Fans of the original Gossip Girl are in for a treat: the hit series is getting an HBO Max reboot in 2021, and original creators Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage will be co-executive producers. We don’t know much about this reboot, but we know one of the main characters will be Zoya “Perspective” Lot, played by Whitney Peak.
Peak won’t be alone: series narrator Kristin Bell is returning, and former cast member Chace Crawford said he’d be up to return in some role (though nothing is confirmed on that front). But enough about familiar faces. What fans want to know is just who Whitney Peak really is!
Whitney Peak is best known to genre fans for her role in the Netflix series The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina. There, she played Sabrina’s frenemy-turned-ally Judith Blackwood, who is a favorite character among many Sabrina fans.
And fans of the original Gossip Girl can certainly breathe a sigh of relief. As she said about the show in a December 2020 conversation with Interview Magazine, “I probably started watching it two years ago and I’ve now seen it three times.”
So, Peak knows the original show and characters inside and out. And she knows the joys of binge-watching this show over and over again. But what do we actually know about her role in this reboot?
According to Deadline, Peak’s character is going to be similar to either Serena or Blair. And she will be part of a core trio of characters. The other two characters will be played by Eli Brown and Emily Alyn Lind.
Obviously, the jury is still out on whether the show will be as good as the original. Reboots are tricky things: if it is too much like the original show, it may look derivative and played out. But if it strays too far from the original formula, it stops being Gossip Girl in anything but name.
But given her talent as an actor and her love of the original source material, it seems clear that Whitney Peak is going to give this show the energy and passions fans are craving.