Sorry this took so long to get up. Here’s the screencaps and clip from Leighton’s appearance on Ellen last month.

[185] Screencaps || [001] Clip

EW recently caught up with Gossip Girl star Leighton Meester in the recording studio, where she’s working on her still-unnamed debut album, due this fall (her first single is slated for July). The actress, who’s best known for her bitchy-one liners as Blair Waldorf, says the album will have an electro-pop sound, and she’s working with producers like Kenna (Lupe Fiasco, JoJo) and Polow da Don (The Pussycat Dolls, Fergie). “It’s very pop,” she says. “You can listen to it on the radio. You can listen to it in your car. You can dance to it.”

Meester offered us an exclusive listen to three of the album’s potential tracks. “Push and Pull” is an elegant anthem about making a relationship work; she says the song “takes my breath away.” On “Almost Perfect,” she takes a break from electro-pop for a stripped-down ballad lamenting a lover’s lies. The song ends with Meester bluntly spitting, “F— you.” “That was what we call an adlib,” she says. Then there’s the pulsing “Lights Out,” produced by J.R. Rotem (Britney Spears), which has her singing very un-CW things like, “Don’t turn the lights out/I bet you like to watch.” Meester plays coy when it comes to the subject matter. “Who knows what I’m talking about? Everything is kinda in metaphors.” Maybe, we ask, she simply wants someone to spoon with? “Or fork.” Even so, “there is somewhat of a sexual undertone to a lot of songs,” she says. “I’m a grown woman [laughs].”

The 23-year-old actress actually began recording her music without a major-label deal. Some of her early tracks, like a cover of “Bette Davis Eyes,” leaked onto the web, but Meester isn’t sure if they’ll make the album. “I’m still figuring it out,” she says. “I loved the song and I loved the feel of it. That’s what the feel of the rest of the album is gonna be.” One thing’s for certain: it will reveal some intimate details of Meester’s love life. “I’ve been through a lot as far as love,” she says. “When I’m singing a song, I picture somebody in particular. A lot of it is to a guy.” Which guy? Nice try: Meester won’t spill (the actress had reportedly been dating her GG co-star Sebastian Stan).

It turns out Meester has loved music from a very young age. “I remember I was in the grocery store with my mom when I was little and I heard ‘I Will Always Love You,’ ” she says. “I must have been 3 or 4, and I went, ‘Mom, that made my back tingle.’ She was like, “That’s what music is supposed to do.’ I loved it.”

Meester, who will also spend her summer hiatus shooting the Single White Female-esque thriller The Roommate, has been inspired by some musical giants. “I really love Madonna, Cyndi Lauper, and Debbie Harry,” says the actress. “Gwen Stefani and Fergie, too. They’re very strong women and have a completely unique sound.” Meester also says she’s been grooving to Ladyhawke and Australian band Empire of the Sun. “I was in Paris and I listened to [their single 'Walking on a Dream'] like 40 times a day. I love them.” Cobra Starship is another band that Meester enjoys, and she actually recorded a song, co-written by American Idol judge Kara DioGuardi, with the rockers (they’re also shooting a video together). One other person she really wants to work with? Her GG co-star Ed Westwick. “I would love that. I’ve thought about it a lot, so we’ll see. He’s very talented.”

[Source]

Thanks to the girls over at Blair Waldorfs @ livejournal we have added some amazing scans of Leighton’s feature in the June issue of Cosmopolitan.

[05] Cosmopolitan June 2009

Leighton recently did a fashion spread and interview with New York Times Magazine. I have added the photos to the gallery and the interview is below.

[06] New York Times Magazine

This weekend’s Times magazine features a fashion layout with Leighton Meester, the former child model turned actress who is best known for playing the spoiled Upper East Side princess Blair Waldorf on “Gossip Girl.” I caught up for breakfast with the 23-year-old Meester, who showed up wearing a mannish Ruth Reichl-meets-Annie Hall disguise, including a hat and respectable spectacles.

Question: I had lunch with Jason Wu recently, who told me you were his date to an event. This is how rumors start.
Answer: He’s such a sweetheart. We actually went to Anna Wintour’s house for dinner. It was very cool and quite the fashion baptism by fire.

Question: I’d say. It’s amazing how popular he’s become. Every few minutes people kept coming up to the table to say hello to him — mostly to congratulate him on his work with Michelle Obama. Does that happen to you much?

Answer: No, no one really congratulates me on my work with Michelle Obama. [Laughs.] People are pretty respectful for the most part. I went to a Britney Spears concert recently and spent the first part trying to shield myself because I thought it would be madness, but the truth is that everyone was very cool and left me alone. But it really depends on where I am.

Question: What about the paparazzi? Do they stalk you to the point that you have to wear full makeup when you take out the trash?

Answer: I would never do that! Take out the trash, I mean. [Laughs.] You know, I never really had a problem with them but recently there have been a couple of incidents that have made me say, “What?” I was getting in a car after an event — where I had been photographed all night, by the way — and I was done posing and just wanted to go home. When I refused to take any more pictures, one of the photographers outside actually said, “We know where you live.” That was creepy. But you know they don’t bother me on a daily basis. I can pretty much go anywhere.

Question: Your character, Blair, is very carnal and knowing for an 18-year-old. Were you a precocious teen?

Answer: I actually find Blair naïve. I look at young girls like her who are obsessed with guys and with being the most popular and the prettiest, and I just want to shake them. Maybe you just grow up a little faster when you’re a young performer, but I was definitely never like that.

Question: To what extent has your personal style influenced what Blair wears on the show?

Answer: Not at all. If anything, it’s the opposite. Her style is a little expensive for my taste but it loudly communicates that she is who she is and that she does what she does. I find that admirable. And she’s always dressed appropriately, which I can’t always say about myself.

Question: Describe the look that your character has popularized.

Answer: It’s kind of this updated Japanese schoolgirl look. Every other outfit is larger than life — even when it’s prim and proper — and heavily accessorized. I wear ties, bows, colored tights, heels and stuff that you could never get away with at school. But I think that the most important part of Blair’s look is her headband, which is like her crown.

Question: The references on the show are surprisingly mature, from “Berlin Alexanderplatz” to Sarkozy’s being a bad kisser and Kirsten Dunst’s stint in rehab.

Answer: It’s definitely a crash course in pop culture and global affairs. We just mentioned Madoff the other day. But remember, we’re talking about the kind of privileged kids who by age 10 already have 12 stamps in their passport. They’re very wordly.

Question: Your character graduates from high school next season. What’s going to happen to your look?

Answer: It’s yet to be decided, but I’m definitely going to college — to N.Y.U. — and not wearing any more school uniforms. Thank god we’re not pretending we all get held back and just continue with high school like all those other high school shows. I guess I’ll wear magnificent clothes every day that don’t have anything to do with school.

The rest of the interview can be read here

[768] Screencaps || [02] clips

I have also added a clip of the behind the scenes tour of the set of Gossip Girl with Seventeen.com back in January here

If Leighton Meester and her TV alter-ego Blair Waldorf ever met, they might end up fighting for the affection of Gossip Girl bad boy Chuck Bass.

“I think guys who are rebels and make their own rules are appealing,” the actress, 22, tells Seventeen magazine for its March issue. “I don’t want to tame anybody. I want them to be dark and bad.”

Hard-working Meester, however, isn’t looking for an outright troublemaker. “[G]uys who are a little bad – and by bad, I mean they’re not like constantly around – I consider gold,” she explains. “Guys who are unavailable are actually a dream come true for me because I’m unavailable all the time. It’s great they’re not down your throat.”

She has been dating actor Sebastian Stam since 2007, but tells the magazine, “I haven’t ever really relied on relationships with guys. … They come around and it’s cool, but it’s never been a big thing. I guess I’ve just been really distracted by work.”

The Florida native, whose parents had brushes with the law before she was born (Meester’s mother gave birth to her while serving a prison sentence), also reveals what she learned from her mom and dad’s mistakes.

“It made me realize that you can’t judge anyone – especially your parents – for what they’ve done in their past, because people change,” she says.

Meester has also learned not to be a real gossip girl. “I’ve noticed some people get very enthralled with people bashing,” she says. “Sometimes people can’t help themselves. But I find a way [to] back out and not talk about other people.”

So as one of Hollywood’s hottest young actresses, how does she handle being talked about?

“Even when people are so judgmental about what you wear or your weight,” she says, “you just have to step away and be like, ‘I’m a normal, fine human being.’”

(Source)