Gossip Girl<\/em> became a worldwide phenomenon, his co-star, the rapper 50 Cent, joked that Crawford has \u201cSkyline Eyes.\u201d<\/p>\n\u201cI\u2019m not going to say it\u2019s hurt me,\u201d Crawford says of his boyish features, which also include his now signature bushy eyebrows. \u201cI\u2019ve got to thank my mom, though. She\u2019s a beautiful woman. She bestowed on me some good genes.\u201d<\/p>\n
Indeed, this summer, Crawford\u2019s good genes earned him the much-coveted title of People magazine\u2019s Hottest Bachelor for 2009. Not bad for a college dropout who, just a few short years ago, was earning money by valeting cars at the oceanfront restaurant Geoffrey\u2019s in Malibu.<\/p>\n
Crawford, who turned 24 in July, grew up near Dallas, the son of a dermatologist (his father) and a teacher (his mother). (His sister, Candice, just graduated from college and hopes to pursue a career in sports broadcasting.) The story of Crawford\u2019s first encounter with acting is right out of High School Musical<\/em> or the new Fox sitcom Glee<\/em>. In high school, Crawford was a football player, even if, he says, he was into art and painting. But during his senior year, the drama teacher asked him to audition for a role in a production of The Boyfriend.<\/em><\/p>\n\u201cI sang the National Anthem,\u201d Crawford recalls. He got the part. \u201cIt was a good little role and something about it was just fun, but it didn\u2019t even really trigger anything in me.\u201d \nAfter high school, he landed at Pepperdine, a small Jesuit college on the beach in Malibu. A year later, he dropped out to do some soul searching. \u201cI was just sort of confused and didn\u2019t know what I wanted to do,\u201d Crawford explains. \u201cEveryone there seemed like they knew what they wanted to do, which is, of course, complete bullshit. So I took off.\u201d \nDuring that time of \u2014 a time when he was valeting cars, \u201cflooring down the street and back\u201d \u2014 a friend convinced him to meet her commercial agent. \u201cI didn\u2019t realise how much money one commercial could give you. I\u2019d done minimal modeling in Dallas and just hated it. I met him, and he goes, \u2018Can you do improv?\u2019 And I\u2019m like, \u2018What\u2019s improv?\u2019\u201d \nEventually, Crawford wised up to the vocabulary of Hollywood and started going out on auditions. \u201cFinding someone who will push you and believe in you, that\u2019s the first big step,\u201d Crawford says of starting out in the business. \u201cAnd I started getting really good feedback right away.\u201d<\/p>\n
In 2005, he landed a peripheral role in the post-pubescent horror film The Covenant<\/em>, a box office bomb about warlocks. Still, it was a particularly strong showcase for up and coming teen idols, including Sebastian Stan, who now dates Crawford\u2019s Gossip Girl<\/em>s co-star Leighton Meester, and Taylor Kitsch, who went on to snag a role in Friday Night Lights<\/em>, a show Crawford particularly wanted, considering his Texas hometown and his passion for football. \u201cI\u2019m still best friends with all those guys,\u201d he says.<\/p>\nRather than Friday Night Lights<\/em>, however, Crawford landed Gossip Girl<\/em>. He plays Nate Archibald who is continually caught between the female leads (Meester and Blake Lively), not to mention many of the other women who appear regularly and even irregularly on the show, in various states of undress. Needless to say, the show is pretty racy \u2014 including Nate\u2019s affair during season two with a much older woman.<\/p>\n\u201cPeople ask, do I feel guilty about the influence Gossip Girl has on teenagers?\u201d Crawford says, posing and answering his own question. \u201cLook, we\u2019re actors. I\u2019m not an expert in how to raise a child. The show\u2019s going to steamroll right ahead if I don\u2019t have the part.\u201d<\/p>\n
Crawford is also transitioning as fast as he can back onto the big screen. First up is Twelve<\/em>, directed by Joel Schumacher and based on a novel by Nick McDonnell. It\u2019s set in a similar milieu to Gossip Girl: Manhattan\u2019s posh private schools. In the movie, Crawford plays White Mike, a drug dealer, who\u2019s selling a potent new drug called Twelve. \u201cIt\u2019s totally different,\u201d Crawford explains of Gossip Girl<\/em>s versus Twelve<\/em>. The film, he says, is both funnier and darker than its television counterpart. \u201cAlso, I dropped like ten pounds and my hair was greasy and not flat-ironed.\u201d <\/p>\nCrawford has also signed on to star in a remake of Footloose<\/em>, the 1984 film starring Kevin Bacon about a town that outlaws dancing, which will begin filming next spring. Once Zac Efron dropped out, Crawford quickly was ushered in, in part, the Hollywood rumor goes, because a studio executive asked his daughter what she thought of Crawford and she squealed with excitement. Still, Footloose remains mostly a carrot dangling in front of our faces at the moment: we will have to wait months and months and months to discover if indeed, Crawford can sing and dance.<\/p>\n\u201cGod, I hope so,\u201d he says, with a broad smile. \u201cThe guy\u2019s not a dancer per se. But I\u2019ve played sports all my life. I\u2019ve got some balance and agility. It\u2019s going to take a lot of practice. But, put it this way, there\u2019s no gymnastics pole swinging or dancing with cigarettes. I\u2019m starting to find my rhythm and I\u2019ve got to polish it.\u201d (This time to audition, rather than the National Anthem, he sang the song \u201cFootloose,\u201d with piano accompaniment.) For the record, when he first started acting professionally, his mom insisted he take dance classes. \u201cI got there and just walked out,\u201d Crawford says. \u201cNow, she could not be happier [that I\u2019ll be learning to dance.]\u201d As for singing, \u201cI\u2019m a habitual car singer,\u201d Crawford admits. \u201cI actually go karaoking all the time. We get pretty competitive.\u201d Some of his favorites include Elton John and \u201cPatience\u201d by Guns \u2018n Roses.<\/p>\n
On the personal life front, Crawford says he\u2019s single. While most of the cast of Gossip Girl<\/em> is now dating each other, creator Josh Schwartz warned Crawford early on that he should \u201cAvoid at all costs dating a co-star.\u201d As of now, he\u2019s listened. \u201cWe get to shoot in New York and have that as our playground and do the insane things that we get to be a part of. There\u2019s a part of me that wants to share that,\u201d Crawford says. \u201cBut I\u2019m having fun living the bachelor life right now. It\u2019s a good time to be single.\u201d \nHe recently moved out of the Chelsea, Manhattan apartment he shared with co-star Ed Westwick for his own downtown bachelor pad. \u201cFrat time\u2019s over. I\u2019m just turned 24, I need my own space,\u201d he says. Rumors abounded that chez Westwick\/Crawford was especially rowdy and messy. \u201cI don\u2019t know why anyone wants to read about the condition of our apartment. It cracks me up,\u201d he says. \u2018It was actually pretty immaculate. I\u2019m OCD. I had a maid come twice a month. We have a few roof deck parties from time to time, but that\u2019s all.\u201d <\/p>\nDespite the People magazine cover, for instance, it still seems to shock Crawford that people are interested in his life. In fact, sometimes he\u2019s mystified that of all his friends who were trying to be actors, somehow he has risen above the pack.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou get dealt a certain hand and it\u2019s about playing that hand to the best of your abilities,\u201d Crawford says, by way of an explanation. \u201cMaybe a big advantage is I do have an affinity for people and I love networking. That\u2019s it\u2019s own game in itself. It opens up certain opportunities and doors.\u201d<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, he believes, members of his peer group might act entitled. They don\u2019t want to ask questions. They think they know it all. \u201cBut me,\u201d Crawford says, twinkling those Skyline eyes. \u201cI acknowledge that I don\u2019t know what the hell I\u2019m doing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Photography: Alexi Lubomirski \nFashion: Way Perry \nWords: Marshall Heyman<\/p>\n
A full version of this article first appeared in<\/em> Wonderland #19, Sep\/Oct 2009<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Gossip Girl heartthrob, Chace Crawford is graduating to the big screen with Twelve and stepping up to remake Footloose. He to Marshall Heyman about making it in Hollywood.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":594,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"gallery","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9416],"tags":[216,214,215,50,218,217,105,145],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n
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