Ready to feel old? The original CW Gossip Girl ran for three full seasons before the invention of Instagram. That means the teenage storylines of Serena and Blair are as foreign to today’s high schoolers’ experiences as, like, Welcome Back, Kotter. So when HBO Max announced in 2019 that it would revive the world of Gossip Girl for a new generation, executive producer and showrunner Joshua Safran told Vulture at the 2019 Vulture Festival, “this time around, the leads are nonwhite. There’s a lot of queer content on this show.†Since then, casting announcements have been made, but no details about the characters had been divulged. On January 2, the Gossip Girl reboot’s first individual character photos, along with their names and mysterious one-word descriptors, were posted to the show’s official Instagram. It’s a fitting way to usher in a new era of Upper East Siders.
Julien Calloway (played by Jordan Alexander). “Influence.†Because influencers with the last name “Calloway†always serve good drama.
Monet de Haan (played by Savannah Lee Smith). “Power.†Presumably she’ll be set up as the old guard Queen Bee who gets overtaken in an Episode One twist, seeing as she only has one episode credited on IMDB so far.
Luna La (played by Zion Moreno). “Style.†Everyone in the Instagram comments is hoping Luna La will be their new Blair. We’ll believe it when we see the padded headband.
Max Wolfe (played by Thomas Doherty). “Freedom.†Extreme Chuck Bass vibes radiating off of this one. By “Freedom,†we can already tell he means “Headassery with Impunity.â€
Audrey Hope (played by Emily Alyn Lind). “Grace.†So like, does ballet, probably? Owns a horse, definitely?
Kate Keller (played Tavi Gevinson). “Ambition.†While we’re excited for this, we also hope Hollywood is offering Tavi roles other than “teenager.â€
Otto “Obie†Bergmann IV (played by Eli Brown). “Privilege.†Dan Humphrey looks with Nate Archibald means. Some sort of Riverdale-style mashup of both Bergdorf and Goodman. Dangerous combinations, both.
Akeno “Aki†Menzies (played by Evan Mock). “Innocence.†Okay so that keyword implies he’s the newbie to the school who commutes from Brooklyn, or maybe just moved to New York, and hasn’t been corrupted by the Upper East Side’s terrible ways. Got in on a cheekbone scholarship.
Zoya Lott (played by Whitney Peak) is “Perspective.†She’ll either be the outsider looking in, or the friend in the group that’s seriously unaffected by the high school drama because she’s dealing with capital-P Problems in her family’s Grown-Up B-Plot.