Blake Christina Lively (born August 25, 1987 in Tarzana, California) is an American actress. She is best known for her roles in The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, Accepted, and the book-based TV show Gossip Girl.

Blake Lively is the youngest of five children; her parents are actors Ernie and Elaine Lively. She has two sisters, Lori and Robyn, and two brothers, Jason and Eric. Both her parents and all four siblings are, or have been, in the entertainment industry. Her brother-in-law is Bart Johnson.

The daughter of longtime screen actor Ernie Lively and the junior member of a showbiz-savvy sibling collective that also includes brothers Jason and Eric and sisters Lori and Robyn, Tarzana, CA native Blake Lively possesses just the kind of wholesome good looks that the Hollywood lens seems to love.

Of course, it wouldn’t take a psychic to figure out what line of work the cheery and clean-cut blonde would go for, and even after suffering an early career setback at a Mrs. Doubtfire audition gone bad, Lively was still determined to persevere. It was at the tender age of five that young Lively first had her shot at the big time, and though her parents’ plan to calm her by telling her that she was only going to be auditioning alongside Robin Williams’ twin bizarrely backfired when the aspiring actress was introduced to the real deal, she would later bounce back around the end of the 1990s with a featured performance in the girlish hit The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants.

A family affair was quick to follow when Lively and fellow family members Robyn, Lori, and Ernie were all tormented by Crispin Glover in the 2006 horror film Simon Says. Also that year, the recently graduated high-school student would venture off to college with her role as the ideal object of a creative-thinking loser’s affections in Accepted.

She attended Burbank High School in Burbank, and has participated in the National Show Choir. Blake is known for her tall 5′9″ frame and blonde hair.

She comes from a family of actors, but she was not interested in acting. She wanted to attend Stanford University, but during the summer between her junior and senior year of high school, her brother made his agent send her out on a few auditions. Of the two auditions, she got the role of Bridget for The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants.

Blake is the youngest of the four leads in The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. Blake was the last of her 3 costars on The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants to earn a lead role on a television series. Bart Johnson, an actor who plays Troy’s dad in High School Musical, is Blake’s brother-in-law. Blake has known Gossip Girl co-star, Penn Badgley since the age of 11, as stated on an interview with Tyra Banks.

Lively started out in film with a bit role in Sandman in 1998. In 2005, Lively played Bridget in The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, for which she received a Teen Choice Award nomination for “Choice Movie Breakout - Female”. She will be reprising the role in 2008 in the sequel, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2, alongside co-stars Alexis Bledel, America Ferrera and Amber Tamblyn.

She starred in Accepted, Simon Says, and Elvis and Anabelle in 2006. She also received the Breakthrough Award from Hollywood Life for her role in Accepted on December 10, 2006.

In 2007, she was cast in the de facto lead role of Serena van der Woodsen in the new teen drama, Gossip Girl, co-starring alongside Leighton Meester, Chace Crawford, Taylor Momsen and Penn Badgley.

Lively scored her first major magazine cover with November’s 2007 Cosmo Girl. In the magazine she discussed her high school career.  Next, Lively was on the magazine cover of Lucky’s January 2008 issue.