Laci Mosley on the Surreal Experience of Bringing Back iCarly

Reboots are a dime a dozen these days. This time, it’s the campy teen classic iCarly that’s back for more. Ten years after the series finale, the show’s new chapter follows members of the original cast (Miranda Cosgrove, Nathan Kress, and Jerry Trainor return) as they wrangle with more mature fare. To kick up the nostalgia factor, the pilot episode was directed by none other than Phill Lewis (who played Mr. Moseby in the millennial childhood classic The Suite Life of Zack and Cody). Premiering today on Paramount+, the reboot also welcomes a few fresh faces to its ensemble. Among the new cast members is Laci Mosley (also a mainstay on A Black Lady Sketch Show) who plays Harper, Carly’s best friend and roommate. Below, Mosley spoke with us about bringing her favorite childhood show back to the screen, the newfound maturity of the reboot, and the other shows she’d love to raise from the dead.

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JULIANA UKIOMOGBE: Hey, Laci!

LACI MOSLEY: Hi, Juliana! Are you having a good morning?

UKIOMOGBE: I am. How are you?

MOSLEY: I’m great. I’m in the hair and makeup trailer.

UKIOMOGBE: Oh cool, are you on set?

MOSLEY: Yes, I am.

UKIOMOGBE: Lovely. We love to be working.

MOSLEY: Honey, we love to be booked and busy.

UKIOMOGBE: So, we’re here to talk about all things iCarly. Were you a fan of the original show?

MOSLEY: Yes. Doing the show is really surreal because I grew up as the same age as these characters. Nathan Kress, Miranda Cosgrove, and I are all around the same age. So I basically get to walk into a living museum of my childhood. I watched the show growing up and now I get to walk back into some of the original sets and see the original set pieces, like the jukebox. I felt like I was at Madame Tussauds.

UKIOMOGBE: What was the audition process like?

MOSLEY: The audition process was probably not traditional. I got a call from my agent on a Saturday saying that Nickelodeon and Paramount had reached out for me to test for iCarly. So I never even originally auditioned for the show. It was just a test kind of situation, but they were like, “The showrunner will hop on zoom with you today if you want,” and I was like, “Really? Absolutely.” So I hopped on the phone and we talked about the show and about the vision and what they were interested in and what I was interested in, and immediately I fell in love. I’m really interested in working with kind, smart, talented people because Hollywood’s oftentimes filled with too many awful, egotistical monsters. So I really wanted to do the show.

UKIOMOGBE: What year did this all take place?

MOSLEY: This was in 2021. I had just finished A Black Lady Sketch Show when I got the test offer. I tested and then I found out at the end of the week that I got it. Then the next week I started working. It was really quick.

UKIOMOGBE: Yeah, that’s a fast turnaround. Tell me about your character Harper. What does she add to the dynamic?

MOSLEY: I think that Harper’s character adds a lot of fun and an adult millennial perspective. She used to be rich, but now she’s poor. She went to college and now she has debt and is unemployed. So I think that she adds a lot of the millennial perspective. She’s also Black and queer and it doesn’t feel forced. It feels like a natural, real-life human being. I am also queer and I really fell in love with the character because she feels like me.

UKIOMOGBE: Is this a more mature approach to the show as opposed to the original?

MOSLEY: Yes. If you were a fan of the original iCarly and were around the same age as those characters, it’s a really cool experience because you get to grow up with them. The reboot picks up almost ten years later and now, it’s a more mature version. Sometimes there’s a little cursing, sometimes there are some adult situations, but you can still watch it with your mom.

UKIOMOGBE: Are you excited for it to finally be out in the world?

MOSLEY: I’m so excited for people to see it. It comes out on June 17th on Paramount+ and they’re going to be dropping a couple of episodes at once, so you’ll get to binge a little bit. I’m excited to watch it. The trailer came out last week and then the intro to the show came out this week and watching it was really surreal.

UKIOMOGBE: Can you speak a bit about some of the backlash your character received, simply for being a Black woman? Did you anticipate that reaction or did it surprise you?

MOSLEY: As a Black woman, I’ve been in this little brown body my entire life, and so racism isn’t quite a surprise to me, but I will say that no matter how much of it you experience, it still hurts and it still feels fresh and new. I certainly didn’t think that being employed as a Black woman would become a radical political statement. I didn’t think that people would be upset about my skin color and certainly didn’t expect people to call me the N-word over and over on multiple social media platforms and make TikToks that my little sister is seeing. It was disappointing and it was disheartening, but at the same time, I was overwhelmed right after that by the support of the real iCarly fans—those who aren’t filled with hate and who loved the show. There are more people like that than these sick, racist people. There was also an overwhelming amount of support from the cast and crew, I mean, right down to the camera department. Everyone was rallying around me and really expressing how much we don’t condone hate. So overall it was a rough experience in the beginning because I was taken aback and emotional, but at the end of the day, I was really impressed and felt very loved by all the support that came after.

UKIOMOGBE: I can’t imagine that experience, but I’m so excited for people to finally see the show and to see how much you add to the dynamic.

MOSLEY: Thank you! I am too. I think people are going to love it. I always say the heart of iCarly was camp. It was a weird world where there were no parents at the time, really. We keep true to that, but now they’re adults. So you can still watch a fun campy show that allows you to escape from your reality, and they may bring up stuff that you relate to now as an adult like you did when you were a kid.

UKIOMOGBE: Do you have a favorite storyline that you can tease for us?

MOSLEY: Let’s just say that there is a point where these characters are going to get scammed, and I host a podcast called “Scam Goddess,” so I’m very, very into scams. It’s a really fun episode.

UKIOMOGBE: Oh, love that.

MOSLEY: I mean, the scammers are out here, girl.

UKIOMOGBE: They really are. Are there any other shows that you’d like to see rebooted or reimagined?

MOSLEY: You know what I want? I want Rugrats back. I want grown Rugrats. I want to see what Angelica is up to.

UKIOMOGBE: I know they’re rebooting The Proud Family, so that might be cute.

MOSLEY: Oh, that’s going to be amazing. That show was so good. And shout out to Beyoncé and Solange for that theme song that lives forever in my head.

UKIOMOGBE: They did God’s work with that song.

MOSLEY: Amen.