'Gossip Girl' gets its closeup in LI writer's 'You Know You Love Me'

While studying in London in the fall of 2007, St. James native Lindsay Denninger fell in love — not with a guy but with the prime-time soap "Gossip Girl." And it's a love affair that shows no signs of ending.

Though the CW teen drama didn't air on British TV, she caught it by downloading new episodes each week on iTunes, a process that often took as long as the episodes themselves thanks to her school's superslow Wi-Fi. Denninger soon discovered she wasn't alone in her fandom — the show, which ran from 2007 to 2012, developed a huge following both on her campus and around the world. It also made stars of Blake Lively, Sebastian Stan, Penn Badgley and other cast members.

Denninger dishes and delves into the series' history in her book, "You Know You Love Me: How Gossip Girl Changed Pop Culture as We Know It" (Bloomsbury, $24.25). She recently spoke to Newsday by phone from her home in Smithtown.

Obviously you're a fan of the show, but what was the impetus for you to do a book about it?

Part of it came from the pandemic when we were all stuck in our houses and watching too much streaming television. I watched "Gossip Girl" again and shows like "The O.C.," and what I realized was that "Gossip Girl," more than any other show of its era, is still seen in other shows today. ... Also "Gossip Girl" was just incredibly prescient about the "Big Brother always watching" kind of culture we now have.

You talk a lot in the book about how the CW wanted the show to be done in L.A. Would the show, have been as good if it wasn't shot in New York?

Absolutely not. You can always tell when a show is filmed on a lot in Culver City versus on the streets of New York. It adds this sort of realistic, grittiness to it. ... For "Gossip Girl," too, since it was shot on the street, people would be watching and saying "What are you filming? What are you filming?" And then the paparazzi came out and the fans came out and it created this sort of fandom hysteria. You just don’t have that with a closed lot.

Long Island had a role in the show quite a bit as well.

The first couple of episodes of season 2 are Hamptons episodes because the characters have been in Southampton all summer. ... It’s natural that a show that takes place in New York City would have a Long Island component to it because so many people do try to escape the hustle and the bustle and come out to the Hamptons or Bellport or even Oheka Castle. They do try to escape the busyness to enjoy the beauty and the nature that we have out here.

How difficult was it to get access to people involved in the show?

Incredibly difficult. I had the ill-timed notion of trying to get in touch with a lot of these people during the time that Blake Lively’s [sexual harassment] lawsuit with ["It Ends With Us" star-director] Justin Baldoni was starting to pop up, so many of the cast members didn’t want to talk to me because of that, which I do get. But I was able to assemble older interviews and most of the actors have spoken extensively on a variety of different podcasts about their time on the show. So I was able to make up for their hesitance in doing more press.

But you did speak to some of the creative forces involved in the show?

It was nice I spoke to [series producer] Amanda Lasher, and Mark Piznarski, who was the director of a lot of the episodes but specifically the first season episodes. Understanding from the writing room where they were coming from was interesting because this show took on a life of its own.

Fashion was a huge part of that show. Did you try to model your own wardrobe after some of the fashions that the characters were wearing?

Oh, 100%. I was a Serena [Blake Lively] not a Blair [Leighton Meester], mostly because I was blonde. I remember buying these really knee-high tall, not real suede boots because Serena always had those on. It was sort of her undone, sort of disheveled overall vibe, and I often tried to emulate that.