Serena van der Woodsen is a fictional character in the Gossip Girl novel series and in its TV adaptation, in which she is portrayed by Blake Lively. Serena is featured on the blog of the series' mysterious narrator, "Gossip Girl". Serena is known as the "it girl of Manhattan" and appears to easily get whatever she wants because of her captivating beauty and charismatic personality. She is the daughter of a successful doctor and a well-known socialite/heiress.
Novel series Angelical, Serena Caroline van der Woodsen (Serena Celia VDW in the television adaptation) is the most beautiful, the richest, the coolest, the most popular and the wildest of the heroines. Her father, Mr. van der Woodsen (William in the television adaptation), runs the same Dutch shipping firm his great-great-grandfather founded in the 18th century, and her mother, Lillian van der Woodsen, is a philanthropic art collector. Billionaires, her parents are on the boards of all major charities and art organizations in New York City. She also has an older brother, Erik (one or three years her senior; this detail is inconsistent in the novels), who attends Brown University. The van der Woodsens reside at 994 Fifth Avenue, a ritzy, white-gloved doorman building directly across the street from The Met and Central Park. Her family owns half the top floor in a 14-room penthouse.
Serena attends Constance Billard, an elite private girls’ school, until the end of her sophomore year then is admitted to Hanover Academy, a very prestigious co-ed boarding school. She is eventually expelled a year later for taking the liberty of extending her summer vacation without the administration’s approval. She returns to New York, where her former school agrees to take her back for her senior year. She is not particularly academically skilled and she is often told that she is not meeting her full potential. This continually causes problems with her best friend, Blair Waldorf, as Serena is able to waltz her way easily through life while herself has to work for things the blond beauty attains via her charm. A bit lazy, nonchalant and indecisive, she is nonetheless intelligent and perceptive and possesses numerous skills that help her obtain an excellent score on the SATs, which earns her admission to several of the most prestigious colleges in the country (Yale, Harvard, Princeton, Brown, Vassar, Wesleyan and Georgetown). However, she never fully realizes the extent of her potential and sometimes loses her way in life, unable to set boundaries or commit to real effort in pursuit of ambitious goals.
Serena is portrayed as kind and compassionate, though at times impulsive and emotionally inconsistent. She is sociable and enjoys an active lifestyle, but often struggles to maintain long-term romantic relationships. During high school, she dated Aaron Rose, Blair’s stepbrother, and was also briefly involved with Dan Humphrey and others.
Serena forms social connections and acquires opportunities across various environments. Although described as having high physical attractiveness, she does not prioritize her appearance, maintaining habits such as nail-biting and cutting her hair during school classes. While she is familiar with the fashion industry, she does not focus on her personal wardrobe or clothing choices.
Because of her free-spirited nature, she and Blair — her longtime best friend — often end up fighting. But despite their frequent clashes and the brunette sometimes openly hostile attitude towards her, Serena continues throughout the series to care deeply about her friend’s well-being. She also has a complicated relationship with Nate, her other best friend, with whom she lost her virginity at age fifteen. The two never quite know whether they are in love with each other or simply friends.
For a time, Serena experimented with modeling — posing for renowned fashion or portrait photographers, walking the runway at New York Fashion Week for a famous designer (Les Best), becoming the face of a perfume brand that bears her name (Serena's Tears) and even appearing on the cover of an internationally acclaimed fashion magazine (W Magazine) — before ultimately landing the female lead in a remake of Breakfast at Tiffany’s (Breakfast at Fred's) and its cinematic sequel (Coffee at the Palace), performances that were highly praised by critics.
After finishing high school, she decides to take a gap year to focus on this new career and try to discover who she is, before eventually returning to university. She first attends the New School in New York for a year then transfers to the prestigious Yale University, from which she graduates barely two years later then transfers to the prestigious Yale University. Though Serena never managed to choose a specific academic path, it is known that her university courses mainly revolved around philosophy, theater and literature. At Yale, she changed a lot, taking her studies seriously for the first time and discovering new interests. She stopped trying to entertain herself at all costs and even maintained a second romantic relationship with the same guy, Dan, for two years. It appears at the end, however, that she's still in love with Nate.
During her senior year, she becomes friends with Vanessa Abrams and Georgina Spark and takes Jenny Humphrey under her wing.
Serena is described as tall (5'7) with long light-gold hair that curls slightly at her temples and large dark blue — almost navy — eyes. She is slender, willowy, with a slim waist, narrow hips, delicate shoulders, a flat stomach, well-shaped buttocks and long, thin legs. She has a 34B bust and a perfectly sculpted face, fair skin, rosy cheeks, full lips that tilt upward at the corners, an aristocratic chin and straight, white teeth. She is ethereally beautiful, often described as "perfect" in the books.
The character may be based on Hadley Nagel, another wealthy and beautiful New York City socialite, who in 2010 made her debut at the International Debutante Ball. In 2009 Cecily von Ziegesar wrote on a copy of her newest Gossip Girl novel "To Hadley, the real thing". Janet Malcolm of The New Yorker called Serena "incandescently beautiful, exceptionally kind, and, in the end, it has to be said, somewhat boring."
Television series
Characterization People compared Serena to Josh Schwartz's original it-girl creation, Marissa Cooper, writing that Serena "seems to have it all, but in addition to a party girl reputation, dark family secrets and a disregard for high society, Serena one-ups the sulky Coop with a history of BFF betrayal." Jason Gay of Rolling Stone called Serena "the bad girl gone good(ish) who serves as Gossip Girl's wobbly moral compass". Describing her early strained relationship with Blair, Gay wrote, "Lively's Serena is a former queen bee who mysteriously disappeared from campus, only to return and find her spiteful ex-best friend, Blair (Meester), in charge." In an interview, Lively said of Serena, "I feel ridiculous at times with her, because I'm, you know, killing someone or marrying someone, but I look like me. I'm like, 'Oh, this is absurd.'" Vogue magazine wrote that Lively's upbringing helped her portray Serena and called her "dazzling and worldly and optimistic". Her mother, a former model from Georgia, dressed Lively differently, and her differing fashion choices drew the attention of her classmates at her L.A. private school. "It was the only school where people were just downright mean to me", Lively said. "They would make fun of my clothes because I dressed differently than the other kids."
Season 1
The first season introduces Serena as a beautiful, wealthy daughter of divorced parents who returns from boarding school. Her return sparks her old rivalry with her best friend, Blair. Serena's return is due to her younger brother, Eric van der Woodsen, who attempted suicide. She is considered unwelcome, especially by her former best friend Blair, who has always seen Serena as a threat to her reign as Queen Bee of Constance. After Serena reconciles with her, Chuck Bass reveals to Serena that he knows the cause of her sudden departure before the first season—taking Nate Archibald's (Blair's boyfriend) virginity during a wedding— and he tries to kiss her. Serena escapes and runs into Dan, a St. Jude's student from Brooklyn, who often expresses cynicism about his wealthier classmates' lifestyle. Serena also finds a friend in Jenny Humphrey, Dan's younger sister. Nate eventually reveals his tryst with Serena to Blair, and Serena is ostracized in the first few episodes. Blair and Serena consistently fight and reconcile throughout the subsequent episodes, often dealing with Serena's tendency to overshadow Blair. Serena and Blair reconcile after a heartfelt confrontation that prompts Serena to admit her mistake with Nate and leaving Blair in her time of need.
Serena encounters myriad problems as her mother becomes engaged to Bart Bass, who forces her family to adjust to living with Chuck. Then she discovers her mother's relationship with Dan's father, Rufus Humphrey, and the complications of embarking on a relationship with Dan, which is met with the disapproval of her mother and her peers. Her relationship with Dan is further complicated by the arrival of Georgina Sparks, a longtime friend who slowly reveals to viewers the real reason Serena left Manhattan. Georgina drives her to commit the same mistakes she did before leaving Manhattan, from partying excessively to drinking heavily, causing Serena to miss the SAT. Serena confronts Georgina, only to draw her anger, prompting Georgina to destroy her relationship with Dan and blackmail her with knowledge of a particular event in the past: she accidentally killed a man. Serena's constant lying in order to keep Dan from discovering her past eventually takes its toll on their relationship, and Dan breaks up with her.
Blair eventually retaliates against Georgina with the help of Chuck and Nate and the intervention of Vanessa, successfully driving Georgina out of Manhattan. Serena finally tells Dan the truth, only to discover during Lily's wedding that he wants to end their relationship. A disappointed Serena attempts to move on throughout the summer.
Season 2 The second season shows Serena spending the summer with her family and Blair in the Hamptons, attempting to move on from her relationship with Dan. During a dramatic party, she and Dan briefly reconcile and return to New York. Their relationship becomes public again but ends sooner than expected during a blackout as neither can move past the problems that previously ruined their relationship. After a disastrous double date with Dan and a new transfer, Amanda, that ends with two of Blair's mean girls throwing Nair at Amanda and Dan accusing Serena of being behind it, Serena takes matters into her own hands and reestablishes herself as Queen, thus reigniting her rivalry with Blair. She has Dan publicly ostracized throughout the school. Exposing herself to New York's high society, she meets Poppy Lifton, a socialite, and further strains her relationship with Blair during Eleanor Waldorf's fashion show when she and Poppy participate in it. Serena and Blair reconcile during a trip to Yale, where she didn't originally want to apply to but then did after Blair told her she couldn't possibly get in.