For years following the series’ 2007 premiere, Nickelodeon’s coming-of-age sitcom iCarly reigned over family households. Today, the 2023 reboot of the viral webshow is heading towards its third season on Paramount+. With Miranda Cosgrove serving as an executive producer, longtime fans and original characters — such as her older brother Spencer — get to witness the brewing romance between Freddie and Carly and the jealousy that emerges along the way.
“The biggest reward is payoff for the audience with this new season,” Nathan Kress, who has played Freddie Benson for a total of nine seasons, told LATINA. “We’ve kept fans hanging for a really, really, really, really long time and it’s finally time to let them see what happens when Carly and Freddie are faced with the question, ‘Do they love each other or not?’ There is a lot of story to unpack there.”
“iThrow a Flawless Dinner Party” – Eps#112 — (back row L-R) Millicent (Jaidyn Triplett), Dutch (Poppy Liu) and Spencer (Jerry Trainor), (front row L-R) Harper (Laci Mosley), Carly (Miranda Cosgrove) and Freddie (Nathan Kress) and Hon the Paramount+ series iCARLY. Photo: Lisa Rose/Paramount+ ©2021, All Rights Reserved.
Outside of Freddie and Carly’s slow and developing feelings being newly-addressed in season three, there are new faces in the reboot. Laci Mosley (Lopez v Lopez, A Black Lady Sketch Show) plays Harper, Carly’s candid bestie and Jaidyn Triplett (Family Reunion, Black-ish) fills the role of Millicent Mitchell, Freddie’s adopted step-daughter. Mitchell is the wise-cracking social media expert who has her finger on the pulse of everything Gen Z.
“I didn’t grow up watching iCarly, but I began watching it when they put it on Netflix after I got my audition,” Triplett tells LATINA. “I definitely think TikTok is like having your own webshow. It is a place to share your thoughts and ideas, as well as a creative space for many different minds.”
The 13-year-old actress, who first started acting when she was three, grew up with actor parents who helped her discover her interests for the performing arts. She came up in a culturally-blended upbringing — her mom is of Puerto Rican descent and her father is African American.
Jaidyn Triplett is no stranger to comedic acting and improv, as she’s previously appeared on Family Reunion and Black-ish, as well as on dramas including AppleTV+’s See, Station 19 and The Affair. “There is a lot of improv on the show, and I think that’s mainly the reason why our characters are who they are because we really get to put ourselves into our characters by adding a little line here or there, and then it gets written into the script,” Jaidyn says sitting next to the cast over Zoom.
Nathan Kress as Freddie Benson, Jaidyn Triplett as Millicent Mitchell and Jerry Trainor as Spencer Shay in iCARLY episode 2 season 3 streaming on Paramount+, 2023. Photo credit: Bonnie Osborne/Nickelodeon/Paramount+ © 2022 Paramount Global. All Rights Reserved.
In the series, Millicent develops a crush of her own on her classmate Derek. With each character’s toils with friendship and love, viewers get a chance to see various innocent stages of crushes transition into more serious emotional dynamics. Jaidyn as Millicent helps the iCarly gang understand the internet more fluently as the go-to person for whenever they need to get a new viral trend. “We just text Jaidyn,” Mosley who plays Harper quickly interjects when asked about how they stay in-the-know while playing characters who host their own webshow alongside Carly, famously played by Miranda Cosgrove. Jerry Trainor and Freddie Benson are heavy gif senders according to Jaidyn.
Jaidyn Triplett highlights how much the cast has bonded through making each other laugh and pulling pranks on set. The rookie actor is fully aware of the mark she is making by being on iCarly: “It is really important for me to embrace my Afro-Latina culture, especially in the entertainment industry, because I feel like we don’t get much recognition and I want to change that. The thing I love the most is that I get to represent the little girls that look like me.”
Malik Peay is a music, travel, film, and fashion journalist
