Who Is Gossip Girl Star Whitney Peak?
Rejoice, Upper East Siders! Gossip Girl is back with a 2021 reboot and a new cast set in the same wealthy, privileged, and very good-looking world, Entertainment Weekly reports. The original series' creators, Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage, who adapted the show from the popular novel franchise of the same name, are co-executive producing alongside showrunner Joshua Safran.
HBO Max's 10-episode reboot will pick up eight years following the original CW series' finale. This means a lot has changed in the luxurious lifestyles of the prep school-attending main characters, from their social media (MySpace was still a thing on the first season of the original) to their use of technology (Blackberries and Motorola Razrs were contemporaneously used devices at the same time, observed The Atlantic). But there will be some familiarity onscreen (well, sort of). With actor Kristen Bell, who voiced the show's narrator, "Gossip Girl" herself, set to return, fellow original cast member Chace Crawford teased that he may be up for a recurring cameo gig, saying on an episode of Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen, "It's great! I could maybe come back and play a father or something."
One of the new main stars of the Gossip Girl revival, 15-year-old Whitney Peak, will play someone called Zoya "Perspective" Lot, according to EW. Since little is known about Zoya, as of this writing, who is the young star behind this character? Read on to find out together.
Whitney Peak understands the 'pressure' of rebooting Gossip Girl
Whitney Peak's character on the Gossip Girl reboot, Zoya "Perspective" Lot, will apparently be either the Serena or Blair of the new show, suggested Deadline in 2020, as the outlet reported that "the new series is said to have a similar character dynamic to the original, with Peak, [Eli] Brown and [Emily Alyn] Lind as the leading trio." For her part, Peak has enjoyed some prior renown for her acting, playing Judith Blackwood on Netflix series The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, according to Elle.
Peak, who was born in Uganda and largely raised in Canada, per a December 2020 Interview profile on her, said that she entered the world of acting after an initial speed bump: when she encountered a Disney Channel audition scam. "But then from there I started doing background acting and then I got cast ... to play the younger version of a lead in a TV series called Minority Report," the teen actor said her journey to TV stardom.
Given that Peak confessed that she's watched the original Gossip Girl three times over, she understands the possessiveness fans feel over the universe constructed in the show, saying "there's definitely a lot of pressure" on the reboot. "People are just conflicted," she noted. "I feel like there's no need to be threatened. It's definitely going to be interesting and I don't think it's going to take away at all from the original show in all its glory."
We can't wait to see this fresh spin on the familiar Gossip Girl setting!