Hey Upper East Siders, Gossip Girl here, and I have the greatest news ever: Kristen Bell, the chick whose voice you no doubt heard in your head while reading that sentence, is returning to voice the cyber tea-spiller in the reboot.
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The Hollywood Reporter reveals that the OG narrator of the teen drama series underwent a months-long dealmaking process with HBO Max but has finally inked a deal to return for the reboot.
“Kristen Bell has always been and will always be the voice of Gossip Girl,” the producers said in a statement Thursday.
The HBO Max reboot, written by former showrunner Josh Safran, was immediately picked up straight to series with a 10-episode order.
The reboot has been described as an extension of the original series that takes place eight years after the original site went dark.
It follows a new gen of New York private school teens who are introduced to the all-knowing Gossip Girl.
Bell served as the narrator — the omniscient blogger Gossip Girl — for all six seasons. She even appeared onscreen briefly for a surprise cameo (playing herself) in the series finale alongside The O.C. star Rachel Bilson.
Check it:
“The show went off the air in 2012, and a couple of years later there was talk of revisiting it as a low-budget feature at New Line. The idea of being able to do it on a streamer where we’re less restricted was very exciting to us, so we called [executive producer] Josh Safran,” creator Josh Schwartz told THR of the reboot.
“Safran loves twists and turns,” added co-creator Stephanie Savage. “I don’t think it’s going to be a meditative version of Gossip Girl. It’s not a tone poem. If it’s more explicit, that’s something that we’ve talked about and haven’t really come up with a solid take on. Like, can they swear? Maybe there will be some nudity. We haven’t really figured it out.”
The premiere date has yet to be determined but it will presumably be at some point over the next year or so as HBO Max is set to launch in May 2020.
