It was a striking choice: a role specifically defined by vulnerability, isolation, and longing, performed in the medium that is furthest from the specific polish of the Gossip Girl aesthetic. Curley’s wife is not a character who controls her environment. She is a character who is controlled by her environment, who has fewer options than she imagined when she had options, and whose tragedy is built on the gap between the life she wanted and the life she ended up in.
She received mixed-to-positive notices for the performance, with critics noting the difficulty of the role and her commitment to it. The Broadway run was brief — a limited engagement — but it signaled a direction of ambition that was distinct from the Blair Waldorf archetype.
The film work of the post-Gossip Girl years included The Judge (2014), a courtroom drama starring Robert Downey Jr. and Robert Duvall in which Meester appeared in a smaller supporting role. The Weekend Away (2022), a Netflix thriller. EXmas (2023), a holiday comedy. Various other projects across different scales and studios. None of these approached the commercial reach of Gossip Girl itself, but they represent the kind of steady professional activity that sustains a working film actress through the years when the primary association the audience carries is with a previous role.
The television work that has given her the most sustained post-Gossip Girl exposure has been Single Parents, the ABC comedy-drama that premiered in 2018 and ran for two seasons, in 2018 and 2019 to 2020. The show was created by J.J. Abrams and Elizabeth Meriwether and starred Andy Samberg as Will, a single father who befriends a group of other single parents in his neighborhood. Meester played Angie D’Amato, a single mother who is the emotional center of the group. The role was a significant departure from Blair Waldorf: Angie is working-class, practical, warm, and navigating the specific logistical and emotional challenges of raising a child on her own. She does not wear headbands. She does not have a penthouse.