Why Chace Crawford’s Career Was ‘Difficult’ After Gossip Girl

It can be tough for an actor to book more serious roles after rising to prominence on a campy teen drama — just ask Chace Crawford, who got his start on The CW’s hit show “Gossip Girl.”

Crawford, who played the sweet, privileged and ridiculously handsome prep-school-student-turned-inexplicable-journalism-magnate Nate Archibald for all six seasons of Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage’s series, recently spoke to co-hosts Josh Peck (another former young star) and Ben Soffer on The “Good Guys” podcast about what it was like to try and transition into different opportunities. 

“I felt like I was in the wilderness for years after ‘Gossip Girl,’ because as big of a show as it was, coming off of it as a still young guy, [I felt like], ‘Oh, that’s not cool anymore,'” Crawford admitted to Soffer and Peck, the latter of whom starred on “Drake & Josh” and has recently found his way into prestige projects like “The Last of Us” and “Oppenheimer.” “I’m in this jail of the CW pretty boy who has no range.”

Even though Crawford is grateful for the show that put him on the map, he has mixed feelings about its aftermath. “It was not lost on me, how difficult after those four years of some false starts on some TV shows, it could be difficult to find another thing,” he said. “I was really, really appreciative when this happened … after being on something like ‘Gossip Girl. [It’s] not that I took it for granted, it was so fresh and I was so young, that by the end of it, you inevitably have taken some of it for granted.”

Whatever affection Chace Crawford still has for “Gossip Girl,” he doesn’t seem able to sit down and rewatch the show that made him famous. This is definitely understandable, as many actors hate watching their own performances, but it’s still funny to keep track of what Crawford has said about rewatching “Gossip Girl” throughout the years.

“In a way [‘Gossip Girl’ has] kind of become almost classic,” Crawford told People in June 2025. “It really was of its time, though. It was just before social media, a little bit ahead of its time in that regard. But in watching, it’s very campy. I forget how kind of campy it was. It’s kind of fun in that way.” Even though Crawford said his parents have rewatched the pilot multiple times, he can’t bring himself to do the same: “I haven’t really rewatched any of it,” he said. “I’d be terrified. It’s a bit embarrassing.”

This directly echoes what Crawford said during Variety‘s Actors on Actors series in 2020, for which he was paired with “Gossip Girl” co-star Penn Badgley. When Badgley asked if Crawford ever rewatches the show, Crawford joked, “Buddy, [you’d] have to strap me to a gurney and pop my eyes open like ‘Clockwork Orange.’ But no, it would be interesting to see the first couple maybe.” Crawford did clarify that he doesn’t enjoy watching any of his performances but it would be “nostalgic,” offering that he’d rewatch the show over drinks with Badgley. As of this writing, that hasn’t happened … but frankly, it would be really fun if it did.

“Gossip Girl” ended its run in 2012, and in the years that followed, Chace Crawford booked guest arcs on shows like “Glee” and “Casual,” and snagged a lead role in the short-lived ABC drama “Blood & Oil.” His biggest post-Nate Archibald role came in 2019 on Prime Video’s “The Boys,” Eric Kripke’s adaptation of the graphic novel penned by Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson. On that series, set in a world where superheroes are actually deeply evil and corrupt, Crawford plays Kevin Kohler, a man known publicly as “The Deep.”

As one of the “supes” essentially owned by the corrupt Vought corporation, the Deep doesn’t actually have any innate aquatic superpowers but relies on his diving suit, which he cannot remove, and Vought’s help to pretend he’s a real superhero. (He can, however, communicate with sea creatures.) Getting into The Deep’s complicated, deranged and sometimes disgusting backstory would take a really long time, but suffice to say that Crawford’s character is responsible for one of the most depraved scenes in the history of “The Boys,” which is really saying something.

During his appearance on “Good Guys,” Crawford said of booking The Deep, “It was great. I was so happy to have another job that I was excited about and that the character was so different from anything that I had done before.” It’s definitely different, and thanks to “The Boys,” the world finally knows just how versatile Crawford is.

You can stream “The Boys” and “Gen V” (on which The Deep also cameos) on Prime Video, and “Gossip Girl” on HBO Max and Netflix.