Gossip Girl Reboot Cast Opens Up About How Different the HBO Max Revival Show is From the Original

The stars of HBO Max's upcoming Gossip Girl reboot spilled more details on how the new show will differ from the original. As per People Magazine, four of the new cast members including Whitney Peak, Emily Alyn Lind, Evan Mock, and Jordan Alexander recently told Dazed Magazine that their show will be "completely different" from the popular original version. "We realized we could take these roles and make them our own - they have their own qualities that are special and differentiate them from the original," Lind said of their characters in a Q&A in the magazine's spring issue. Gossip Girl Reboot: New Characters of the Drama Series Introduced! We Wonder Who Will Be the ‘Serena and Blair’ Duo This Season.

"I think people will relate to them on different levels. These are new characters, new storylines. It's a new generation," added the 18-year-old, who stars as Audrey Hope in the series. Alexander said, "We're just keeping an open mind, staying true to the essence of Gossip Girl but with a completely different take on it." Among the differences is greater representation of people of colour 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." Whitney Peak, Eli Brown Filming for Gossip Girl Reboot in New York.

Lind told Dazed Magazine when asked about queer representation, "I think that what we can say is this -- we're making a series in 2020 and 2021. 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."

Alexander said, "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." Peak added that the increased representation in the new 'Gossip Girl' is "reflective of the times." Peak 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."

Lind also said she personally "didn't want to take anything" from the CW original. "I wanted to start fresh -- it's a new take on it, a different time. It's not a reboot, it's a continuation, so we have an entirely new story and I think that's really important," she said. The reboot of the CW's iconic teen series is set to premiere sometime 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.

HBO Max announced the reboot in 2019, with original creators Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage tied to the project. Based on the Cecily von Ziegesar book series, the original 'Gossip Girl' ran for six seasons between 2007 and 2012, starring Blake Lively, Leighton Meester, Penn Badgley, Chace Crawford, and Ed Westwick.