After Shadow & Act’s report of the news that Yara Shahidi’s black-ish spinoff had a new title, Freeform has now addressed the name change and has solidified a few cast members.
As we expected, Trevor Jackson will reprise his role as a friend of Zoey’s and a socially-conscious sophomore from the pilot. However, Mallory Sparks will not reprise her role as Zoey’s new friend Miriam, a freshman with a no holds barred attitude. The role has been recast from the backdoor pilot, and will now be played by Emily Arlook.
Chris Parnell will also reprise his role from the backdoor pilot as the dean of Southern California University.
“grown-ish reflects what we’ll be dealing with in the show – that in between place where you’re not quite an adult but facing grown world problems for the first time,” said creator and executive producer Kenya Barris. “Where black-ish examines what it means to be black, grown-ish is an examination of what it is and what it means to be grown.”
As we reported Tuesday, both Shahidi and black-ish‘s Deon Cole will concurrently appear on both shows, as well as Anthony Anderson (Dre) and Tracee Ellis Ross (Bow). Cole’s character Charlie will be an ad-exec by day on black-ish and a college professor on grown-ish.
The first season of the show has 13 episodes and will be executive produced by Barris with Anthony Anderson, Laurence Fishburne, Helen Sugland and Brian Dobbins.