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by: Tyrone.Warner
Date: 5/11/2010 6:39:00 PM ET

How a girl from Calgary produces ‘Gossip Girl’ and how she landed Lady Gaga and Sonic Youth

This self-professed latchkey kid grew up a long way from the world of New York City’s Upper East Side.

Stephanie Savage is the executive producer of “Gossip Girl,” which airs Tuesday nights on /A\, with full episodes available online at CTV.ca.

Savage began her career at Flower Films, Drew Barrymore’s production company, and later formed her own company, Wonderland Sound and Vision with director McG. Wonderland produced “Charlie’s Angels” and “The O.C.” In 2005 Savage left Wonderland to work exclusively on “The O.C.” and has recently completed her first feature script “The Au Pairs.” Born in Canada, Savage ended up in Los Angeles via the University of Utah, where she taught film history and theory while working on her PhD.

On her own high school experience:

I had a great time growing up.  I loved being a teenager, which is, I think, why I love writing about teens so much.  But I grew up in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, which really couldn't be any further from the Upper East Side of Manhattan. I was someone who hated high school desperately and didn't want anything to do with high school.  But I had a group of older friends, so I went out a lot at night, and we went to clubs and got into a bit of trouble.

On why “Gossip Girl” has connected with so many people:

You know, it's really always hard to say.  It always, when it happens, feels a little bit magical and like it was something that couldn't have been predicted or you won't be able to recreate. But looking back on it, I think I just have to say the combination of the specificity of that world, which is such an alluring, potent world that wasn't on TV at the time, and the chemistry of the cast, which you really try and -- a lot of that is guesswork, but you really try to fall in love with all of these actors and hope that they'll fall in love with each other and work well together.  And then the kind of combination of the specificity of time and place, that it's very much about contemporary culture, that it's about fashion and music and where to go and cultural allusions, but it's also about sort of classic storytelling and those universal stories that everyone can relate to: being jealous of your best friend, being in love with someone who doesn't love you back wanting your parents to pay more attention to you. Those are things that everybody can relate to.

On how some consider “Gossip Girl” to be the new “Sex in the City:”

Certainly we didn't know that the show would be successful in that way.  But we definitely, just as viewers, felt a void when "Sex and the City" went off TV, where this really kind of romantic, beautiful version of New York no longer was available to us.  If you wanted to watch New York on TV, it would be in a procedural, and there would be a murder -- and it would be very dark.  And fashionwise, again, another thing, that I didn't really feel like there was anything on TV that was really working in that area.  And Eric Daman, who is our costume designer, who is just really phenomenal and so fashion-forward, but also so smart about the characters, he actually had worked on "Sex and the City."  So there's a little bit of legacy there.

On immersing herself in the Upper East Side world when researching the show:

I checked into the Carlyle Hotel, and I met with about a dozen girls who were from that world.  And what I really wanted to know -- I think they were all quite nervous to speak to me, that I was going to ask them, like, "What are all your secrets, and what are the bad things that you do?"  I was like, "We're going to make that stuff up," but -- or rely on my own background. But what I really wanted to know was just the texture of their lives.  Do they have curfews?  How do they get to school in the morning?  How much were their parents around?  Where did they get the money to buy the things that they had?  Like those were the questions where I knew I couldn't rely on my own background and my own life to answer those questions. The thing that surprised me the most was just, honestly, how smart these girls are. They are incredibly sophisticated, that every one of them spoke multiple languages, had traveled all over the world, you know, couldn't do this because they were preparing for Model UN, were going to get the highest marks on their SATs, were going to get into an Ivy.  They're incredibly driven.  And all of the partying -- and they do go out to clubs, and they do drink underage, and they don't have curfews.  But they were almost like Wall Streeters, like work hard, play hard, where they were so focused on school in the day and getting those marks and kind of proving to their parents that they could do it and they could make it. And then they were blowing off steam at night.

On the fairytale-esque qualities of “Gossip Girl:”

I think there's definitely a wish-fulfillment aspect.  A part of it, I just even think of just being in the city.  For example, my mom, who grew up on a farm in Saskatchewan, came to New York for the first time a couple years ago.  And she was amazed that you can put your hand in the air and a cab will stop.  Well, this world is a world that -- my mom is 60 years old.  She's not necessarily the demographic of the show.  But to show this world to people who don't have access to it, to people who don't travel to New York, who don't have multimillion-dollar art collections on their wall, to be able to give that to people so that they can see it and experience it, even if it's secondhand, is kind of a gift in a way.  It's sort of a nice thing to be able to show people "This is out there, and you can participate in it, even if it's not through your life, but through watching."  There's definitely a fairytale element, which I think -- some episodes especially, like our masquerade ball that we did in Season 1, where we really do think about, like, Cinderella.  Or we just did Snow White in our Lady Gaga episode where we had a cabaret where Dan kisses Vanessa.  And we use the -- we're inspired by Shakespeare and by novels, you know, about New York City.  But then certainly the fairytale aspect, I think, also comes in as well.

On how Lady Gaga appeared on “Gossip Girl:”

Well, we thought that was the longest shot in the world.  We never thought in a million years that that would actually work out, just the combination of would she even know what the show was?  Would she want to be on television?  Would she be available? Because she was so tightly tied to the script that we would have had to have done a different episode if she didn't want to do it.  But it was so fortuitous that her little sister is a huge fan of the show.  She had her album coming out.  She was in New York because she was doing "Saturday Night Live" that weekend.  She put so much effort into giving us something special.  Her long, red dress, she had specially made for us.  She choreographed that number only for us.  It's nothing that she's ever done as a part of her stage show.  The amount of energy and thought that she put into it was really spectacular, and we were just thrilled that that actually came to fruition.  It was kind of one of those things of, like, "Well, we'll ask," but no one ever really expected that it would work out.  And then it did.

On her stars becoming young icons:

When we met Blake, she had no interest in coming to television whatsoever.  She had done a couple movies and was doing pretty well.  And -- but we had read in a lot of blogs about "Gossip Girl," the book, "Oh, if they ever make this into a movie or a TV show, it has to be Blake Lively who plays her."  We read it enough times that we were like, "Okay, who is Blake Lively?" "We have to at least meet this girl and see what happens."  And so Josh and I went out for lunch with Blake, and it was very kind of tentative because she wasn't sure if she wanted to do it, and we wanted to -- we were hoping to convince her that she would -- to do it, but we also didn't want to give her the hard sell.  It was more like "Let's just kind of get to know each other."  We all just fell in love with each other.  She loved the idea of doing this show in New York.  She loved the character.  I think she was very -- it was -- she fell in love with the project. It wasn't about the idea of being on television.  It was about being this character in this world.  And from there it just grew.

You know, you never can anticipate any of these things.  I never would have been able to say, "Oh, yes, Blake and Leighton are going to be on the cover of 'Rolling Stone'" or "Blake is going to be on the cover of 'Vogue' magazine" or "People are going to say her hair is the new Jennifer Aniston."  None of those thoughts would ever enter your mind.  But then when they happen, it's just so extraordinary, and you're so happy for everybody.  And I think it's the combination of the right person on the right show. You know, Blake is amazing, and she has earned everything that she's got.  And she's so talented, and I think the world is just seeing the tip of the iceberg in terms of what she can do.  But I also think the show is an excellent platform for her talent, and it's a great symbiotic relationship.

On Kristen Bell appearing on the show some day:

You will hear her very much.  We've talked about Kristen doing some kind of a cameo.  I don't think we want to reveal who Gossip Girl is until we're very nearly done with the show.  I think it would be hard to have that revealed and keep telling stories.  But having Kristen in some other kind of sneaky cameo I think would be really fun.  She's been amazing.  I mean, she's a huge supporter of the show and a huge fan of the show.  And, you know, she shows up every week to do her voiceover, and she's just very cool about it.

On how all the cast members seemingly have music careers:

I have no theory for.  It's honestly -- I think it's quite unusual that for various -- I think if you ask
 them, each and every one of them has a very personal connection to music and a very specific reason as to why they're doing what they're doing that has nothing to do with the show or their characters or anything they've been exposed to through the show.  It's just a very odd confluence of events.

On how Sonic Youth got involved with “Gossip Girl:"

That's me.  They're my favorite band.  And last summer -- or maybe it was the summer before that -- I was just -- in my "Gossip Girl" Google search, came across that Thurston Moore had done, like, his Psychic Hearts tour where he's playing the album.  And at a certain point "Gossip Girl" came up on the -- in the background of the performance. And someone had, like, blogged about it at the Philadelphia show.  And I was just like, "Oh, my God. I hope that's a compliment.  I hope he's not making fun of us."  And we had, in Season 2 -- so it would have been two summers ago -- when Jenny had her guerilla fashion show, we wanted to do a cover of The Ramones' "Sheena is a Punk Rocker."  And once it had been established that, yes, Kim and Thurston and their daughter Coco all watch the show together and they were fans, would they do a -- would they do a Ramones cover.  And Kim was not available, but Thurston did it with Jemina from Be Your Own Pet, and that was the song that we used in the show.  And that kind of started the relationship so that when Rufus and Lily were getting married and we were talking about who could be their wedding band, again, pie in the sky, it was like, "Well, if I could choose anybody, it would be Sonic Youth."  And we kind of create this connection that -- as if Rufus's band, as sort of like a Lemonheads-esque band, had sort of opened for them at some point in the '90s and that they were friendly. And so part of the wedding became them showing up and doing the song.  And then they were like, "Well, what song would you want to do?"  And I said, "Well, my favorite song is 'Star Power,' but honestly, it gets a little big in places.  Like it kind of jams out, and it's not really a wedding song.  I don't suppose you would ever, like, record an acoustic version specially
for our show, would you?"  And they did.  So they made us our own version.  They were on tour in the summer, and when they were in Portland, they went into a studio and recorded an acoustic version.  And then the whole band came and played on the show.  So that was pretty incredible.