Alden Ehrenreich Didn’t Play Dan in ‘Gossip Girl’ Because of Blake Lively
Alden Ehrenreich is a hot young actor who has landed roles in several high-profile projects. Ehrenreich’s career began in the early 2000s. And although he’s got a wealth of opportunities now, he had to work hard to get his big break. He also missed out on several roles that could have been game-changers for him. In a 2019 profile with Entertainment Weekly, famed Hollywood casting director David Rapaport revealed that Ehrenreich was once up for a prime role in the original TV series Gossip Girl, missing out on the part due to reasons entirely beyond the actor’s control.
What ‘Gossip Girl’ role did Alden Ehrenreich lose?
Born in California in 1989, Ehrenreich embarked on a career in show business when he was very young. After he graduated from high school, Ehrenreich went on to study acting at New York University at the Stella Adler Studio of Acting, according to IMDb. By the early 2000s, he had broken into the world of television. He landed small roles in TV shows like Supernatural and CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.
However, one of the bigger TV gigs that he tried out for, he didn’t get. In a 2019 Entertainment Weekly interview with David Rapaport, the casting director for several major shows, the Hollywood insider revealed that Ehrenreich was brought in to read for a major in the Gossip Girl. “Before Penn (Badgley) was involved, I desperately wanted Alden Ehrenreich to play Dan,” Rapaport said. The casting director admitted that while he was able to get Ehrenreich in to read for the role of Dan Humphrey, producers decided that the young actor was too short to play opposite Blake Lively.
‘Gossip Girl’ launched the careers of several talented stars
Obviously, Ehrenreich didn’t get the role of Dan. Instead, Penn Badgley, another talented young performer, was able to tackle the part and make it his own. Badgley ultimately went on to become one of the show’s breakout stars, acting on Gossip Girl for six years. Alongside Badgley, Lively, Leighton Meester, Chace Crawford, and Taylor Momsen all became pop culture staples, gracing many magazine covers and earning acclaim as some of the hottest commodities of the early 2000s.
Gossip Girl became an overwhelming success. It eventually went off the air in 2012. But a sequel series debuted on HBO Max in the summer of 2021. As for Ehrenreich, although he didn’t get a part in the hit series, he hit his own stride in Hollywood, landing several high-profile roles in recent years.
What has Alden Ehrenreich been doing lately?
Ehrenreich made his big screen debut in 2009, acting in the drama Tetro. In the years that followed, he appeared in movies like Beautiful Creatures, Stoker, Blue Jasmine, and Hail, Caesar! In 2018, Ehrenreich made waves when he portrayed the beloved space smuggler Han Solo in Solo: A Star Wars Story. The film received very mixed reviews, and many Star Wars fans found themselves divided over the concept of the movie. But Ehrenreich did receive praise for his charming performance.
In 2020, Ehrenreich tackled the science fiction genre once again, with a featured role in the Peacock streaming series Brave New World. The series was canceled after one season. Coming up next, Ehrenreich appears in two new films. First is Cocaine Bear, which is set for release in 2023. Additionally, the highly-anticipated biographical film Oppenheimer is scheduled for release in July 2023, according to IMDb. For Ehrenreich, the path to stardom has been a slow climb. But along the way, he’s managed to snag some truly interesting roles.
