A TEEN drama that has taken the US by storm stars an actor from Stevenage. Ed Westwick, 20, has landed the role of Chuck Bass in Gossip Girl which has just hit British television screens. The show, which is based on the best-selling novels by Cecily von Z

A TEEN drama that has taken the US by storm stars an actor from Stevenage.

Ed Westwick, 20, has landed the role of Chuck Bass in Gossip Girl which has just hit British television screens.

The show, which is based on the best-selling novels by Cecily von Ziegesar, has been created by the producers of the OC and is set in the evil world of over-privileged youngsters from New York's Upper East Side.

Ed, who studied for A-levels in business, law and communication before doing a two-week summer course at the National Youth Theatre, plays a hard-drinking, playboy son of a billionaire. He has become a pin-up for millions of teenage girls and the subject of feverish discussion on fan sites.

He got the part after heading to Los Angeles in February last year where he auditioned for the pilot episode.

Speaking to a national newspaper, he said: "I'm no Brad Pitt. I'm not under any false illusion about that. But I do walk down the street, especially in New York, and people know who I am. Some come up to me and tell me how much they enjoy it."

Ed has also had small roles in Afterlife, Casualty and Doctors and played a teenager burglar Zoran, a Bosnian immigrant in the film Breaking and Entering, starring Jude Law.