Betty Gilpin remembers her epic Gossip Girl audition fail 

Some might call it a bad audition, but for Betty Gilpin, it was a complete fustercluck.

Back before she was a three-time Emmy nominee and the star of Peacock's critically celebrated Mrs. Davis, Gilpin was just an aspiring actor making the rounds at casting calls — including one for a then-upcoming series on the CW called Gossip Girl.

"I have a picture somewhere of the waiting room hallway, and there were 50 of us, like, all sitting in the tightest dresses possible, just staring into space," the actress recalled on EW's The Awardist podcast. But Gilpin, who was a theater student at Fordham University in New York City at the time, showed up for the audition in an outfit that would've made Blair Waldorf choke on her mimosa. "I was wearing mismatched Converse and teal, wide-leg movement pants, and purple wizard sleeves," she said with a laugh. "My hair unbrushed, no makeup. Just being like, 'I'm here to make art and inhabit the character of Gossip Girl.'"

It was not the vibe producers were looking for. Still, they weren't completely blind to Gilpin's undeniable talent, and she got a callback — but to play a teacher. "They were like, 'Your portrayal of a very disturbed woman makes you seem 45 years old,' even though I was 21 or whatever at the time," Gilpin remembered. "They were like, 'You can come back as, like, the haunted teacher.' And in the email, they were like, 'Please come back wearing make-up, a different outfit, and high heels,' in bold bullet points," she continued. "And then, of course, [I] did not get the part."

Man, the competition really is brutal on the Upper East Side. Watch the video above to hear Gilpin relive her failed audition, and you can listen to her full Awardist interview about Mrs. Davis below.

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