Gossip Girl’s Chace Crawford has come a long way from his affluent Upper East Side roots! In the new drama Blood & Oil, the actor trades the party lifestyle for blood, sweat and tears as Billy Lefever, a working-class American dreaming of striking it rich in North Dakota’s oilfields.
Newcomer Rebecca Rittenhouse stars as his wife Cody, and together, the pair does their best to navigate a seemingly lawless town where local oil tycoon Hap Briggs (Don Johnson) has free reign.
For Chace, the show’s soapy twists and turns are part of its allure – not to mention the uniquely American setting.
“In general, I think the international audience like soaps, like American soaps, and this is obviously very American to begin with,” he says.
“And I think there’s going to be an elevated amount of money thrown at it and how we deal with that, and the fashion element I think is going to be brought into it more, and I think it’s going to have something for everybody.”
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As the young couple at the centre of the story, Rebecca says the relationship between her and Chace makes a nice contrast to all the drama elsewhere on the show.
“As much as drama is exciting and conflict is exciting, I think what is really nice, at least with the plot and the first season, is the relationship with Cody and Billy,” she says.
“They’re this young, ambitious, married couple that is really and truly in love and they’re really a team. I think that’s really refreshing for people to see you know, a couple that they can really root for.”
Blood & Oil is available Mondays from 10pm on TVNZ OnDemand.
Chace and Rebecca play married couple Billy and Cody Lefever on Blood & Oil.
