As long as they’ve got each other — Growing Pains could come back to television! “We would love to do it,” Jeremy Miller told Us Weekly of a possible reboot at the Roger Neal Oscar Party on February 24. “We loved our Growing Pains family and we were blessed to be able to share that with America. Being able to do that again would be very special.”
Miller, 42, played Ben Seaver on the beloved sitcom, which ran from 1985 to 1992. His older TV siblings, Mike and Carol Seaver, were played by Kirk Cameron and Tracey Gold, and Miller said they are both “on board” to participate in the potential reboot. Their TV mom was played by Joanna Kerns, who branched out into directing after the show wrapped. “She would most likely only come back for a few episodes since she is the busiest director in Hollywood, but if we could get her to direct the reboot that would be amazing,” said Miller.
Unfortunately, the family patriarch, Dr. Jason Seaver, would be missing from the next iteration of the show as Alan Thicke passed away from a heart attack in 2016. Before he died, the Canadian-born star “was the motivating force” behind getting a Growing Pains reboot off the ground, revealed Miller. “When he passed it kind of fell by the wayside, so me, Tracey and Kirk are trying to see it through.”
Planning the potential reboot wasn’t a matter of reconnecting for the former costars, because they never lost touch in the first place. “We stay in each other’s lives and bug each other regularly all these years later,” he said, also noting that he, Cameron and Gold have a group text together.
Miller also revealed just how deeply Thicke’s death affected him personally. “Alan and Joanna were truly my second parents. That’s the truth. I spent almost as much time with them as with my real family because I was on set all the time. They helped keep us in line, they definitely taught us life lessons,” he said. “Ala in particular, we talked regularly, and when I was going through my worst with my alcoholism and stuff, Alan really reached out and tried to help me out. … Losing him was very difficult. It still hurts.”
