iCarly cast open up about how the show is ‘a love letter to the fans’

It’s been almost 15 years since the premiere of iCarly, the extremely popular Nickelodeon series which broke viewership records for the television channel, earned a whopping seven Emmy nominations and launched Miranda Cosgrove as a household name.

iCarly was rebooted on Paramount+ last year to enormous success, reintroducing the teenage characters as adults specifically for the audience that grew up with the original show, and now the highly-anticipated second season is about to drop.

Chatting with Yahoo Lifestyle ahead of the release, Miranda admits that the experience of returning to the series she starred in at 13-years-old has been “a little weird at times”.

“Even the first season when we saw the sets for the first time, it was emotional, but it was also so strange,” she reflects.

“It was a little like The Twilight Zone, like seeing them all again but being in a different studio, and then all of us just being older.

“But yeah, I mean, there have been so many great moments and great things about getting to do this again and getting to play a character again that I never thought that I would play as an adult. It's been really fun.”

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Jerry Trainor, who plays the fan favourite character Spencer Shay in the show, agrees that there’s both a “comforting nostalgia” and a sense of deja vu with life right now.

“I never thought we'd be back doing this,” he says.

“But it's kind of fun and the reaction that we're getting from the fans is largely positive and people seem almost appreciative that there's something lighthearted and whimsical out there that they can just kind of watch and escape for a little bit.”

‘This show is just a love letter to the fans’

Speaking about returning for a second season, Nathan Kress (Freddie Benson) says it was a “general flood of relief” being able to come back.

“We all had our hopes, but no one can expect anything these days, these are wild times. Much beloved things don't always get the run that you hope that they do,” he details.

“So the fact that the fans really stuck with it and they just came out in droves to support it, I think had a lot to do with the fact that we're still here and still making this show. And because of that, I said it during the first season but it’s even more during the second season, this show is just a love letter to the fans.

“We're just trying to take the aspects that they like, and especially the aspects that they like from the first season, and refresh those, look at them in a different way, continue on those themes, build on who these characters are, and just try to deliver for them as best we can.”

‘Wild, wacky fun’

Laci Mosley, who joined the series last season as the new character Harper Bettencourt, agrees that iCarly is “one of the few beloved shows” that actually thinks about their fans during the writing process.

“Normally with television, it’s like, ‘You get what we give you!’. But iCarly is a little bit more like, ‘We check the suggestion box a little bit’,” she explains.

“And so I think that's really cool because they're almost like a part of continuing this universe. But I think that what we do really well is capturing the essence and the wild, wacky fun that was in the original iCarly that I loved to watch.

“So you get to see new evolving people in situations that are much similar to the fans who grew up with the show and I think that that's really cool."

Cameo appearances

Like most TV revivals, one of the most exciting aspects of the new iCarly is the opportunity for characters and cast members who appeared in the original series over a decade ago to make cameo appearances.

Season one saw the return of Marissa Benson, Nevel Papperman and Nora Dershlit, among others, while season two will feature Lewbert Sline, Guppy Gibson and Chuck Chambers.

“It was really fun having Jeremy Rowley back who played Lewbert on the show,” Miranda remarks. “I had a really good time doing that episode, and it’s one of the first episodes that’s going to come out. I had a great time seeing him again.

“I feel like people are going to love seeing the Chuck and Spencer dynamic again,” Jerry adds. “There was a lot of clamouring for that. Ryan Ochoa who plays him was so game. He was like, I want to come back! Let's do this!”

‘It would just be like my peak in life’

For future episodes and a potential third season, Nathan has plenty of ideas of who he’d like to see back on the show.

“I don't know if it's bad to say or not because part of the mystique is that we've never seen him, but I would so love to see what Socko in an adult iCarly would look like,” he says.

“Or maybe a little bit of family background of Freddie's dad, because no one's ever explained what the deal is with him. And I've said it before, I'll say it again, I want Ed Helms to be my dad so bad.

“Watching him and Mary Scheer as Mrs Benson go at it would just be like my peak in life, and therefore I will just continually campaign for Ed Helms to be my daddy.”

Season two of iCarly is streaming exclusively on Paramount+ from Saturday, April 9.

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