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After over two decades in Hollywood, Leighton Meester is familiar with publicity.
She’s been acting since 1999, and her role as the conniving queen of Manhattan, Blair Waldorf, in 2007’s Gossip Girl was what truly put her on the map. So it’s safe to say she’s no stranger to having a publicist.
However, playing one in Rachel Sennott’s new HBO comedy, I Love LA, though, was new to the actress. Meester stars as Alyssa, boss to Maia (Sennott) and owner of a successful PR firm — and she says the story is “all heightened in a way that is just super fun.”
She calls herself lucky for not having memorable negative experiences of her own to pull from while playing Alyssa. “I guess I could draw some inspiration from my movie version of what that world is, but I’ve been very lucky to have… I don’t know, my publicist, I think of her as my friend,” Meester tells PEOPLE. “I don’t know if she thinks the same, but I really like her a lot.”
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Given her tight-knit relationship with her own publicist, Meester says, “I do feel like I’ve been somehow either shielded or lucky in terms of my particular interactions with [publicists].”
Still, after her time in the industry, she’s not a stranger to how intense things can get. “I’ve totally seen it from afar and witnessed some weird shenanigans,” she says. “And I’m sure that there’s so many weird scenarios. I don’t know. They’re fun to hear about, but not to live through.”
Meester appears as guest star on I Love LA alongside the main cast, including Sennott, 30, Odessa A’Zion, Jordan Firstman, True Whitaker and Josh Hutcherson.
The series follows Maia and her “ambitious friend group” as they navigate “life and love in LA,” per HBO’s official logline.
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I Love LA is the latest in a string of major roles, including The Buccaneers, Meester has had this year.
She most recently appeared alongside her husband, Adam Brody, in the Netflix hit Nobody Wants This. And Brody, 45, told PEOPLE that working together doubled as a “date night” for the longtime couple, who share two kids.
Meester, meanwhile, said it was “one of the most fun times that I’ve had on a set” as she called herself a “huge fan of the show for many reasons.” The actress said, “I was really taken by everybody’s kindness and their talent, and how that whole show came together.”
New episodes of I Love LA premiere Sundays at 11 p.m. ET on HBO and HBO Max.
