The stars of the Gossip Girl reboot have revealed how the new series will be “completely different” from the original.
The continuation of the popular teen drama series is set to premiere on HBO Max later this year, bringing a whole new cast and storylines.
Whitney Peak, Emily Alyn Lind, Evan Mock and Jordan Alexander, who are all starring in the show, appeared on the latest edition of Dazed magazine, where they teased what to expect from the highly anticipated reprise.
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Emily, who will play Audrey Hope, said: “It’s not a reboot, it’s a continuation, so we have an entirely new story and I think that’s really important.”
Discussing the show’s characters who are part of the LGBTQ+ community, she added: “It’s really important for us to not just talk about these things but also express them as normal things that kids deal with.”
“It shouldn’t be this new, exciting thing to talk about, it just exists. It’s about normalising things that used to be different or taboo.”
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Whitney, who plays Zoya Lott, said: “There’s a lot of representation, which I can’t say we saw a lot of in the first one.”
“It’s dope being able to see people who look like you and who are interested in the same things, and who happen to be in entertainment, because it’s so influential and obviously reflective of the times.”
Emily revealed: “Gender roles will be talked about and dissected. A lot of the women in our show are very powerful, but I think they were in the original as well.”
“We’ll be exploring what it means to be a woman in this generation, and in general, exploring ideas that we didn’t before.”
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Opening up about the pressure of their roles in such an iconic series, Emily said: “We realised we could take these roles and make them our own – they have their own qualities that are special and differentiate [them] from the original.”
“I think people will relate to them on different levels… These are new characters, new storylines. It’s a new generation.”
Jordan, who plays Julien Calloway, added: “We’re just keeping an open mind, staying true to the essence of Gossip Girl but with a completely different take on it.”
Although the original cast won’t make an appearance in the reboot, Kristen Bell will return to narrate the series as the voice of Gossip Girl.
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The show’s official summary reads: “Eight years after the original website went dark, a new generation of New York private school teens are introduced to the social surveillance of Gossip Girl.”
“The prestige series will address just how much social media-and the landscape of New York itself-has changed in the intervening years.”
Last month, HBO Max shared the names and official photos of Gossip Girl’s brand new characters.
