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Want Leighton Meester To Be Your Roommate? Think Again.

Christina Rath |
February 3, 2011 | 2:07 a.m. PST

Staff Reporter

Leighton Meester turns dark and twisted in "The Roommate" (Sony Pictures)
Leighton Meester turns dark and twisted in "The Roommate" (Sony Pictures)
What is Leighton Meester looking for in a roommate?  Well, surprisingly after playing a key role in "The Roommate," she isn’t looking for one. “I actually love living alone,” said Meester, and viewers of her new film may echo her sentiments after watching her play a psychotic obsessive roommate.

Fans of Meester will be used to her playing a stubborn and devilish Upper East-Sider as Blair Waldorf in CW's "Gossip Girl," but her character in "The Roommate" is on an entirely different level. Meester plays Rebecca, a college student who becomes fixated on her roommate Sara, played by Minka Kelly, who is an astonishing doppelganger for Meester. At first, it starts out innocently as the girls get to know one another and become friends, but as Meester explains, it evolves into “an unhealthy obsession that has no real base in reality and things go wrong.”

In a recent interview with journalists across the country, Meester describes some of the difficulties that came with playing this role, “There was an aspect to the character that you can’t really just switch on and off. I wasn’t able to just between takes and in between scenes shoot the breeze… Some of the things that I had to do were really disturbing for me. Particularly a scene involving a kitten, so it was an intense experience. I’ll say that.”

For an actress to be so disturbed by her part, this may turn out to be much scarier than the typical sorority girl slasher film. So far, it has been likened to "Single White Female" of the early 90’s in which a woman finds a seemingly normal roommate who then loses it. In an age where an internet search can quickly turn up hundreds of potential roommates, we can’t forget that instances like the Craigslist Killer do occur—they all seem normal at first.

Meester, who has encountered her fair share of roommates during college, was eager to emphasize this issue. "You go to college, you’re without your parents for the first time, and you’re paired up with someone who is literally going to be in your space 24 hours a day and has a lot of access to you. So the subject matter of the movie a lot is really questioning the safety of that and the comfort zone that disappears when you’re forced into a situation," said the actress.

2011 certainly seems to be Meester's big year. Along with "The Roommate," Season 4 of "Gossip Girl" is on air, and following in Blake Lively's footsteps into the fashion world, Meester can be seen in advertising campaigns for famed designers Vera Wang and Missoni appearing in Vogue Italia. The Missoni campaign, shot by Jurgen Teller, turned out to be an interesting experience for Meester. 

“I came from the airport and I go in to this weird little kitschy museum and it’s like the entire family, like four generations of people drinking wine and eating and playing cards, and everyone’s laughing and everyone’s wearing these exquisite designs and I really love the new collection,” she said.

Catch Leighton Meester terrifying Minka Kelly in "The Roommate," opening in theaters February 4th.

Reach Christina Rath here and follow her on Twitter.
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