The 'Gossip Girl' Reboot Will Be “'Downton Abbey' Meets 'Big Little Lies'”
Though their run ended in 2012, Blake Lively's Serena van der Woodson and Leighton Meester's Blair Waldorf are forever in our hearts—and the millennial television canon. Now, their spiritual descendants are heading to the small screen in July. Gossip Girl 2.0 introduces a brand new cast of relative up-and-comers and portrays the increased ubiquity of social media. Unlike the original, the cast is diverse and the show is more "woke" and "graphic," according to early intel. And these teenagers do exist in the same world as the original—the reboot is a continuation of the first storyline.
The lead characters have been introduced and the storyline appears to revolve around half-sisters Julien (Jordan Alexander), a wealthy social media influencer, and Zoya (Whitney Peak) a middle-class newcomer. Former Rookie editor and fashion blogger Tavi Gevinson plays Kate Keller, a "flustered teacher."
Despite the differences (i.e. Brooklyn is trendy and chic, rather than Dan Humphrey's wasteland, as the original portrayed it), the new Gossip Girl's intrigue is set to be just as compelling. "How much drama can I make?” showrunner Josh Safran recently told New York.
As we prepare for the premiere, here's what we know about the Gossip Girl reboot.
A next-generation Gossip Girl revival is officially in the works from HBO Max.
The creators of the original series, Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage, have signed on to helm a Gen-Z revival of the beloved show.
"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," read a press release, per Vulture. "The prestige series will address just how much social media—and the landscape of New York itself—has changed in the intervening years."
Watch the full trailer here:
The show will premiere this July.
The Gossip Girl Twitter account recently announced an air date. The show will hit HBO Max July 8. Alongside this major news, the account posted a video of the new cast.
The lead characters have been introduced.
A Cosmopolitan cover gave us a few details on the lead characters. Whitney Peak plays Zoya, a relatable Dan Humphrey-esque character. Emily Alyn Lind is Audrey, a wealthy Constance Billard student whose mother is an athleisure designer. Audrey and Aki (Evan Mock) are dating and Audrey's best friend is teen influencer Julien (Jordan Alexander).
Eli Brown acts as rich do-gooder German Obie and Thomas Doherty plays Max, who seems to be a Chuck Bass parallel for 2021. "Does Max make out with boys?” Doherty said. “Yes, I do get naked, and yes, I do indulge.”
Also in the mix are Luna, played by Zión Moreno, and Monet, played by newcomer Savannah Smith. Tavi Gevinson plays Kate Keller, a "flustered teacher," according to New York Magazine. Tony Award winning actress Laura Benanti will also feature in the series.
Gossip Girl also posted a series of portraits of the cast on Instagram, along with their characters' name and a one-word description of their personalities. Check them out below.
The new series will be “Downton Abbey meets Big Little Lies.”
Showrunner Josh Safran recently revealed his concept for the show to Variety. He shared that he envisions the reboot as "a comedy of manners, but it’s also a comedy." Safran, who also wrote and produced the original Gossip Girl, noted that he sees the show as "Downton Abbey meets Big Little Lies," referencing the hit Masterpiece period drama and the HBO series based on Liane Moriarty's thriller novel by the same name. Safran also called the show 'Edith Wharton-y" with an "arsenic-under-the-tongue thing."
Safran also revealed that the audience will know who Gossip Girl during the first episode; however, that is a secret he's keeping until the show's premiere.
Cast members promise it will feel very of the moment.
In an interview with Dazed, a few Gossip Girl actors opened up about what's to come.
"I think that what we can say is this – we’re making a series in 2020 and 2021," said Emily Alyn Lind. "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 normalizing things that used to be different or taboo."
Added Jordan Alexander, "Like Emily is saying, people are allowed to just be there and be whatever they are—whether it’s queer or not. Just in the sense that, like, we’re all just humans existing. People do what people do."
Whitney Peak noted that it will be much more diverse than the original Gossip Girl. "There’s a lot of representation, which I can’t say we saw a lot of in the first one," she said. "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."
Model Evan Mock, who will make his acting debut in the reboot likewise told Vanity Fair that the new version will be more "woke," "blunt," and "graphic" than the original (which he had never watched until after he began filming the reboot), describing his character as someone who is "figuring things out sexually."
The series will have a surprise "twist."
In an interview with Cosmopolitan, Safran disclosed that the reboot will have an unexpected "twist." However, he would not reveal what the twist is exactly. At the Vulture Festival, he did note that it relates to the reboot's increased focus on representation, alongside the roots of wealth and privilege.
"There was not a lot of representation the first time around on the show," Safran said. "I was the only gay writer I think the entire time I was there. Even when I went to private school in New York in the ’90s, the school didn’t necessarily reflect what was on Gossip Girl. So, this time around the leads are nonwhite. There’s a lot of queer content on this show. It is very much dealing with the way the world looks now, where wealth and privilege come from, and how you handle that. The thing I can’t say is there is a twist, and that all relates to the twist."
We do know that the reboot takes place after COVID-19, when everyone is vaccinated and crowding into packed bars once again. Safran also revealed that, rather than a blog like in the original series, the new Gossip Girl will be something more like "an all-encompassing social media platform." The showrunner is intentionally vague with this description.
"My hope is that we make it to airing and people don’t know,” Safran said of the Gossip Girl platform. “I would love to see that conversation happen in the context of people having seen it as opposed to talking about something they haven’t seen.”
Donna Murphy has joined the cast.
Two-time Tony Award winner Donna Murphy—also known for her onscreen work in Tangled, Center Stage, and more—is set to appear in the series. HBO Max confirmed the news to Vulture, and OK! reports that Murphy will play a high school headmistress.
Savannah Smith told T&C what to expect.
Smith, who plays Monet de Haan in the upcoming series, gave T&C an idea of how this Gossip Girl will differ from the original.
“Originally, I thought it was a reboot [of the original Gossip Girl series], but it’s an extension—the old characters already exist and we’re the new kids in town,” she said. “I love that idea because it makes it easy to modernize; everything feels very now. There are still socialites and billionaires, but we’re discovering what that means in 2021.”
The actors were spotted on set.
The series was originally slated to debut in the fall of 2020, but COVID-19 threw a wrench in the schedule, forcing production to shut down in the spring before it even began. However, the actors were able to head to set even though it was later than anticipated. Gossip Girl-watchers received a crop of behind-the-scenes photos as the actors filmed around New York.
Karena Evans directed the first two episodes.
Evans is best known for directing Drake music videos, including “God’s Plan” and “Nice for What,” but has recently begun working in TV, directing episodes for P-Valley and Snowfall. Said executive producer Joshua Safran in a statement, “I couldn’t be more excited for Karena to launch the new series. Her vision, voice, and passion are incomparable. It’s an honor and a privilege to get to work with her, and I can’t wait for everyone to see what she has planned.”
Kristen Bell is reprising her role as the show's narrator.
Any true fan knows that Dan "Lonely Boy" Humphrey ended up being the show's central mystery blogger, but Gossip Girl was always voiced by none other than Kristen Bell.
This week, TV Line confirmed that she has signed on for the new project. “Kristen Bell has always been and will always be the voice of Gossip Girl,” said showrunners Josh Schwartz, Stephanie Savage, and Joshua Safran in a joint statement.
The show will take place in the "same universe" as the original.
"I think of it like the Marvel universe. It's not a continuation or a sequel. It truly just is looking at a different angle," producer Joshua Safran told Entertainment Tonight. "It's the same high school, so we're back at Constance Billard. We are looking at a group of friends in their junior year. Those pieces are the same. They're still in the uniforms... Not everyone lives on the Upper East Side, though. Brooklyn's not the bad place to live."
And as for the original group of high schoolers? "They are a part of the world," Safran said. "The characters talk about them and that they do exist. So, yeah, I would love to have [the actors] come back. The show jumped five years in the future when it ended and we are past that five years now, so it's whole new things that they could be doing."
There's a chance that some other original cast members could return.
At a press event, Schwartz revealed that he'd offered Gossip Girl stars the opportunity to come back. "We've reached out to all of them to let them know it was happening and we'd love for them to be involved if they want to be involved, but certainly didn't want to make it contingent upon [them being involved]," he said, per ET. "They played these characters for six years, and if they felt like they were good with that, we want to respect that, but obviously... it would be great to see them again."
Still, Schwartz isn't keen on centering the original cast. "We felt that a version with our cast grown up, regardless of what the challenges would be of assembling those actors again, it didn't really feel like a group of adults that would be patrolled by Gossip Girl would make a lot of sense," he said. "So we thought there was something really interesting about the idea that we are all Gossip Girl now, in our own way, that we are all purveyors of our own social media surveillance state and how that has evolved and how that has mutated and morphed and telling that through a new generation of Upper East Side high school kids."
There is one Gossip Girl OG who seems likely to make an appearance. Before the reboot was announced, Chace Crawford told Digital Spy that he'd be up for reprising his role. "I would absolutely cameo," he said. "I'd have to!"
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