Miranda Cosgrove is an actress of the people and for the people.
So when the former child star and co-stars Jerry Trainor and Nathan Kress were approached with the idea of reviving Nickelodeon's iCarly, she wanted to make it for the fans who first watched the show in the 'aughts. "They're the people that loved the show originally and they're really who this is for," Miranda told Variety June 28. "So that really gave us a lot of direction after we realized that we were all on board and wanted to do that."
But making an adult version of iCarly wouldn't have been possible without the support of Paramount+. Miranda compared the revival to the ill-fated Lizzie McGuire reboot, which was canceled by Disney+ because of Hilary Duff's desire to include mature story lines.
"I think it would have been kind of strange if we came back and host just primarily a kid show now that we're all grown up," she said. "That just wouldn't have made a whole lot of sense. I think unlike [Lizzie McGuire] we got lucky just because of the platform that the new version is on."
Miranda noted that families can still watch the show together, but it's not as silly. As she said, "This new version of it is really about people in their late 20s, navigating life and figuring out what to do."
The original series aired from 2007 to 2012, after which Miranda attended the University of Southern California. Her decision to attend college played a major role in the series' ending, with the actress explaining, "I just always knew I really wanted to have that college experience and I'd been doing homeschooling for so long with the show, that it just felt like the right time."
Miranda is enjoying working again, especially now that she gets to have more of a say as an executive producer. "It was the scariest thing about coming back because I've never done anything like that before," she shared. "But it's also the thing that has helped me grow the most, and that I'm the most proud of."
The first season of iCarly is streaming now on Paramount+.