Hello, Point Place! Nearly 16 years after Laura Prepon wrapped That 70s Show, she has been eagerly anticipating her return as Donna Pinciotti on the forthcoming That 90s Show.
“It’s so fun. It’s all the same sets,” the PrepOn Kitchen founder, 42, exclusively teased to Us Weekly on Wednesday, June 15, of the new series while discussing her partnership with Vitalite. “When I first went there, I cried. I’m just like, ‘The nostalgia is so strong and it was such an incredible time in my life.’ I can’t wait for people to see it. I think they’re really, really gonna get a kick out of it.”
Prepon rose to fame playing Donna — opposite Topher Grace’s Eric Forman — on the FOX series upon its 1999 premiere. Helmed by Mark Brazill, Bonnie Turner and Terry Turner, That ’70s Show followed a group of teenagers coming of age in the Wisconsin suburbs during the 1970s. Ashton Kutcher, Mila Kunis, Wilmer Valderrama, Danny Masterson, Debra Jo Rupp and Kurtwood Smith also starred.
Netflix announced in October 2021 that they had picked up a revival series starring Rupp, 71, and Smith, 78, who’d reprise their roles as Eric’s parents: Kitty and Red Forman. The new series will see the Formans babysitting Eric and Donna’s daughter, Leia (Callie Haverda), while she is visiting for the summer. It was confirmed earlier this year that Prepon and her TV love interest, 43, would both return for the new series. The Bad Moms star, 38, Kutcher, 44, and Valderrama, 42, are also set to recur though further details have yet to be revealed.
The Orange Is The New Black alum, for her part, revealed to Us that “oddly” it has not been “weird” to step back into Donna’s shoes.
“It just was like the nostalgia of it,” Prepon — who married actor Ben Foster in 2018 — explained on Wednesday, noting she has remained close to her former costars after they spent much of their “formative years” together. “You don’t realize like, it’s still, like, if I hear Todd Rundgren’s [song] ‘Hello, It’s Me,’ I burst into tears ‘cause that’s the pilot song, you know, that was like the Eric and Donna [theme song and] it was a really pinnacle song for that relationship, but yeah, it’s great [to return].”
In addition to reprising her beloved TV role for the upcoming Netflix revival, Prepon has teamed up with Vitalite to incorporate plant-based foods into family-friendly meals.
“I consider myself more of a flexitarian lifestyle especially when it gets toward like the hotter months. I definitely tend to go more plant-based for my family and partnering with a company like Vitalite is great, [because] I use it at home and my kids eat it and love it,” the actress — who shares a son and a daughter with the 41-year-old Hell Or High Water star — said. “It’s just like a really great fit. So, it’s exciting.”
She added: “[Health and cooking] something that I focus on a lot. I mean, my first cookbook came out in 2016 and that was all about batch-cooking healthy meals and then reimagining it for three days after that. … I mean a lot of my videos that I post [are] usually about cooking quick and healthy meals for your family, with an emphasis on preparation, because as a career mom it is harder to get healthy meals on the table — but it’s all about having the right ingredients. So this partnership really helps make that a lot easier, especially with picky kiddo eaters.”
With reporting by Christina Garibaldi
