Meet the new Upper East Siders in this preview of the ‘Gossip Girl’ reboot

Gossip Girl, one the seminal series for the millennial generation, ran for six seasons on The CW from 2007 to 2012. It followed a cast of New York elites as they dealt with school, love, loss, and the persistent blogger known as Gossip Girl, who had the deets ready to share about their lives. The series was key to launching The CW as the place for network teen dramas in its nascent years. 

Now, however, we’re getting ready to follow a new generation of socialite youth of New York. Gossip Girl is back to document their every move in the age of influencers & heavy social media usage. While the HBO Max reboot of Gossip Girl boasts a more diverse cast, we’re still, probably, going to get the delicious drama that we loved so much in the original series.

In a cover article for Cosmo, the 2.0 cast of Gossip Girl along with showrunner Josh Safran teased a bit more about what we can expect from the Gossip Girl reboot. Here’s everything that you need to know. 

Gossip Girl: The Platform

In the original series of Gossip Girl, the title referred to a blog run by a mystery writer that was never, ever, ever given a stupid reveal that didn’t make sense. In the present, however, Gossip Girl is no longer just a blog, but a social media platform. And that’s, apparently, all we’re learning until the Gossip Girl reboot is on our screens. They’re going for, like, Marvel level secrecy here.

Safran said, “My hope is that we make it to airing and people don’t know. 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.” What Cosmo was able to give us was the basic rundown of things approved by HBO Max’s PR team, who are, presumably, earning their paychecks by keeping leaks plugged.

The basics of the Gossip Girl reboot

Here’s the basics, according to Cosmo, “Whitney Peak (of Netflix’s Chilling Adventures of Sabrina) plays Zoya, who, like Dan Humphrey, is our relatable-ish tour guide through the rarefied world inhabited by the likes of Audrey, played by Emily Alyn Lind (of 2019’s The Shining sequel, Doctor Sleep), a posh student at Constance whose mother is, of course, an athleisure designer. 

Audrey and Aki (model/skateboarder Evan Mock) have been dating for ages, and—still with me?—her best friend is teen influencer Julien (Jordan Alexander, who most recently starred alongside Juliette Lewis in Facebook Watch’s Sacred Lies). They’re joined by—yep, there’s more—libertine Max (Thomas Doherty, from High Fidelity and Catherine the Great on Hulu) and rich do-gooder and German import Obie (Eli Brown, from Pretty Little Liars: The Perfectionists).”

Rounding out the cast are Luna (Zión Moreno), Monet (Savannah Smith), and Kate Keller (Tavi Gevinson). Moreno, known for her role in Netflix’s Mexican teen drama Control Z, is trans, but did not reveal whether or not her character Luna would be trans in the Gossip Girl reboot. 

Representation

What the cast of the Gossip Girl reboot is willing to share is that we’re going to see a more diverse world within the show. Safran said, “There are more than enough shows with white people centered in them. I’m married to a Mexican American man; I am a queer man. My world is not exclusively white. No one’s is.”

Peak added to Cosmo, “I want all the hers and the hes and the theys and the people of color from all over the world to be able to watch the show and think, That’s a person who looks like me. I don’t have to be the stereotypical idea of who I am.”

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The Gossip Girl reboot is going to hit HBO Max on July 2021.