'Gossip Girl' EP: Elizabeth Hurley's character like Heather Locklear on 'Melrose Place'

When Elizabeth Hurley joins "Gossip Girl," her character of Diana Payne may seem awfully familiar.

Executive producer Josh Safran suggested that Hurley, who plays a power-hungry media mogul, will remind people Amanda Woodward, Heather Locklear's character from "Melrose Place."

"When she says something, even though she may move the chess pieces around to get what she wants, she says up top 'This is what I want'," Safran says. "So if people don't comply, she'll move them to get what she wants."

Safran added he was ecstatic for Hurley to join the cast and she was his first choice for the role.

"She was our wish list. It sounds terrible, but when we saw that 'Wonder Woman' (a pilot Hurley had worked on) wasn't going forward, I was like oooh! Which is horrible because you want to like be very happy for other people's successes, but we just wanted her too badly," Safran says.

Hurley, like most of the cast, starts the season in Los Angeles. But when the crew slowly migrates back to their comfort zone of Manhattan, she'll be joining, Safran says.

Will you?

"Gossip Girl" returns to The CW on Monday (Sept. 26) at 8 p.m. ET.