Blake Lively: Snapshot

Name
Blake Lively
Birth Date
08/25/1987
Birth Place
Tarzana, Calif.
When Blake Lively auditioned for 2005's The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, her resume boasted one credit: playing the tooth fairy in one of her father's films. But the unknown with an acting pedigree (her father is an actor-director and her mother is an acting coach) landed the role of leggy, soccer-loving Bridget.

Today, the classic California blonde is headlining The CW's Gossip Girl, a teen drama about wealthy Upper East Siders from the opposite coast. Lively plays bad "it" girl-gone-good Serena van der Woodsen in the glossy guilty pleasure, with costars Chace Crawford, Leighton Meester, and Penn Badgley – who she began dating offscreen in 2008.

In 2008, Lively reunited with Alexis Bledel, America Ferrera and Amber Tamblyn for the Traveling Pants sequel, and with her Gossip Girl costars landed on PEOPLE's Most Beautiful List.

Blake Lively: Five Fun Facts

  1. Blake Lively revealed to In Style that her Gossip Girl character Serena van der Woodsen wore a $12,000 John Galliano jacket and a $10,000 Chanel coat for her first day of school.
  2. Blake Lively was the only actual teenager in 2005's The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants with America Ferrera, Alexis Bledel and Amber Tamblyn.
  3. If it weren't for Blake Lively's actor brothers, Eric and Jason, she wouldn't have taken the initiative to be an actress. "They set me up on some auditions and after a very short amount of time I got The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants," she told the Edmonton Journal.
  4. At L.A.'s Burbank High School, Blake Lively was senior class president, a cheerleader, and a member of the championship choir.
  5. Blake Lively's father Ernie played her onscreen dad in The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. Of her showbiz family she told the Boston Herald, "I think it's great that they're all in it. I grew up on sets. They're very helpful and understanding."

Blake Lively: Biography

2004

Blake Lively

April

Sharing the Pants

While a student at Burbank High School in L.A., Lively gets her first professional acting gig when she is cast in The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. The film, which costars Alexis Bledel, America Ferrera and Amber Tamblyn, is based on Ann Brashares' best-selling teen novels and centers around lifelong friends who spend their first summer apart, but connect by shipping a pair of jeans to each other.

2007

Blake Lively

Putting the Pants Back On

After the first film took in nearly $40 million at the box office, Lively, Bledel, Ferrera and Tamblyn (right) reprise their roles in The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants sequel. The film, slated for August 2008, will be based on the final book of the series, Forever in Blue.

Blake Lively

September 19

Gossip Girl

Lively, 20, plays Serena van der Woodsen, an "it" girl trying to change her wild ways, in Gossip Girl, The CW's adaptation of the novels by Cecily von Ziegesar. The teen drama, developed by executive producer Josh Schwartz of The O.C., follows a group of rich New York City Upper East Siders and costars Leighton Meester and Chace Crawford.

Read More on Blake Lively's Life

Photo Credits

Top Left: CW

BIOGRAPHY (top to bottom): Warner Bros; Jamie McCarthy/WireImage; CBS

Edited by Mai Dinh, Janet Murphy