Leighton Meester looks back on her Gossip Girl days fondly, but isn't hoping to reprise her Blair Waldorf character any time soon.
The actress stuns on the cover of Rogue magazine's most recent issue, one of her first major gigs since she and husband Adam Brody welcomed their first child in 2015. As Leighton, 30, prepares to star in Fox's Making History, she caught up with Rogue about making the transition from the cult classic drama to a brand new series.
"I think I'm different," she explained, adding, "I started Gossip Girl 10 years ago when I was 20, and I'm 30 now. I loved doing it, and now I'm doing something else that I love, and something new that's a little bit more my taste as a 30 year old, something I've grown into."
"I feel so lucky that I can have such amazing fans and they either grew up with [the show] or they're growing up with it now. I've also heard people say, ‘Oh we watch that as a throwback," Meester recalled.
For six seasons between 2007-2012, Leighton starred opposite Blake Lively in The CW show about fashionably-clad socialites living on Manhattan's Upper East Side. Now, the celeb will take shed Gossip Girl's signature headbands and bad boy romances for a role as a time-traveling colonial woman learning about feminism through the decades.
Her decision to sign on for the project was not an easy one, given motherhood. "When I went into [the show], and when I decided that I wanted to work consistently on something, I had criteria. I read other [scripts] too, but this was just the one. It was love at first sight," Leighton dished.
Earlier this year, Leighton and Adam took a night off from tending to daughter Arlo Day Brody by making a rare public appearance at a 2017 Golden Globes after-party.
As for Making History, she told Rogue, "I'm proud to work on a show that uplifts the female lead, and has a not-so-subtle yet approachable commentary on the treatment and mistreatment of women throughout the ages."
Meester also revealed she's working on a followup album to 2014's Heartstrings: "I really have been missing writing, so I've been doing it on and off [for] the last year or so. I worked with awesome people when I released my first album in 2014. I'm hoping to do it again."
As for what fans can expect from Meester's return to music, she explained, "I'm writing a bit about my current state of mind, which brings me to a happier place, but I still find a lot of inspiration from past experiences, and that leads to some more melancholy that I just can't escape."