Gossip Girl reboot showrunner teases original cast cameos later this year

"I definitely know exactly who I would want [in the second season]," he said, explaining that the pandemic had allowed him more time to plot out a potential season two. "Should there be a second season... that's why I know who would be in it."

However, later in the interview he teased that Part Two of the first season — and specifically episode 10 — will also feature "many returning cast members from the original".

"The second half of the season is great. And then there's also many returning cast members from the original in that episode 10," he said, although he remained tight-lipped on who those characters could be (if you need to familiarise yourself with the Constance Billard alumni, you can discover where the cast of Gossip Girl is now).

The reboot on HBO Max has been split into two and, in the US (where the viewing schedule is a little further ahead), fans can now expect Part Two to air sometime in November, beginning with a Thanksgiving episode.

"The show only gets more dramatic, more dark, more twisty [in Part Two]," Safran said. "Thanksgiving is the first episode back; I directed it. It's a tradition of all Gossip Girl Thanksgivings... [that] all hell breaks loose around the table, which is always fun, except because this is the HBO version of the show it's, instead of 10 characters, it's 17 characters; instead of a five page scene around the dinner table, it was an 11 page scene that we shot in one day, which is very much unheard of."

Safran, who was an executive producer on the original series, also revealed that Part Two will feature "one of the darkest episodes" ever seen on Gossip Girl, in addition to a storyline tackling toxic masculinity.

The Thanksgiving episode "was a ball and that episode is a f***ing blast, and it's followed by one of the darkest episodes that we've ever done. And that's sort of, you know, thrilling in its own way, but also very much about something," he said. "And then the episode after that, I'm also incredibly proud of, it's about toxic masculinity. And that's something that we haven't fully ever talked about in Gossip Girl. Maybe it was talked around Gossip Girl. And so that was that was very exciting to film."

All six episodes that make up part one of the Gossip Girl reboot series one will arrive as a box set on iPlayer on Wednesday 25th August, and the first episode will be broadcast on BBC One at 10.35pm that evening. You can also stream every Gossip Girl episode so far on iPlayer already.

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