Gossip Girl’s Ed Westwick chats to us all about his new, ’80s-set series, White Gold
White Gold has been described as The Wolf Of Wall Street in Essex. Fair?
The Wolf Of Wall Street was about the financial industry in New York and ours is about double glazing in Essex, so a little bit of a difference! But it follows a team of salesmen and what they get up to – their antics – so I guess you can draw a comparison.
How would you describe your character, Vincent?
He’s a bit of an animal, he will do anything to make a pound. If that means screwing over his friends and neighbours, then he has no problem doing that. But, at the same time, I think his heart’s kind of in the right place. Or, maybe his heart just moves around – sometimes it’s in the right place, sometimes it’s in the wrong place.
What was it like working with Joe Thomas and James Buckley?
They’re great and, obviously, they’ve got that relationship and shorthand from The Inbetweeners, and they’re just incredibly, nice, funny guys. So it was a pleasure to see
them go at it and try and jump in and be funny with them.
The show is set in the ’80s – how were the costumes?
I got away pretty unscathed – I’m just wearing suits, and in the opening scene, ’80s red underpants, so that was cool.
People still associate you with Chuck Bass from Gossip Girl. Are they shocked by your British accent?
It’s definitely something I still get. So, this will be interesting for people to hear me speak kind of how I speak anyway.
A lot of shows are coming back, like Will & Grace and Twin Peaks. What about Gossip Girl?
That’s never going to happen.
Gossip Girl only ended a couple of years ago, anyway. We’re talking about shows from the ’90s here.
Would you do it, though?
No, I’m doing other things. I was very lucky to be involved in that, though, because we had a great time.