When it comes to shows about high school, so rarely do the alleged teenagers actually act their age. What fun would that be? On The CW's original Gossip Girl, the cast behaved more like polished 20-somethings (with a large line of credit to spend on cool clothes and martinis at NYC prices) than they did high school juniors, which is what the main crew started off as when we met them in 2007's pilot episode. Now, HBO Max has just dropped their reboot of the iconic teen drama, and it's worth wondering: just how old are the new Gossip Girl characters, no matter how they behave?
It's a bit unclear, but it appears that most of the new crew are, once again, high school juniors. They're high schoolers who have lived through the coronavirus pandemic, starting school in September 2021. (There are quite a few mentions of quarantine and even one character musing about how they almost didn't recognize their friend's face without a mask.)
The students who are juniors (so, around 16/17 years old) are Julien Calloway, Audrey Hope, Obie Bergmann, Aki Menzies, Max Wolfe, Luna Let, and Monet de Haan. They loathe freshman and aren't plotting post-grad futures yet, so it's safe to say that they spent much of their sophomore year remote learning.
Not all of the actors ages are public, but of those we know, here are there real life ages:
Jordan Alexander (Julien): 27
Emily Alyn Lind (Audrey): 19
Eli Brown (Obie): 21
Evan Mock (Aki): 24
Zion Moren (Luna): 26
Thomas Doherty (Max): 26
The youngest character is Zoya Lott, the half sister of influencer Julien. (Played by Whitney Peak, who is 18.) Her dad calls her a freshman when she dresses up for the first day of school, and Monet and Luna initially treat her as invisible due to her niner status. (Among other reasons.) Julien even declares her a "14 year old nobody." Just call her Little Z.
In the world of Gossip Girl, age is nothing but a number... but it may help us figure out just how long we have with these characters while they're still in high school and the show isn't struggling to find ways to keep their shenanigans in NYC.
Images: HBO Max