OMG, The Original 'Gossip Girl' Cast Was Invited To Join The New HBO Reboot

As soon as the Gossip Girl reboot was announced, fans began asking enough questions to fill Gossip Girl's blog and beyond. A lot of questions are still unanswered, including the pressing matter of which of the original Upper East Siders will appear in the new series. Gossip Girl made waves when it first premiered in 2007 for a number of reasons, but one of the biggest was the appeal of its main cast. The series catapulted many of the actors to stardom, and now fans are wondering, will the original Gossip Girl cast be in the reboot? The good news for fans is that the creators have already reached out to possibly get the stars involved.

At the 2019 TV Critics Association summer press tour, series creator Josh Schwartz talked to reporters about the upcoming Gossip Girl reboot. It seems everyone has been itching to find out if the original cast — which includes Blake Lively, Leighton Meester, Penn Badgley, Ed Westwick and Chace Crawford — will be returning to their iconic roles, and Schwartz gave fans some hope. He said:

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]. 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.

The Gossip Girl reboot will take place eight years after the previous series and follow a new generation of New York City private school teens. Specific details about the new characters and new plot are being kept secret, but fans can rule out one possibility: At the TCA summer press tour, Schwartz was asked if the series will feature the children of the original characters. He immediately shot that idea down, saying, "No, we're not that old!"

While fans are crossing out the theory that the original cast members will be playing parents in the new Gossip Girl series, they can also forget another role the original cast definitely won't be filling. At the end of the original Gossip Girl, Badgley's character Dan Humphrey was revealed to be the person behind the Gossip Girl blog all along. However, Schwartz confirmed Badgley won't be Gossip Girl this time around. Instead, all the new show's characters will be contributing to keeping the blog alive, which makes sense in today's hyper-digital age. Schwartz said:

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.

It's possible even the voice of Gossip Girl will be different in the new series as well. Kristen Bell famously lent her voice as the series' de facto narrator, but she was cagey about revealing whether she'll be involved with the reboot. When asked about it at Comic-Con, she simply replied with a famous Gossip Girl quote: "Maybe. I'll never tell." If only there were a real-life Gossip Girl to give fans all the details about this long-awaited reboot.