Not Interested in Starlet Lifestyle

Credit: Canada.com

Blake Lively is in the celebrity spotlight, but she’s not thrilled with the unrelenting exposure.

Her relationship with Gossip Girl co-star Penn Badgley was fodder for the paparazzi, which intensified when they first denied the romance. The two recently confirmed they’re a couple, but the photo opportunism continues.

That doesn’t mean Lively is getting bitter or cynical or lapsing into a starlet lifestyle because she can. “I want to work and, at the end of the day, I want to go to dinner and watch a movie,” she says. “I don’t want to go to a club and not wear panties.”

The 21-year-old is too busy to act up, anyway. She’s filming episodes of Gossip Girl in New York and doing promotion for The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2.

The movie, directed by Sanaa Hamri, is largely based on Ann Brashares’s fourth book in the series, Forever In Blue: The Fourth Summer of the Sisterhood.

Once again, Bridget (Lively), Carmen (America Ferrera), Tibby (Amber Tamblyn) and Lena (Alexis Bledel) find themselves separated and in turmoil after their first year at university. And still the girls are bound by a magical pair of jeans that fits all four.

Three years later, Lively has fond memories of the first Sisterhood film, her debut in a major motion picture.

Back then, she didn’t come across as a rookie, and for good reason. Her mom, Elaine, is an accomplished Los Angeles acting coach and her dad, Ernie, is an actor and director who appears in both Sisterhood films playing father to Lively’s Bridget.

Since graduating from high school, Lively has kept up a slow and steady pace, co-starring opposite Justin Long in the comedy Accepted and headlining with Max Minghella in the dark satire Elvis & Anabelle.

Her part in Gossip Girl, based on the series of teen novels with the same name, was a nice change. Her Serena character is a rich, spoiled Manhattanite trying to change her hard-partying ways with her circle of friends.

She says, “My character has many dark secrets that are always resurfacing.”

What else can Gossip Girl fans look forward to in the coming season? The actress isn’t sure how much she can spill.

“We start back at the Hamptons,” she says cautiously. “And I think I can tell you a lot of the relationships that were set up at the end of the first season are misleading.”

There are some new characters she won’t reveal, but she’s sure she can say that “everybody is dating everyone and sleeping with everyone on the Upper East Side.”