Listen up, Upper East Siders. Some of the Gossip Girl reboot’s cast has been revealed and it’s way different from the original.
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Our long rest from the world of drama and flashy headbands has finally come to an end. A new batch of Manhattan’s rich kid is about to arrive and share their own version of the famed coming-into-its-own story. After placing a 10-episode order for a reboot of the former CW hit in July, HBO Max says they’ll “introduce a fresh crop of Manhattan private schoolers to Gossip Girl’s all-seeing eye.” And it will also address the transformation of social media and the landscape of New York itself over the intervening years.
Josh Schwartz will executive-produce the series together with Gossip Girl’s co-creator Stephanie Savage and Joshua Safran, who recently described the show as a continuation rather than a remake. So, there will be no new Serena Van Der Woodsen or Blair Waldorf in Gossip Girl 2.0 as these iconic fashionable characters are only waiting to be relived by the original stars themselves, Blake Lively and Leighton Meester, respectively.
But one of the OG cast members who’s more than happy to reprise her role is Kristen Bell. Yes, she will still be the voice of Gossip Girl. In fact, the brainchild duo behind the reboot (and the original series) confirmed that there will be no replacing her.
As for the other characters, unlike the first series with its stars relatively new to their career (though really flew to the household status very quickly), the reboot will also feature newcomers. So, here are the up and coming stars you should be on the lookout for as they will be the lead for the next juicy series we’ll all be binge-watching.
Emily Alyn Lind
On March 2, there was one character that was named for the reboot and Revenge’s Emily Alyn Lind will be the one who’ll be introduced as Audrey. To make things more interesting, the fact that Emily is also a singer who posts covers on her Instagram account makes her more fitting to the series.
Whitney Peak
HBO Max also revealed that a Blackwood introduced in the third season of Chilling Adventures of Sabrina will also take part in the reboot. Although, playing a small role in CAOS and iZombie, the 17-year-old Ugandan has proven herself worthy as she was also in the Academy Award-nominated film, Molly’s Game.
Eli Brown
If you’ve watched the short-lived series, Pretty Little Liars: The Perfectionists, surely Eli Brown (who played as Dylan Walker) has caught your eyes. The series may be short but it did launch this 19-year-old actor plus singer-songwriter from Oregon’s career. Besides his role in The Perfectionists, Eli also appeared on Netflix’s Spinning Out and has two movies coming.
Together with these stars, HBO Max also announced Lethal Weapon’s Jonathan Fernandez who already has a big career in comedy. Another supporting character is a Broadway vet and New York City native Jason Gotay who played in Broadway’s Bring It On and Spider-Man: Turn off the Dark.
In The New Society
Unlike the 2007 series, Gossip Girl 2.0 will feature “non-white leads” for it will be more people of color and queer content that will rule the reboot. Safran confirmed that it’s a need for the HBO Max series since there was “not a lot of representation” during the first time around.
He also detailed how the show would focus on LGBTQIA+ story lines saying that it will have a lot of queer content and will show the characters dealing with the way the world looks now, where wealth and privilege come from, and how to deal with that.
With all that’s confirmed and revealed, we all know that this reboot will truly mirror the society we live in today. However, as much as we’re extremely excited about it, the only thing we can do as of now is to wait. And just like everyone, the bar is really high for the long-awaited Gossip Girl reboot.
Okay, let’s give this a go, shall we?
xoxo,
Gossip Girl.
