Think you had first day of school jitters?
Imagine for a moment you went to school with the likes of Blake Lively, Leighton Meester, Chace Crawford and Ed Westwtick. Now imagine you had been reading about their lives everyday, on the cover of every magazine, for the better part of four years. Then and only then might you get a smidgen of an idea as to what it was like to be actress Kaylee DeFer, who recently had the arguably terrifying task of stepping onto the New York based set of GOSSIP GIRL for the first time playing Charlie Rhodes, Serena’s slightly less glamorous cousin who has been holed up with her anti-establishment mother in Florida for the better part of the past 18 years.
Thankfully for DeFer, the twenty-something year old actress who comedy fans might recognize from the short-lived Fox laugher THE WAR AT HOME, she had a handful of familiar faces on what would otherwise have been an incredibly intimidating set.
“I had worked with [Executive Producers] Stephanie [Savage] and Joe [Lazarov] on a show a long time ago called THE MOUNTAIN where I played Penn Badgley’s love interest, so when they saw me originally audition for the role of Chuck’s love interest Raina [A role which ended up going to Tika Sumpter] they decided to write this part for me,” said actress Kaylee DeFer. “Obviously I didn’t want to step on anyone’s toes, you kind of watch from a distance for the first few weeks to make sure you’re not upsetting anybody. But everybody was really great, very low key, professional, and a lot of fun.”
Somewhat less fun, at least for this scoop-obsessed reporter, is that despite her newbie status, DeFer was far too quick a study when it came to picking up on the first rule of acting on GOSSIP GIRL: You don’t talk about GOSSIP GIRL!
So while we can tell you — having been fortunate enough to see tonight’s brand new episode — that Charlie will get her first taste of Upper East Side scheming when Serena tasks her with keeping tabs on Blair and Dan, DeFer, as her name might suggest, was quick to defer when prodded about what fans can expect from her character as the show hurdles towards its fourth season finale.
“All I’ll say is that I was not expecting what happens to my character,” teased DeFer when asked about which gossip guy she inevitably will become entangled with. “I kind of had a feeling about one of the guys and then when it came to fruition I was kinda of like, ‘Wait Whaaaaaat‘?”
A feeling that goes doubly for the finale.
“If they keep it all and I’m not getting edited out, Charlie has a great deal to do with the season finale, ” revealed a half-joking DeFer. “”They’re very secretive about their story-lines, but what I am allowed to say is that Charlie does mix it up with every character.”
Suffice to say, “secretive about their story-lines” may in fact be the understatement of the year. So much so that the only time DeFer is willing to open up is when she got to talking about her hopes for next season, should GOSSIP GIRL get the official go ahead for one.
“As far as I know I’m just in the next five episodes until the season finale, and then I have no idea. But I really hope we get the opportunity to finish what Charlie started as I think it’s going to be a story-line that people will really want to follow,” said DeFer. “I feel like Charlie is really relatable, even more-so than the other characters that have come on because she is such a real person, not being from that life and what not, and i think people are going to really want to see where it goes from there.” 
GOSSIP GIRL airs Monday at 8PM on the CW