The New Guy

During his four-episode stint on Gossip Girl, Patrick Heusinger's character tore like a tornado through the Upper East Side posse as Blair Waldorf's dashing boyfriend Lord Marcus, who was simultaneously sleeping with his step-mother, who happened to be having an affair with Blair's ex Nate Archibald. While his GG character was ever so slithery and elusive, Heusinger is decidedly not. He is a Chatty Cathy, to put it lightly, and during our conversation, he goes from deconstructing the story arc of Lost to gushing over Daniel Day Lewis's role in There Will Be Blood to praising the merits of Canadian radio ("Canadian radio rocks!").

Heusinger grew up Jacksonville, Florida, where he was part of the "surf, skate and redneck scene," and got into acting as a way to channel his energies. (He describes his middle school self as "hyperactive.") His first play was Annie Get Your Gun. "I was 'Little Boy, Act 1, Scene 1,'" he recalls, "I think 125 people tried out and everyone got a part." After this tiny role, he says, "I told my mom that I wanted to do this for the rest of my life." From there, the roles in school performances kept coming, he started winning national acting competitions, and landed a much-coveted slot at Julliard's prestigious acting program. He honed his skills in the Broadway production of Fiddler on the Roof, Paper Mill Playhouse's Godspell, and has spent the past two years as Sir Lancelot in the national tour of Spamalot.

After a hectic auditioning process earlier this year, he made the jump to TV, as the "new guy" on Gossip Girl. "I was on a flight to San Antonio, and I got a text while on the plane saying that I needed to get to New York. So I got to the airport and immediately had to get back on a plane to New York." He wasn't too familiar with the show, and before arriving on set, "watched all 18 episodes in 36 hours. I just couldn't get enough. You'd think that I had become a 14-year-old girl and in love with Chace Crawford." His first day on the job, Heusinger recalls, "I came downstairs and get into this van that's going to take us to the Hamptons to film, and there's Chase, Penn, Leighton, and Blake, and I'm like, 'heeeeeyy.'" While it would seem like the cliquish cast would be difficult to infiltrate, according to Heusinger, filming his scenes, many of which took place in the Hamptons, "was like camp. We would watch movies, hang out. I started writing some music with Leighton Meester, who is a songwriter." Following his stint on the show, Heusinger has a few projects in the work that he's cagey about ("I don't want to jinx them") and is developing a play about the late, great singer Jeff Buckley, who tragically drowned himself in the Mississippi River.

Now that he's hanging with the high-rolling, oft-photographed GG crowd, Heusinger has gotten a taste of the celebrity life. "One day I was leaving the Hudson Hotel and I sneezed. Someone goes 'bless you!' and I turn around to say, 'thank you so much,' you know, I'm a nice Southern boy, and then the paps started snapping pictures in my face."