Jessica Szohr is best known for her role on the CW’s adolescent drama Gossip Girl as Vanessa Abrams, a Brooklyn-based wannabe filmmaker seeking to fit in with her Upper East Side friends. Her reality, though, was not that different.
The actress revealed in an interview with Untitled magazine that she was lonely in Los Angeles and struggled to establish friends. When her mother and a friend sat down with her and persuaded her to stay, she was ready to give up. She booked Gossip Girl three weeks later.
With four additional siblings, he was born in Wisconsin
Jessica Karen Szohr was born in 1985 in Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin, to her parents. She was the oldest of five sisters and brothers. The actor is of Black and Hungarian descent, according to her IMDb bio.
She was cast in a nationwide ad campaign for Quaker Oats at the age of 10 and appeared in advertising for Crate & Barrel, Mountain Dew, Sears, Jockey, and JanSport.
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The ability to be in the right place at the right time
Szohr had intended to pursue a career as an interior designer, but her agent persuaded her to audition. That’s when she made her acting debut in an episode of My Wife and Kids in 2003. She went on to act in several shows and films before landing the lead part of Laura in the ABC drama series What About Brian.
Jessica’s life, however, was irrevocably changed by a Labor Day picnic with friends. I recall sitting by the pool with an old T-shirt and jean shorts, simply chatting with strangers. My manager phoned three days later to say that I’d met with the show’s executive producer and that one of the creators wanted me to audition.
Jessica was on her way to New York a few days later. She was originally supposed to appear in three episodes, but due to the popularity of her role, she became a series regular. The blockbuster drama series pushed Szohr into a celebrity, garnering her a role in The Internship, a Shawn Levy-directed Fox comedy starring Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn, after six successful seasons. She was given the role of a stripper. Szohr even took pole dancing lessons to prepare for her role.
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In front of hundreds of people, I was going around in my bra and panties during my first scene “In an interview with Young Hollywood, Szohr remarked. “I needed to be on my game. So I took a pole-dancing lesson two weeks prior. It’s a mind-blowing workout! Strippers deserve a lot of credit.
Szohr is currently a mommy to a baby girl named Bowie Ella Richardson. The 35-year-old actress shared a black-and-white photo of Bowie’s adorable little fingers on Instagram on January 13 to announce the birth of her precious baby girl.
“Added a little special sweetness to our family and some new directions to our journey on 1-11-21,” she said in the post. She continued, highlighting her experience of bearing a kid, “To then produce a human that is flawless in our eyes and instill an emotion in my heart that I had no idea existed is beyond comprehension. I’m overcome with emotion, and she’s very unique.”
We are smitten with the new mother and daughter team.
