She’s already making a name for herself! Jordan Alexander totally stole the Gossip Girl premiere episode with her new character, Julien Calloway, who is the Queen B of her Upper East Side high school. Keep reading for more details.
Who Is Jordan Alexander Playing in ‘Gossip Girl’?
Already being compared to the original series’ Blair Waldorf because of her character’s feud with half-sister Zoya Lott (played by Whitney Peak), Jordan explained to Teen Vogue in July 2021 why these two are not in any way similar to any OG Gossip Girl characters. “Zoya and Julien are like a ship trying to dock in a storm,” she explained. “The intention is there to reach their destination, but there’s so much going on that’s trying to sink the ship and pull it back out to sea.”
While the up-and-coming actress does note that Julien and Zoya’s relationship is “tumultuous,” at the end of the day, they just want to have a close relationship. “In the original it was very much Blair versus Serena from the pilot episode,” Jordan shared. “But Julien and Zoya actually want to make things work.”
With the backing of a well-known TV series connected to her name, it’s no surprise that Jordan became HBO Max’s Gossip Girl revival’s breakout star. “It just seemed so far out of reach,” she told W Magazine in April 2021 of her audition for the show. “I was trying to invite something great into my world for myself, but I just never thought it would be this.”
Who Is Jordan Alexander?
Before nabbing the role of Julien, the Sacred Lies alum had taken a break from acting. “I was working as a maid and waiting for the bus,” she told the publication. “My sister finally broke me down and was like, if you do acting, you maybe don’t have to do this anymore.”
While she was familiar with the original CW series — which aired from 2007 to 2012 — Jordan didn’t realize how different the new version would be.
“I liked that they were trying to hire a mixed-race Black girl with a shaved head for their show,” she recalled during her W interview. “I was like, well, if they’re willing to do that, then this is something I’d be interested in because it’s so left-of-center.”
Set years after the original series, the reimagined version of Gossip Girl is “really reflective of life right now,” per Jordan. “I want to create an inclusive space where we’re not just reiterating the otherness of anyone who is not, you know, the list of things that people were allowed to be: rich and fabulous and famous,” she added.
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