Forget The O.C. and Gossip Girl, Adam Brody and Leighton Meester's real-life story is even better.

Actors Leighton Meester and Adam Brody were teen stars in their own right — Meester best known for playing Blair Waldorf on Gossip Girl and Brody as Seth Cohen on The O.C.

Then in 2014, Meester and Brody surprised the world and married each other. Here's everything we know about the couple, including, how they first met and all that has happened since.

Watch: Leighton Meester in Gossip Girl. Post continues below.

Speaking recently with InStyle, Brody opened up about how the pair's unique shared experience in coming from the world of teen TV drama brought them closer together.

"I think I've learned a lot about what it takes to be in a healthy relationship, to be a partner. I think bringing a sense of maturity that I've garnered and acquired over the last 12-odd years is incredibly helpful, really, to any relationship you're portraying," he said.

"I think there's some wisdom there and a comfort and a confidence of sharing a space and intimacy with someone else."

As for the shows that respectively catapulted them to fame? "We don't watch [The O.C. or Gossip Girl]," the 2000s heartthrob admitted.

"Who knows, when our kids are older, if they want to, then maybe we'll take that trip with them. But, we certainly talk about it. Not the characters—I mean, occasionally—but more about the experiences. We do have a lot in common. In some ways, almost nobody could understand it more than her and vice versa."

And when it comes to finding balance in their relationship, Brody believes it's all about evolving together.

"You're going to change if you're with someone, and that's the only way," he said.

"If you're with a great person and the right person, there's gonna be some positive growth, but you won't be able to 100-percent keep your exact everything about you... It's gonna take some compromise."

Image: Getty

When Adam Brody first met Leighton Meester, he assumed she would be mean.

"When I saw her, yeah, I was smitten instantly. And I was, you know, smitten for a long time," Brody told Meester's Gossip Girl co-star Penn Badgley on his podcast.

But it wasn't a picture-perfect romance from the beginning. While Brody may have been taken with Meester when the pair first collided in the mid-2000s, he assumed she would be just like her Gossip Girl character — a vindictive, spoilt mean-girl teen.

"I didn't get to know her [properly] for many years after, even though we worked together briefly," he said.

Brody's star was rising courtesy of his role on The O.C. from 2003 to 2007. And in The O.C.'s final year, Gossip Girl premiered, with both produced by screenwriter Josh Schwartz.

"Literally the first time we met, that whole Gossip Girl cast was eating at [Los Angeles deli] Canters, and I lived at Canters for my entire 20s. And I was leaving, he [Josh Schwartz] introduced all of us," Brody said on Anna Faris' Unqualified podcast.

Brody said he was taken aback by Meester's kind nature, as all he had to go off was her character on Gossip Girl.

"I had no idea whether she was a good person or not. And, in fact, kind of assumed she probably wasn't for the first handful of years that I didn't know her, just because, I don't know, Gossip Girl," he said.

"Come to find out, she's literally like Joan of Arc. She is the strongest, best person I know. She is my moral compass and North Star, and I just can't say enough good things about her character. It's crazy."

"She's never been rude to a single person in her life, except – and I give her credit for this – paparazzi, where I'm too self-conscious. I wouldn't say 'rude' but people will try to get her to sign some sexy old photo or something that aren't fans but they pretend to be fans... It's sort of a bottom-feeding thing... She has no problem being like, 'You can hate me. I don't care'," he continued.

Image: Stan.

Brody also said he was unsure whether Meester was even interested in him at first.

"She remained elusive to me for so long, you know, and aloof," he recalled on Podcrushed.

"I couldn't get a total read because even though she professes to have been interested in me and all those things, not only did she not pursue that, I mean, she was perfectly willing to let that never happen."

Brody also recalled the excuse his now-wife gave him.

"She says, 'Oh, it's because I knew if we did, it would be a thing,' you know, or like it's too powerful," he said.

How Adam Brody and Leighton Meester got together.

Meester and Brody first formed a close friendship when filming the 2011 movie The Oranges. However, the two didn't romantically date until February 2013, according to US Weekly.

Reflecting on working together, Brody said on Unqualified, "I was very attracted to her from [the] jump. She's a heavenly creature. I thought she was gorgeous."

But during 2011, the timing wasn't right. "I was seeing someone at the time. We didn't get together [until] about a year after that movie when I was single."

The couple didn't publicly confirm or comment on their relationship for months, but were spotted by paparazzi several times showing PDA. Then in November 2013, after less than a year of dating, news broke that the couple had become engaged, although neither commented on the rumours.

Leighton Meester and Adam Brody make a rare red carpet appearance together in 2014. Image: Getty.

By February 2014, they married in a private wedding in Northern California. No wedding photos have been publicly released.

In the same year, Meester told InStyle that privacy was one of her main priorities.

"My values have shifted greatly in terms of what I find important," she explained. "It's my family, my friends and having a personal life. Those are the things that need nurturing."

Since then, the couple have welcomed two children.

In 2019, Brody briefly spoke about his relationship with his wife in an interview with GQ.

"She's more inherently private than I am. I don't seek publicity but if I'm sitting next to you on the subway, I'll tell you everything about me. We're homebodies. We don't go to a lot of things that perhaps we could, and don't seek out promotion in that way."

Feature Image: Getty.