“Zoey 101” alum Jamie Lynn Spears already has someone in mind to play a young Zoey in the revival of the Nickelodeon show: her 12-year-old daughter, Maddie!
In an interview with 360aproko, the 29-year-old actress gave an update on the plans for a “Zoey 101” reboot, sharing her hopes that her daughter could be a part of it.
“Maybe she could play Zoey when she was younger or something,” said Spears, who got her start on Nick when she was only 11. “It’s really strange to look at my now-12-year-old and be like, ‘Oh my gosh, like, I was on a show at this point.’ It’s bizarre, I’m like, I can’t imagine. But then I see all the things that she does that are so amazing. I’m like, I could’ve never stepped up in those ways.”
“So it just really is cool to be able to put myself where she is and what I was doing at this time,” she continued. “I’m able to have a different perspective that I think is important as we hopefully go on this next journey of seeing my children see me when I was their age. It’s really bizarre.”
The county singer, who shares daughter Maddie with ex-fiance Casey Aldridge, also has a 2-year-old daughter with her husband, businessman Jamie Watson.
Spears — who played the titular character on “Zoey 101,” which ran from 2005 to 2008 — confirmed to 360aproko a revival is in the works but said plans have been halted due to the coronavirus pandemic.
“It’s just [hard during] quarantine and all this stuff. I think putting everyone’s safety first is what we are trying to do right now,” she explained. “And conversations that were started before this have kind of [taken] a slow pace, as everything else in the world.”
“I think we are still having the conversations and figuring out how to tell the story in a way that is going to do it justice, because we want it to be good,” Spears continued. “We want it to relate to the fans. That’s why the show worked in the first place, because we connected to our fans and where they were in their life. So we want to make sure we find a home and the best story to tell.”
The “Sweet Magnolias” star also opened up about reuniting with her former co-stars Paul Butcher, Sean Flynn, Matthew Underwood, Erin Sanders, Chris Massey and Kristin Herrera for an upcoming “All That” skit, which features Spears reprising her role as a 101-year-old bodyguard, Thelma Stump.
“This is, was, a very quick reunion. Kind of really just for us to get to see each other again and kind of just see if we saw that chemistry, if it was still there, and it was!” she said of the sketch. “So I think for me, it was just kind of one of those things that assured me that the fans have been wanting it, and then figuring out, is it doable? And this was really fun!”
“We did it where it all began, where I literally got my start, on ‘All That’ and Nickelodeon, and I played two characters,” she continued. “So it was just really a lot of fun, it felt right to me, and hopefully we get to do it again.”
