For a six-year stretch (2007―2012), Leighton Meester played a principal character on “Gossip Girl,” a purposefully camp teen drama which was both revered and reviled by critics and became one of the most influential shows of its era. Fizzling out in it’s final season, the show nonetheless provided ideal springboards to bigger and better things for Meester and co-lead Blake Lively.
While Lively’s film career prospered, Meester’s hit the skids. Since the show ended, she’s appeared in a half-dozen critically-panned, colossal theatrical flops, took a stab at Broadway (“Of Mice and Men”), and released a well-received pop-folk album (“Heartstrings”).
