The L Word star Jennifer Beals said the arrival of Donald Trump in Washington, DC, created an urgency to reboot the iconic lesbian show in order to give the LGBTQ community better representation under the conservative administration.
During an interview Friday on AM to DM, BuzzFeed News' morning show, Beals said there were already talks of a reboot, "then the 2016 elections came and we knew that the LGBTQ community would be attacked, which they were immediately."
"And [we] wanted to offer visibility and agency and also an alternative narrative for those people weren't part of the queer community," she said.
The L Word: Generation Q returns this week a full decade after the successful original series, which ran from 2004 to 2009, went off the air.
The first iteration of the show focused on a group of friends, mainly lesbian women, in West Hollywood.
Beals, along with Katherine Moennig and Leisha Hailey, are reprising their roles in this new series.
The trailer, which dropped back in October, shows the group of friends, including several new characters, finding love and navigating life in 2019.
Beals' character, Bette Porter, is running to be mayor of Los Angeles in the new series.
The actor, who became internationally famous after starring in 1983's Flashdance, told BuzzFeed News this storyline for Bette felt like a "natural progression" for her character "because she was quite political with her art."
Beals added, "We talked about that in the writers room a bit... 'How is it different for women who are running? How is it different for women who are in office?' And we wanted to explore that a bit."
It's safe to say the return of the show has many fans excited.
the L Word premiere is my super bowl
What a time to be alive . The L word is back this weekend ❤️
This new installment has a fairly diverse cast, which the original run was frequently said to be lacking.
Beals said the team behind the show "knew [they] wanted to tell more expansive this time and that was something that was very important to [them]."
For Beals, this inclusivity also expanded to language and terms used to discuss LGBTQ identity that weren't as widespread when the show was first on the air.
“What I really wanted to see was someone like Bette coming up against the new terminology — especially someone for whom language is so important. The precision of language," Beals said. "She’s like, ‘Wait, we’re changing a pronoun? Wait. Okay, how do I do that? I don’t even know how to do that.’"
The L Word: Generation Q premieres this Sunday on Showtime.