According to Josh, casting Ed Westwick in the series “was a whole situation.” Not only had the English actor initially auditioned for the part of Nate Archibald and lost it to Chace Crawford, but his role of Chuck Bass nearly went to somebody else as well.
“He got cast as Chuck and then couldn’t get his visa to come shoot in the U.S. in time, because he was a citizens of the U.K.,” Josh recalled on an episode of the XOXO with Jessica Szohr podcast, adding that the network was pressuring him to recast the part.
“They were saying to us as we got closer and closer to start of the pilot, ‘Guys, you need to figure out who your back-up Chuck is gonna be because we don’t think this is gonna work out,'” Josh remembered. “And we were just like, ‘There is no backup Chuck. It’s Ed.'”
Since Josh and his co-creator, Stephanie, were adamant on having Ed play Chuck, the network waited for his visa to get approved.