School is back in session — and some beloved Hillman College graduates will return for the A Different World sequel series. Jasmine Guy (Whitley Gilbert), Kadeem Hardison (Dwayne Wayne), Darryl M. Bell (Ron Johnson), and Cree Summer (Freddie Brooks) will all reprise their roles in the upcoming comedy, which will explore the lives and loves of a new generation at the iconic fictional HBCU.
“I realized I’ve missed Whitley, and I can’t wait to see what she’s like now,” says Guy. “The minute the cast got together, we picked up right where we left off. It was like we had never left.”
The new series will follow Whitley and Dwayne’s daughter Deborah (Maleah Joi Moon), a free-spirited and well-intentioned freshman at Hillman. As she settles in at school, Deborah will find it difficult to escape the shadow of her parents. She will have to build her own legacy, while having the time of her life, alongside a whole new generation of Hillman's best and brightest — and some familiar faces from the original 1980s and ’90s sitcom. Felicia Pride is the showrunner, writer, and executive producer, and Debbie Allen returns as director and executive producer.
“We’ve wanted to revisit these characters for a very long time. We want to know what happened next,” Bell tells Tudum. “We’ve had more than enough time to think of all the really exciting things that could happen, not only with our characters, but now with all the new students.”
Alijah Kai, Cornell Young IV, Kennedi Reece, Jordan Aaron Hall, and Chibuikem Uche join Moon as the pupils populating Hillman’s halls. Hardison has enjoyed welcoming the sequel’s new cast members into A Different World’s decades-long storied history.
“It’s been fun to be like, ‘This is where we are now. This is what we look like now. This is what we sound like now,’ ” he says. “It’s like it’s 1991 again — we just play off each other and it’s easy.”
See the good vibes for yourself when the A Different World sequel series premieres on Netflix. And, until then, keep coming back to Tudum as more secrets are revealed from its syllabus.
