Thanks to a starring role on the addictive Gossip Girl, a new movie, and a high-profile romance, she’s Hollywood’s proverbial It Girl. One more thing: You know you love her.

Blake Lively is starving. She slides into a booth at a charming restaurant in New York City’s West Village and immediately buries her head in the menu. “Let’s share a bunch of stuff,” she says, then adds, “On average, I order about three meals for myself in one sitting.” She isn’t kidding. Two bread baskets, two appetizers, two pasta entrées, and three desserts later, she decides that’s enough food…to start with.

But there’s good reason for Blake’s ravenous appetite. As one of the breakout stars of television’s most buzzed-about show, Gossip Girl, she’s spent the last several months working 18-hour days. And that’s in addition to promoting her new flick, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2, in which she plays a college student coming to terms with her mother’s death. Though she looks every bit the chosen Hollywood starlet (she’s dressed in skinny jeans, black ballet flats, and a leather bomber jacket), she hardly acts it. “I don’t drink. I don’t do drugs. But I do sleep around a lot,” she deadpans, before busting into laughter.

The fact is, her own high school experience in Burbank, California, was a far cry from her character’s ultraprivileged existence. While Serena van der Woodsen spends her time sipping champagne at the Palace Hotel dressed in designer clothes, Blake, now 21, was more of a gung-ho overachiever. “I was class president, on the cheerleading squad, in a competitive show choir, and in, like, six different clubs,” she says. She even sported a bulldog costume to act as mascot for some football games. That up-for-anything attitude is what helped her break into acting. She got her first gig (in the original Sisterhood movie) because her brother, also an actor, thought she would like performing and asked his agent to send her on a couple auditions.

On being nothing like her on-scre­en persona Serena van der Woodsen: “I was class president, on the cheerleading squad, in a competitive show choir, and in, like, six different clubs.”

On what she sees in a boyfriend: “I don’t want to date someone just to date someone. I want to be with a guy who’s going to be better my quality of life, better me.”

On kissing and telling: “I’ve kissed just three people, other than stuff I’ve done for TV or movies. I know — I’m weird.” ­

On her steady relationship with costar Penn Badgley: “I hope Brad Pitt doesn’t hear this. He’s never going to want to marry me.”

Blake Lively is the cover girl on Seventeen’s August issue, witch hits newsstands on Tuesday, July 8th. The interview and the shoot is all new and I can’t wait to get my hand on scans and outtakes that I can share with you guys, if anyone wants to contribute you can email me at fansitesdotcom [at] gmail.com.

On her real-life high school compared to Gossip Girl: “Oh, my goodness, my real-life high school experience could not be more different than Gossip Girl. Burbank feels like a small town in the big city of L.A. So for a fun night out, we would go to school fund-raisers. I was very involved in school – I was class president! And all of my friends were good – nobody was too wild. The kids on Gossip Girl enjoy getting a great education, but they couldn’t care less about school itself. But I think at the core, everyone deals with similar things in high school: jealousy, people making up rumors, dating someone you shouldn’t, or wanting to be with someone who’s unattainable.”

On her most awkward moment on Gossip Girl: “Chace and I had to do that scene in the first episode when I’m sitting on his lap on the barstool. Then they call, ‘Cut!’ and I just have to sit on the lap of this guy I met two weeks before! And I’m like, ‘So, you want to get some pizza tonight or something?’ What do you even talk about?!? It’s not as romantic as people think it is.”

On playing Guitar Hero: “I play in tournaments in Brooklyn. I’ll cover myself in sailor tattoos and dress like a rock star. Everyone else dresses totally normally and must think I’m a complete freak!”

On being compared to a hotel heiress: “I once heard someone say that I’m similar to Paris Hilton – since I have a dog and blonde hair, that must mean we’re alike. “It’s a dumb thing to say. I dont think that makes Paris and me similar … I don’t go to clubs, I don’t party, I don’t dance on tables, and I don’t like sex tapes.”

On her relationship with her on-and-off-screen boyfriend and how actors fall for each other: “Penn [Badgley]does these silly dance moves, and he’s very witty and quick, so it’s fun to have sharp banter with him… When you’re saying these words [from the script] that people are making you say to one another, nothing about it is real or genuine. So if two people connect outside their characters, then that’s how they get together.”

On being passionate: “When I care about somebody, whether it’s my best friend or somebody who I would date, I give them all of my heart. I’ve just been so loved, and I’m used to really loving people and trusting them.”