cult of personality

Blake Lively Tries to Convince the World She Prefers the Fashion Life of a Backpacker to That of a Famous Actress

Behold Blake Lively in kinky handcuffs on the cover of Interview! This grungy sort of look (well, for her) is probably to go with the movie she promotes in the issue, The Town, in which she plays a grungy girl from the projects with a Boston accent and everything. Affleck interviewed Lively for the magazine, and she tries to convince him and readers that, despite being a glamazon Vogue cover girl, she’s a sweaty backpacker at heart.

This is like Betty Draper goes to jail.Photo: Craig McDean


AFFLECK: You’ve been to Paris before?
LIVELY: Yeah. I went to Paris for the first time with my brother when I was 15. He thought I should be more cultured, so he convinced my parents to let me out of school for a week and a half, but we ended up traveling around Europe for two months. We went to London-to Cambridge. We went to Cologne, Brussels, Rome, Florence … We stayed everywhere from hostels to nice hotels. Then we ran out of money, so we had to sneak all the way back to London on trains to take our flight back home. So it was a very different experience. [laughs]

AFFLECK: It sounds like a great experience.
LIVELY: It was. You know, running around in wet clothes when it was freezing outside and staying in these hostels … And, of course, I packed way too much. We were backpacking, and I had all of my fancy stuff. But it was fun being out on my own for the first time at 15. It was very different from going to fashion shows and wearing ball gowns. As wonderful as it is, I actually think I preferred doing it the other way.

But just before she goes, she reminds us that she doesn’t really want that life at all.

AFFLECK: Now stop trolling the Internet looking for pictures of me and critiquing my wardrobe. Before I went to do this interview somebody said, “Blake is a fashion darling.” All of us can’t be fashion darlings, Blake.

LIVELY: Well, people like you make me fashionable, because if there is no wrong there can be no right.

AFFLECK: You’ve gotten so much more bitchy since we wrapped the film.

LIVELY: But I think you have to say that I’m charming at the end of the interview. I think that’s the rule.

AFFLECK: You’re very charming.

LIVELY: Actually, I think they usually like to end these interviews on a funny note.

AFFLECK: I’m not sure that I said anything funny. Maybe you did.

LIVELY: Maybe they’ll just have someone else redo the interview.

AFFLECK: Okay, then. I’m going to let you go. I can hear the Gossip Girl people banging on your trailer door because you’re holding up the whole production doing this interview. This is how you get a bad reputation: You stay on the phone doing interviews.

LIVELY: I’m actually not in a trailer. I’m in a hotel room with no air conditioning. It’s very special.

AFFLECK: That’s the charm of Europe. What can I say?

LIVELY: That’s going to be the quote right there: “Ben Affleck says things don’t work well in Europe.”

Yes, Blake is enjoying her backpacking-esque Gossip Girl experience. Ben Affleck is the air-conditioning-demanding diva, here.

Like a sex tape with clothes!Photo: Craig McDean for Interview

Blake Lively [Interview]

Blake Lively Tries to Convince the World She Prefers the Fashion Life of a Backpacker to That of a Famous Actress