone," Schwartz continued.
They also discussed their conflict at originally even casting Bell. At the time, she had been in another CW show, Veronica Mars, where she played the titular role and voiceover. They worried about "cannibalising" the show by having the same voiceover. However, the same year Veronica Mars was cancelled, making the decision for them.
Gossip Girl airs on HBO Max in the US, and broadcasts on BBC One and BBC iPlayer in the UK.
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Asyia is an entertainment reporter covering TV, film, theatre, music, books and general showbiz.
She was previously a freelance reporter who has written for publications including Glamour, gal-dem, Metro and Bustle.
She has a gold-standard NCTJ diploma from News Associates. Asyia has covered industry events such as the London Film Festival and BFI Flare and has a specialist interest in analysing LGBTQ+ issues, race and identity within the cultural landscape.
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