Celebrating the 10th anniversary of CW teen soap Gossip Girl, creator Josh Schwartz—perhaps capitalizing on Jennifer Lawrence’s current promo tour for mother!, a movie I refuse to see based on the lower-case title alone—told Vulture that at 16, Lawrence auditioned for the part of prep school femme fatale Serena van der Woodsen and was crushed when the part went to Blake Lively instead.
“We did not realize this at the time, but Jennifer Lawrence really wanted to play Serena and auditioned. This story came to us secondhand, but we were told she definitely auditioned and was bummed to not get it,” said Schwartz.
Schwartz—who also created The O.C., Chuck, and the upcoming Dynasty reboot—does not remember ever watching Lawrence’s audition tape, which is a shame because I’d really like to see if she could accurately capture Serena’s signature slack sexy sad mouth.
In the end though, show creators were dead-set on casting Blake Lively as Serena, but it’s still nice to know there’s an alternative timeline out there where Lawrence was on Gossip Girl and Lively starred in bleak Ozarks thriller Winter’s Bone.
But this is the timeline we live in.
WHO IS SHE? Not Jennifer freakin’ Lawrence!