Chace Crawford reflects on damaging 'pretty boy' label after 'Gossip Girl'

Chace Crawford couldn’t shed the teen heartthrob status he achieved on Gossip Girl.

Crawford played the charming Nate Archibald in the early-2000s show and became an international crush.

However, his success became an obstacle in the way of more complex acting roles. This went on for years. Now, the actor has made his comeback with a completely different role in The Boys, where he plays The Deep.

“I felt like I was in the wilderness for years after Gossip Girl,” Crawford, 39, said on the Good Guys podcast. “Because I felt, you know, as big of a show as it was, coming off of it as a young guy, it's like, 'Oh, that's not cool anymore.' "

"And I'm in this box now. I'm in this jail of like the CW pretty boy, you know what I mean?" he said, noting that people thought he didn’t have any "range.”

“I think people think… actors make a ton more money and have way more agency than we actually do,” he noted.

Following Gossip Girl, the actor struggled to land any gritty role as executives couldn’t see him in a different light.

“I was probably harder on myself than I needed to be,” he said.

Things changed when he came across the audition for the role of superhero, The Deep, in The Boys, which is a dark comedy about the reality of having superheroes around.

“I just remember that audition hitting my inbox, and reading the synopsis, I was like, that sounds wild," he recalled. "And then reading this pilot, I was like, 'Oh, this is f****ing great. This is so out there and original and weird.' ”

“In the specific role of The Deep… I know that guy. You know, I know a hundred of those guys, basically. So, I instantly felt confident and excited about my take on the character,” he gushed.

"It was great. I was so happy to have another job that I was excited about and that the character was so different from anything that I had done before,” concluded Chace Crawford.