Gossip Girl reboot star Whitney Peak is opening up about the challenges of revisiting a hit show.
Based on the Cecily von Ziegesar book series by the same name, the original Gossip Girl ran for six seasons on the CW between 2007 and 2012, starring Blake Lively, Leighton Meester, Penn Badgley, Chace Crawford and Ed Westwick.
HBO Max's reboot of the iconic teen series, first announced in 2019, is set to premiere later this year with a whole new group of privileged New York City students getting entangled in drama under the watchful eye of the ubiquitous Gossip Girl.
During a recent interview with Wonderland magazine, 18-year-old Peak said the spotlight on the upcoming show can get "overwhelming" at times.
"We haven't even finished filming the show yet and there's already so much media attention and such a huge fandom," she told the magazine. "Everybody has something to say about it, and I can't add to the conversation. It's kind of overwhelming. But I'm so excited for the audience to be caught off-guard!"
Last month, Peak and three of her costars — Emily Alyn Lind, Evan Mock and Jordan Alexander — told Dazed magazine that their show is "completely different" from the original.
"These are new characters, new storylines," said Lind. "It's a new generation."
"We're just keeping an open mind, staying true to the essence of Gossip Girl but with a completely different take on it," added Alexander.
Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE's free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from juicy celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.
Among the differences is greater representation of people of color and queer people. Writer and producer Josh Safran previously said at the 2019 Vulture Festival that "there's a lot of queer content on this show."
"I think that what we can say is this — we're making a series in 2020 and 2021," Lind, 18, told Dazed when asked about queer representation. "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."
Peak added that the increased representation in the new Gossip Girl is "reflective of the times."
"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."
A premiere date for the Gossip Girl reboot has not yet been announced.
Source: Read Full Article