The cast of Goosebumps: The Vanishing revealed whether they watched the first season — or spoke to the original stars of the show — after the anthology shakeup.
During an exclusive interview with Us Weekly, Ana Ortiz, Elijah M. Cooper, Galilea La Salvia, Francesca Noel, Stony Blyden, Sam McCarthy and Jayden Bartels discussed how they prepared to join a show that previously had a different cast and story.
“I think because of the anthology nature of it, it’s natural to keep it as new as possible,” Blyden, 28, who plays Trey, said about not spending too much dwelling on what came before. “But it was a fantastic season.”
Cooper, meanwhile, was a big fan of Goosebumps, adding, “It really was a great watch. I watched the first season multiple times too. It was legitimately iconic.”
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La Salvia, 21, who brings Frankie to life, couldn’t help but agree. “I definitely watched season 1 and I remember we would talk about it when we first got on set,” she recalled. “Like we would say, ‘Did you see the cliffhanger? Did you see this? Did you see that?’ It was really fun.”
The horror series originally premiered in October 2023 and took inspiration from R.L. Stine‘s popular horror novels. Goosebumps was introduced as a show that followed five teenagers who had to work together after accidentally releasing supernatural forces into their small town. While trying to recapture the evil spirits, the group unlocked secrets of their parents’ pasts.
Goosebumps initially starred Isa Briones, Ana Yi Puig, Zack Morris, Miles McKenna and Will Price as the show’s protagonists. However, when the series was renewed four months later, Disney confirmed there would be a cast and story shakeup. Season 2 is centered around twins who are sent to spend a summer in Brooklyn with their divorced dad (David Schwimmer) whose plant-testing takes a sinister turn.
“I’m someone who usually does approach things with a fresh perspective,” Noel, who portrays Alex, noted. “I saw the pilot of this. But I wanted to come into it differently because it’s a totally different world, and New York is very particular. And one of the great things about Goosebumps is that there are so many books. So there are so many stories that we could keep telling for 20 seasons.”
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Ortiz had a similar experience where she “watched the first season” but “didn’t talk to any of the cast” from those episodes. Then there is Bartels, who researched season 1 before diving into playing Cece.
“I definitely would say I wanted to know the vibe and get that knowledge. But I think that it definitely was a fresh slate in another way too. It’s the same series, but I definitely wanted for my character and my performance to do what I felt was authentic and genuine,” she explained to Us. “We definitely pulled from the vibe of the first season, but this is a new story line and a lot of things are different. It’s all the same Goosebumps scares though.”
McCarthy agreed with Bartels’ take, adding, “[Season 1] was almost separate from the work I did.”
The shift wasn’t just felt in front of the camera but behind it as well. Executive producers Rob Letterman and Hilary Winston told Us about the challenges that came with starting from scratch in the same universe.
“When we switched into an anthology, it really fit what Goosebumps is. So if you’re fan of the books, you know that R.L. Stine doesn’t write happily ever after at the end of the books. In fact, he goes out of his way not to do that,” Letterman noted. “He leaves it with a cliffhanger or a twist. So when we looked at the ending of season 1, it just kind of felt like the perfect Goosebumps ending for what that story line was.”
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They aren’t, however, ruling out a Goosebumps “multiverse.” There was also an effort to keep some aspects similar for returning viewers.
“Season 2 we wanted to swing the pendulum and do something different. But we also wanted fans of the first season to feel comfortable in the model of what the storytelling was. So that’s how we kept that structure of a mystery we have to unpack,” Letterman continued. “Something happened 30 years ago, and each character that you meet gets their own monster story line and they cross paths, and then by the middle of the season they’re figuring out it’s all related to what happened in the past.”
He concluded: “We liked that framing device but we wanted to tell something totally new and fresh. It’s a nice balancing act for keeping the familiarity of the Goosebumps TV series going while doing it as an anthology.”
Goosebumps is currently streaming on Disney+ and Hulu.
