Drake Bell teases the possibility of a ‘Drake & Josh’ return with Josh Peck: 'We’ve talked about it'
Drake Bell is giving fans some hope for a potential “Drake & Josh” return in the near future.
In an interview published Aug. 16, Bell told The Patriot-News that he's been in conversation with his former co-star, Josh Peck, surrounding a comeback for the popular Nickelodeon show.
“I would love to. We’ve talked about it,” Bell said of his conversation with Josh Peck about returning to the series. “But I also didn’t want to do it when everyone was doing the reboots.”
He continues, “It’s like, ‘Okay, of course, let’s do a reboot because everyone’s doing reboots.’ If we’re going to do something, it should be more special. Let’s hit ‘em with a bang, instead of, ‘oh, another reboot.’”
In terms of reprising his character from the show alongside Peck, Bell said he'd be more interested in working with his former co-star in "different" capacity.
“Luckily for us, it’s our names, so we can still play Drake and Josh,” he said. “But I think it’d be funnier if we go on to doing other buddy comedies, you know. Something that is kind of a surprise, a little different. It would be more interesting.”
Bell and Josh Peck rose to fame while on Nickelodeon’s “The Amanda Show” starring Amanda Bynes, before getting “Drake & Josh,” which ran on air from 2004 to 2007.
While Bell and Josh Peck haven’t worked together in years, the two have reunited here and there. Here is a look back at Bell and Josh Peck’s working relationship over the years, and what they said about each other.
‘The Amanda Show’
Bell was part of Bynes’ comedy sketch show when it premiered in 1999, playing Totally Kyle and Biscotti Blokey.
Josh Peck made his debut “The Amanda Show” in 2000, appearing in a total of 13 episodes, according to his IMDB. The actor was a Dancing Lobster, as well as Paulie and Gordy Moller.
“The Amanda Show” wrapped after three seasons in 2002.
Starring in ‘Drake & Josh’
Bell and Josh Peck were cast to play stepbrothers in “Drake & Josh.” The comedy premiered in 2004 and ran for four seasons, ending in 2007.
The show followed Drake Parker and Josh Nichols, two polar opposite teens whose parents get married. Drake is a cool musician, while Josh is a nerdy bookworm. Miranda Cosgrove played Drake’s biological sister, Megan.
Bell, a musician like his character, wrote and sang the show’s opening theme song, “I Found A Way.”
The cast also reunited for two TV movies, “Drake & Josh Go Hollywood” in 2006 and 2008’s “Merry Christmas, Drake & Josh.”
Time apart and on-screen reunion
The actors went their separate ways following their show. They often made appearances together at Nickelodeon events, including at the 2015 Nickelodeon’s Kids’ Choice Awards.
They also reunited, along with Cosgrove, at Bell’s “Ready Steady Go!” album release party in April 2014.
It would be years before Bell and Josh Peck reunited on screen. In 2016, Bell made a cameo on Josh Peck’s show “Grandfathered.”
“It was interesting working with Josh and not being ‘Drake & Josh’,” Bell told Entertainment Weekly in February 2016. “I really enjoyed getting to play with him in a different setting.”
At the time, Bell said he and Josh Peck had “remained friends off the show, but we haven’t had that opportunity other than doing a line together or something. We wanted to get back together so bad.”
They go their separate ways
Josh Peck didn’t invite Bell to his 2017 wedding to longtime girlfriend Paige O’Brien.
In a 2022 appearance on Dave Portnoy and Josh Richards’ podcast “BFFs,” Josh Peck revealed that Bell was upset and angrily texted him on his wedding day and voiced his concerns on social media.
According to E! News at the time, in since-deleted tweets, Bell wrote, “When you’re not invited to the wedding the message is clear.”
He also wrote, per E! News, “Loyalty is key. ALWAYS remember where you came from.”
Josh Peck explained that he didn’t invite him to his wedding “because I hadn’t really talked to him in many, many years. Cut to: I’m getting married that night and I see these text messages from him cursing me out, coming for me on the night of my wedding. And I’m like, ‘Yo.’ And it’s delusional because I’m like, ‘Bro, we worked at Coffee Bean when we were 16. I’m sorry, I’m 31 now. I might’ve lost your number.’”
Josh Peck added that they were just kids when they worked together and “there were times when we were closer than not, but when inevitably the show ended — I mean, we’re just totally different kids.”
“‘Drake & Josh’ is something I’ll be synonymous with forever and I’m proud of it,” he said. “And I want to like the guy that my name is attached to forever, but unfortunately, it just sort of worked out the way that it did.”
Josh Peck said that he ran into Bell at the MTV Video Music Awards after his wedding and told him apologize to his wife.
“I go up to him and this might be the most ‘Sopranos’ thing I’ve ever done,” he said. “I look at him and I go, ‘Go apologize to my wife right now.’ And he goes, ‘OK.’ And he made a beeline for my wife and I see him do this whole five-minute performance of an apology.”
Bell reacted to Josh Peck’s comments in an interview with “Hollywood Raw” in 2023, saying that he “never texted him, cursing him out the night of his wedding because I didn’t know that there was a wedding until he posted about it the next day.”
“And that’s when I got bummed,” Bell said, bringing up how they had just worked together on “Grandfathered.”
Bell also said he did tweet, but said he only wrote one message because he was “a little upset” he didn’t get invited. At the time, Bell said that he still wanted to maintain a friendship with his former co-star.
TODAY.com has reached out to Josh Peck and Bell for comment on the matter.
‘Quiet On the Set’ documentary released
In March, Bell revealed in the Investigation Discovery docuseries “Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV” that he was sexually abused as a child star by former acting and dialogue coach Brian Peck (no relation to Josh Peck), who worked on “The Amanda Show.”
In “Quiet on Set,” Bell said the abuse took place at Brian Peck’s house over the course of several months. Brian Peck was arrested in 2003. After pleading no contest to two charges — lewd act upon a child 14 or 15 by a person 10 years older and oral copulation of a person under 16, according to a Los Angeles Police Department release — he was found guilty on both. Now 63, the former dialogue coach served more than a year in jail and is registered as a sex offender.
TODAY.com reached out to Brian Peck’s attorney for comment and did not heard back at the time of publication.
In a statement to NBC News, Nickelodeon spoke out about Bell’s revelations saying, “Now that Drake Bell has disclosed his identity as the plaintiff in the 2004 case, we are dismayed and saddened to learn of the trauma he has endured, and we commend and support the strength required to come forward.”
The documentary follows the influence producer Dan Schneider had on the network and the alleged toxic behind-the-scenes work culture.
The former Nickelodeon producer does not appear in the docuseries, but in a video released on his YouTube page on March 19, he responds to many of the allegations and specifically apologizes for some of his behaviors.
“The main thing that I would change is how I treat people and everyone,” Schneider tells the former “iCarly” cast member interviewing him, BooG!e (born Bobby Bowman). “I definitely at times didn’t give people the best of me. I didn’t show enough patience I could be cocky and definitely overambitious and sometimes just straight-up rude and obnoxious and I am so sorry that I ever was.”
Addressing ‘Quiet on Set’ aftermath
Following the airing of the docuseries, Bell, 37, shared in a TikTok that his former co-star reached out to him.
“I just want to clear something up. I’ve noticed a lot of comments on some of Josh’s TikToks and some of his posts,” Bell began, referring to Josh Peck. “I just want to let you guys know that… going through this is a really, emotional time and a lot of it’s very, very difficult. So not everything is put out to the public.”
“But I just want you guys to know that he has reached out to me and it’s been very sensitive,” he continued. “But he has reached out to talk with me and help me work through this, and has been really, really great. So just wanted to let you guys know that and to take it a little easy on him.”
The message came amid fan speculation that Josh Peck’s TikTok video shaded his former co-star. In the TikTok, Josh Peck mouths along to words about not being in someone’s life anymore. Fans speculated this might have been about Bell, as Josh Peck has shared that the two are estranged.
TODAY.com did not immediately hear back from Bell and Josh Peck’s reps when reached out for comment.
A day later, on March 21, Josh Peck released his own statement on social media, confirming he had indeed reached out to Bell.
“I finished the ‘Quiet On Set’ documentary and took a few days to process it. I reached out to Drake privately, but wanted to give my support for the survivors who were brave enough to share their stories of emotional and physical abuse on Nickelodeon sets with the world,” Josh Peck wrote on Instagram on March 21, in part. “Children should be protected.”
He continued, “Reliving this publicly is incredibly difficult, but I hope it can bring healing for the victims and their families as well as necessary change to our industry.”
This article was originally published on TODAY.com
