Leighton Meester, one of the stars of ITV’s newest American drama, Gossip Girl, has revealed that she just loves to play the bad girl on the show!

Meester’s character, Blair Waldorf, got the crown of ‘miss popular’ when former best friend Serena moved out of town. But as the series starts, Serena returns and Blair finds herself unwilling to give up this crown or her boyfriend Nate.

Leighton explains what its like to play a bad character and how she researches for such a role…

“It’s wonderful and great fun play a bit of a baddie. I would say this is what she is essentially; Blair is just the bitch of the show I guess and goes deeper than just being bad. I think my character is really well written and the best thing about it is she was developed for so long in theseries of books; she has real dimension.”

“I think she has a lot that people can relate to – I can relate to her on some levels. It’s really fun to play that really catty, feisty girl, but it’s also really fulfilling and pleasing for me to be able to bring something else to it.”

Meester admits that she did read a few of the original Gossip Girl novels by Cecily Von Ziegesar that the show is based on for research purposes:

“I did read a couple of the books beforehand as part of the research for Blair. It’s good to know the way the characters were intended to be – we have the fans of the books to please. They wouldn’t want to see something completely different on screen after reading the books for years. But I don’t want to read too far and spoil it for myself either!”