Mark-Paul Gosselaar transforms back into Zack Morris for ‘Saved by the Bell’ reboot
Mark-Paul Gosselaar is returning to his roots to bring back Zack Morris.
On Wednesday, the 46-year-old actor shared a glimpse of his makeover for the Saved by the Bell reboot. The social media photo showed the former teen star sitting in hair and makeup while being transformed into the Bayside High alum.
The revamp includes a face of tan foundation and light blond locks — both longer and lighter than his hair off-screen.
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“One of these blondes is going be Zack Morris,” Gosselaar captioned the photo, which included the back of someone from the hair and makeup team.
Gosselaar tagged SBTB OGs Tiffani Thiessen, Mario Lopez and Elizabeth Berkley, who are all appearing in the revival in some capacity.
It was announced last year that the reboot would be coming to the NBCUniversal Streaming Service and that Berkley and Lopez, as Slater, would be back as Jessie and Slater for the new episodes, which will be helmed by Tracey Wigfield (30 Rock, The Mindy Project).
Gosselaar and Thiessen’s involvement was announced later. Gosselaar currently appears on Mixed-ish, on rival network ABC, so it took some behind-the-scenes finagling to work out a deal for his return. The actor, who also executive-produces the SBTB reboot, will appear as a guest star in three episodes. Of those, Thiessen — who currently stars in the Netflix series Alexa & Katie, will be in one or two. (Lopez and Berkley are also producers.)
Gosselaar said their “commitment to other things” dictated the number of episodes in which they could appear. “The fact that ABC is allowing me to do something for NBC, I'm super-gracious that they're allowing me to do that,” he added.
And while Gosselaar is only in a handful of episodes, the show centres around his character — who charmed his way into office as governor of California — closing too many low-income high schools. So Zack fixes the problem by sending the affected students to the highest-performing schools in the state, including Bayside. The new students give the overprivileged Bayside kids a dose of reality.
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Zack’s wife on the show will be Thiessen’s Kelly Kapowski-Morris — note the hyphenate.
Lopez shared a first look at the reboot:
The revival will also star Josie Totah, Mitchell Hoog, Belmont Cameli, Dexter Darden, John Michael Higgins Haskiri Velazquez and Alycia Pascual-Pena.
A follow-up to the short-lived Hayley Mills sitcom Good Morning, Miss Bliss, the original Saved by the Bell was must-see TV from 1989 to 1993, and Gosselaar was the show’s handsome schemer. The series spawned two spinoffs, Saved by the Bell: The College Years and Saved by the Bell: The New Class, as well as two TV movies.
Original cast members Dustin Diamond and Lark Voorhies, who have both made headlines amid personal woes through the years, will not return for the show. Both have expressed disappointment over it.