A few months ago, an interview with Leighton Meester proclaimed that, at long last, the actress was “back.” Meester certainly has never seemed busier — she has no less than four TV shows to talk about — but she’s been here the whole time.
“It’s probably just a fun headline — but I get it,” Meester says. “There’s nothing overnight that’s taken place, it’s just a matter of some years I work more and some years I don’t.”
This year is certainly an “on” year for Meester. Her series “Good Cop Bad Cop,” which premiered on the CW earlier this winter, arrives on Amazon Prime this month. In June, she’ll be seen in the second season of the Apple+ period drama “The Buccaneers.” She’s just recently wrapped shooting “Nobody Wants This,” which she joins her husband Adam Brody and former “Gossip Girl” costar Kristen Bell on for its second season. And later this year she will be seen in Rachel Sennott’s HBO series.
“I think that variety is somewhat what draws me to each project. Like many actors, I don’t really have my year or years planned ahead for me. I get opportunities and it just depends really, but sometimes I will be able to say, ‘This is the type of thing that I want to work on or try to go after.’ And then sometimes it happens,” Meester says of how she chooses roles at this point in her career.
“But I think it is just being able to switch my brain from one project to the next, which is so challenging, and then ultimately so rewarding. And sometimes it’s a little scary, but that’s a good thing for me. I really enjoy that part of it. And then once everything comes together and you’re actually on set and in character, it’s the best feeling. It’s the best feeling in the world.”
“Good Cop Bad Cop,” a comedy following a brother-sister detective duo, attracted Meester because it’s exactly the kind of show she herself would want to watch.
“I love the detective mystery element of it, and that is a really good feeling for people, including myself,” Meester says of the show. “I love solving crimes, but then also the kind of heartwarming, quirky comedy, family drama stuff, I think also resonates with people. I feel like it’s kind of just a really nice cozy show that’s really fun.”
The show is set in Washington state but was actually filmed on the Gold Coast of Australia, a bucket list place for Meester. It was while living there for three-plus months of shooting that she had a premonition of sorts about where her next job would take her.
“I was just in Australia thinking, ‘I wonder what I want to do next and what I can do next and what’ll be next?’ And then I was like, ‘Oh, I wonder if I’ll work out of town again, and I was like, ‘I bet I’ll be in Europe. I bet I’ll be in Scotland,’” Meester says. “ So I think it was a psychic moment.”
The following morning, she woke up with a script for “The Buccaneers” in her inbox, set to film in Scotland.
“I kind of couldn’t believe it,” she says.
Meester was a big fan of the show’s first season, and so was immediately interested in coming onboard for Season Two.
“It was a challenging character to home in on, but I was so thrilled because I just fell in love with her and fell for the pieces of her that I could find in myself and vice versa. It made me feel so ultimately more connected with myself,” she says.
While the specifics of who she plays is still under wraps, fans won’t have to wait long into the show: her character’s identity is revealed early into the new season.
“Even knowing what the character was ahead of time, going in and being like, ‘I get to just get that out of the way and then get to explore what that relationship means and what this person has been through and just get into it,’ which is a really amazing thing about that show,” Meester says. “There’s a lot of uncomfortable or unexpected storylines that they’re willing to explore, which I really appreciate. I’m just a huge fan of that show.”
Like everyone else, she became a fan of hit Netflix series “Nobody Wants This,” and after witnessing the magic of Season One via Brody, she is joining the show for its second season.
“I mean, I am a big fan of that show — and the people on it, obviously,” she says. “But throughout the last year and a half, I have been able to hear wonderful stories back from set and meet everybody and get to know everybody, and it’s just such a wonderful group of people from the top down.
“So I already had a relationship with a lot of them, which made the whole thing easier and even more fun,” she adds. “And I got to hang out with Adam, who’s my best friend, and work with him again, which is, I mean, it’s my favorite thing. I am so excited for this season of the show. I mean, it’s amazing. It’s so fun. It’s so good.”
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