Blake Lively is hotter than hot thanks to Gossip Girl. Playing Serena on the hugely popular CW series has made her a TV star, and her role in the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants films has made her a hit with movie audiences.

Now, Lively is exploring her dark side in The Private Lives of Pippa Lee, as the tortured teenage version of title character. Parade.com’s Jeanne Wolf discovered why Lively didn’t mind being a little naughty for the role.

Her first time on a dog leash.
“Pippa does get very dark. Like, that was me on a dog leash being led around for a photo shoot by Julianne Moore, who plays a lesbian photographer. It sounds bizarre, but it was exciting for me because I never really went through that dark and wild stage, so to get to explore that in the safety of a movie set was great.”

Except maybe for getting naked.
“Apparently naked, not fully naked. I was lying partially naked on Alan Arkin, but strategic body parts were covered. It’s always scary when you’re in front of strangers half naked, but the fact that it was with Alan, honestly, didn’t make it any weirder. I think being with a young dude would have been more awkward because I might have been like, ‘Well, does he think I look cute right now?’”

Coping with a mom from hell.
“Pippa’s mother is the total opposite of my mother. Maria Bello was very unpredictable in the way she played her. Like, she was supposed to be strung out on drugs and I never knew whether she was going to scream or slap me. I can’t imagine having that person in my life. My mother has always been my best friend.”

Hiding her real self on screen.
“About the only thing I share with Serena in Gossip Girl is that she and I wear the same clothes. I didn’t have much in common with Pippa in this movie at all. But, I think it’s better to play characters that aren’t too much like you. I’m also a very shy person, so I don’t feel like I would do a very good job if I had to play myself because I feel like it would be a lot of bad acting.”

If she could change one thing about Serena.
“She lies a lot. Oh my goodness, she’s always saying, ‘I’m sorry for lying.’ She’s really a pathological liar. I feel like season three she was saying, ‘I’m trying to change.’ It doesn’t really matter at this point. Sometimes I feel like, ‘Serena, if you’re sorry, just stop lying so much.’”

It’s not easy dining out when you’re a celebrity.
“The paparazzi frenzy and the media frenzy that is happening right now is really kind of out of control. For me, it’s very important to keep my personal life personal. It’s odd sometimes when people look at you like a zoo animal when you’re out at a restaurant eating dinner. People are staring at you and pulling out their camera phones. I’m just a human being and sometimes a messy eater — so it’s really unpleasant to be scrutinized like that.”

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Blake Lively has an appetite, and she’s not afraid to show it! The buxom blonde was spotted at Ed’s Chowderhouse on W. 63rd in NYC yesterday, and while her boyfriend Penn Badgley was “sipping tea and drinking coffee,” Blake had a spread of “eggs, bacon, coffee, tea, orange juice, and French toast!”

The gorgeous actress sat down to her big breakfast before to eat before filming Gossip Girl next door at the Empire Hotel. We don’t where she puts it, because Blake looks stunning, but it’s always nice to hear about an actress who can eat!

What about you girls? Anyone out there who can eat more than her man?

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Long-stemmed blonde beauty Blake Lively is positively ecstatic about living, loving, working and shopping in New York City.

She may have been born and raised in Southern California, but Blake Lively, 22, the gorgeous blonde vixen of Gossip Girl—the CW Television Network’s steamy drama series that chronicles the lives of overprivileged Upper East Side private-school kids—has certainly made herself at home in Manhattan, where she and castmates are currently filming Season 3. She shares a Downtown apartment with Penny, her teacup Maltepoo, and is often spotted with her co-star/boyfriend Penn Badgley in stores, restaurants and trendy bakeries in her adopted hometown.

“Shooting in the city is wonderful,” exclaims the bubbly actress. “I sometimes think ‘What am I doing? What job gets me up at 3:40 in the morning?’ But New York City is a magical place, like a character in our show … it just makes me warm and fuzzy.”

Late this month, fans will get to see Lively in a whole new light when she plays the self-destructive teenage incarnation of Robin Wright Penn’s title character in The Private Lives of Pippa Lee (2009). “It’s a very, very difficult part and she was absolutely up to it,” recalls Rebecca Miller, the movie’s writer-director. “She was charming, emotional and sexual.”

Born Aug. 25, 1987, Blake Christina Lively, the daughter of actor-director Ernie Lively and talent manager Elaine Lively, first attracted attention when, as a high-school senior, she co-starred in The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (2005), then reprised her role in The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 (2008). In between, of course, came Gossip Girl, in which Lively’s portrayal of glamorous wild child Serena van der Woodsen not only made her a TV star, but also uprooted her from her West Coast roots. “I think it’s a really important growing experience to live in New York City,” she says. “I’ve always felt, since I was little, that I wanted to live here. It seems like it makes you a stronger, better person.”
“This whole New York winter thing is completely new for me. I’ve already justified buying seven coats.”

Gossip Girl fans are equally enthralled by the city. Thousands make pilgrimages to its signature locations, such as Constance Billard School for Girls (the exterior of the Museum of the City of New York), where Serena and Blair Waldorf (Leighton Meester) are best “frenemies,” and the steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where the girls eat lunch every day. Serena’s family lives in a suite at the New York Palace Hotel, and she indulges in grilled-cheese-and-truffles sandwiches in the hotel’s GILT Restaurant & Bar. Fabulous clothing, as much as plot, drives Gossip Girl, which could easily have been called Sex and the City: The Early Years. Fashion is “a huge part of my life,” acknowledges the 5-foot-10-inch beauty, who has recently been spotted off-camera shopping at OTTE, Christian Louboutin and Saks Fifth Avenue. The Girl’s wardrobes are “unbelievable,” she continues. “You can watch our show on mute and be entertained. Every day on the set, it’s total fashion heaven! I definitely have similar taste to Serena. I love that Kate Moss jeans-and-boots look. I end up buying half the stuff Serena wears.”

Lively is on the short list of celebrity models for many designers, attended several shows during Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week in September and delighted the paparazzi when she wore a low-cut, low-back Versace dress with a thigh-high slit to the 2009 Costume Institute Gala at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. “Just being here in New York City, walking around, you pick it up really quickly,” she says of her glamorous style. “You put on skinny jeans, riding boots and a leather coat, and you take on that posture … This whole New York winter thing is completely new for me. I’ve already justified buying seven coats and I probably have, like, 60 gorgeous bags. I have a closet for my really sharp, fancy, nice ones—the ones that go with my Valentino pumps, for example. Then I have a closet for the ones that are a little more rugged feeling, the kind that go with my Belstaff motorcycle boots.”

Still, the starlet considers herself remarkably down-to-earth. “I was raised in a very grounded family and I was never much of a party girl,” she insists. “I’m a very low-key person. I like to stay at home and bake, or just walk around the city, so I haven’t felt tempted [to hit the party scene]. I want to be more ladylike and classic.”

We sat down recently with GOSSIP GIRL star BLAKE LIVELY to talk about her new film THE SECRET LIVES OF PIPPA LEE but it was only a matter of time before the conversation got around to her hit series and all the fan frenzy it’s produced. LIVELY admits she’s grateful for the fans but can’t get used to being in the public eye every waking minute. Listen in below:

Click here to listen to the audio. Thanks to djalphaalpha for it.

EDIT: Also click here to listen to Alan Arkin discuss his most difficult scene to shoot for Pippa. He mentions Blake a lot.