The star opens up about her latest role, her music, and of course, Blair Waldorf!

Leighton Meester is everywhere these days — not only can you catch her every Monday night on Gossip Girl, but the newest face of Missoni has also headlined major films like Country Strong and her upcoming flick, The Roomate! For her latest role, the star portrays an obsessive and psychotic girl opposite Minka Kelly‘s doe-eyed character.

Minka admires her costar for her work ethic on set, and from the sound of it, Leighton really pushed herself for the role. Minka told NYLON magazine, “She worked with psychologists; she really studied the illness of the character, so much so that at times on set I was a little concerned whether or not she was there because she scared me so much! The look in her eye was so surreal I was in awe at how much she committed to it. There were even times people on set would mistake her for being sort of anti-social and that’s not the case.”

The star, best known for playing Gossip Girl‘s icy and manipulative Blair Waldorf, is anything but!
“Blair is very competitive and conniving and it obviously comes, usually, from a very human place, but she makes decisions that I would never make. To really manipulate and hurt people is not really what I think is the right thing to do, but I guess it’s all for the heightened reality of the show.”

You might not realize, but Leighton has also dabbled in the music industry. The hit singles “Somebody to Love” and “Your Love is a Drug” are super sexy dance tunes, but now she’s moving in a different direction (think acoustic!), inspired by working on Country Strong. She writes lyrics when she has time in her busy schedule, but the best part? She’s not in it for the money.

Leighton insists, “I don’t want to release anything for the sake of making money because that’s just silliness. The reason I like to make music is because it’s fun. If it were a pressure to have this whole other career it wouldn’t be fun anymore.” Although she’s in no rush to release a full album, it’ll be great to see what she’s talking about!

With multiple up-and-coming careers balancing on her shoulders, you would think that she would be totally self-concerned, but that simply isn’t case. “I really don’t give a shit about being a pretty girl,” she says. “The Prettiest Girl In The Room…that’s not really the title I careto seek at the moment.” Well, she can’t help being pretty, but she’s refusing to let that define her.