Gossip Girl Reboot Set Photos from Savannah Lee Smith Who Plays Monet - TownandCountrymag.com
Courtesy Savannah Lee Smith
Savannah Smith, a current NYU acting major, has quite the first television role. The 20 year-old is starring in HBO Max's Gossip Girl reboot as mean girl/billionaire Monet de Haan. As a newcomer, it's difficult to pick up the baton from a show essentially synonymous with New York City in the late aughts. Luckily, Smith wasn't alone. The cast of teens and twenty-somethings that now star in Gossip Girl 2.0 are clearly in this whirlwind together. The ensemble appears to be in constant communication (via group chat, of course) and has even forged friendships outside of filming.
"We have a whole group chat with all of us. And, I'm sure the boys have their group chat and the girls have ours. Every now and again, we try to get together for dinner and hang out. The girls hang out a lot and so do the boys, so we're all just seeing each other when we can," Smith tells T&C.
Prior to the show's premiere, the series was kept strictly under wraps. Now, though, Smith is opening up her personal camera roll to T&C and sharing some of her favorite behind-the-scenes memories and photos from her time on the Gossip Girl set. While the show's characters may take themselves extremely seriously, the actors clearly do not, killing time on set with iPhone filters, coconut pregnancies (it'll make sense when you see it), and Dr. Suess-esque hairdos. Below, find Smith's Upper East Side, in her own words.
April 5: New York Street
"It was freezing, so every time [the director] yelled cut, we would try to find a patch of sun, and the most sun beamed in that area that morning. So, we ran to the end of the street and we were all sunbathing. There's this one guy—one specific paparazzi—who's always taking pictures of us and so we wanted to make it seem like we were in a cult."
From left to right: Savannah Lee Smith,Zión Moreno, Whitney Peak, and Jordan Alexander
April 21: Constance Billard Set
"[This is] a picture of Eli [Brown, who plays Obie] showing us a picture that he took of Whitney [Peak, who plays Zoya]. We had just gotten [to set] and it was so early in the morning, and she was in her Huggy and she was just sprawled out on the table. It's such a funny picture. She's just very, very tired."
April 27: The Plaza Hotel
"[This photo] was from [shooting] the Halloween episode, so that's why Zión was blonde. But we were [on set] for so long and all the craft services were closed—we could only get Cheetos, so we ordered sushi. It was really cool because we were filming at The Plaza and instead of a green room, they gave us all individual hotel rooms as our green rooms, so we were very comfortable, but we'd been there forever."
"You can see [my costume] a little bit, but I loved everyone's outfits from the Halloween episode—it was probably my favorite [episode]."
April 27: Hair and Makeup Trailer
"This is me in the trailer getting fitted for the wig that I wore for the Halloween episode and as [the hair stylist] was taking it off, I was like, 'That's the style. That's it.'"
"I have a lot of say over my hair, because I'm very protective of it, and [showrunner Josh Safran] understood that and so it's been a really collaborative process."
"I'm not anywhere near as rich as Monet, she's a billionaire, and I change my hair every five seconds. I use it as an accessory and it's how I express myself. So, I wanted to include that in [Monet's] character, because I do that with less money than a billionaire's daughter, so if I was a billionaire, I would be doing the most all the time with my hair. We decided to change it [all the time] and use it as an accessory every day."
May 5: Gossip Girl Promo Set
"We actually weren't filming for the show, we were filming for the promo—the promo that you saw on Instagram with the slow-mo videos. I just took [this photo], because I thought my earrings were hilariously large. I never wear hoops that big, so I felt like a different person and I wanted to remember the moment."
May 6: HBO Photoshoot
"This was when we were shooting for pictures that aren't even out yet—for the poster that's going to be on HBO or the title screen for HBO Max. It was a long day and that's me and Zión looking at our phones. Evan [Mock, who plays Aki] took that picture because he thought it was cute. We're always next to each other—we love each other very much."
"It was just instant friendship, I'd say. [Zión and I] just get each other, and it didn't take very long for us to relate to things about each other. She's from the Midwest, but we're both L.A. babies. [We have] the same taste in men. We just get along really well and we're also filming together all the time, because we're the two mean girls with Julien. We talk about it all the time, how unfortunate it would be if we didn't get along, because we spend literally all of our time together. So, thank god."
May 6: Emily Alyn Lind's Birthday Party
"This wasn't on set, but I included it because it's my favorite picture of us. It's Zión, Emily, and I on Emily's birthday. And Emily [Alyn Lind, who plays Audrey] is falling asleep, so we just huddled up around her."
May 19: New York
"That was the first time I saw [myself on the Cosmopolitan cover] in person, so I bought it like a dork. I was just so excited and I took [this] picture to send to my parents."
"[My parents said,] 'Oh, my God! You have eyes everywhere now! This is crazy!' They told me that they were proud of me."
June 10: The Beekman Hotel
"I love this photo, just because it's really nice and the view is insane. That's the view from Julien's bedroom, which is in the Beekman. The very top floor is a giant penthouse apartment space that we rented out for Julien's apartment. We were just filming that day for episode eight and [Zión and I] were looking out onto the city and Jordan took that picture and she was like, 'Oh my god, you guys are perfect right now.' And we didn't even know she was taking a picture, so it was cute."
June 17: On Set in Brooklyn
"This is a cute picture. I loved our makeup that day—this was for episode eight, as well. We were doing a concert scene. So we were at a concert space in Brooklyn. Another long day, but it's good. Long days are so much easier and so much better when I'm with [the cast]. Because sometimes you're alone for five hours doing nothing and it's like 'Oh, I wish they were here.'"
June 17: On Set in Brooklyn
"Filters are getting scary good now because they're not breaking when you look away and it just adapts your face so well. But yeah, this was cute. [Jordan and I] were just eating french fries, playing Pixar characters."
June 18: Max's Apartment Set
"Zión and I took this picture because [Evan Mock, who plays Aki] looked like a puppy—like a little puppy."
June 18: Outside the Gossip Girl Trailers
"Oh my god, that was another day where we were at Basecamp in our trailers waiting to go on set for four hours. [We were] super delirious and so bored. And then all of a sudden, Chris, one of our [Assistant Directors], was like, 'Do you guys want a coconut?' And we were like, 'Excuse me? You have full coconuts right now? Why? That's weird.' So, we all started sipping on coconuts and when Zión finished hers, she put it in her stomach and I wished her congratulations on her new baby."
June 23: Filming the Halloween Episode
"This was also for Halloween, just when I finished getting hair and makeup done. I like this picture because I love the makeup—I love the cat eye, smoky eye moment. We don't really get to play around with makeup too much because we're always filming at school. They want to keep [the makeup] clean for school. So whenever we have a going out scene, we're always really excited about the makeup."
Annie GoldsmithNews WriterAnnie Goldsmith is the news writer for Town & Country, where she covers culture, politics, style, and the British royal family.
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