After all of this time, after all of the man-dangling, the baits, the switches, the famewhorin’, the photo ops, the details dropped into tabloids – it’s all paid off. Blake Lively has something tangible! She got the lead role in a movie! And not some Sisterhood of the Gossip Girls movie either. Blake Lively got the lead role in Steven Soderbergh’s new film, The Side Effects. Soderbergh is an Oscar-winning director known for his established relationships with A-listers like George Clooney, Matt Damon and Julia Roberts. Soderbergh has also been threatening to quit the biz, and as such, he’s been cramming in a steady stream of films – his last film, Contagion, came out in September. His new film, Haywire, comes out this month.

But this is about Blake. Blake got a lead role. This girl’s career path hasn’t always been this bright. I like to think that it was her small-but-showy supporting part in The Town that really changed her career – working “under” Ben Affleck was one of the smartest career moves for her, even though she was the weakest, mumbling link in a very strong film. She followed that up with The Green Lantern, which didn’t do much at the box office, but she managed to get a boyfriend out of it, so whatever. And the last film she worked on was with Oliver Stone, a film called The Savages, where she has a supporting part. It’s a BIG deal that Blake landed a lead, and with Soderbergh, no less.

The Side Effects will have Blake playing Emily Hawkins, “a woman who turns to prescription meds to cope with the anxiety of the upcoming release from prison of her husband.” Joining Blake – Channing Tatum, who will play her husband and Jude Law, playing her shrink. Will Soderbergh coax a great performance out of her? Will Blake officially be a movie star after this? Will she become insufferable? Will she dump Ryan and trade up for someone better and less gerbily? So many questions.

Here are some new photos of Blake at work on Gossip Girl yesterday:

Photos courtesy of Fame, WENN.