Miranda Cosgrove Says It's 'Weird' Kissing Nathan Kress (Exclusive)

Now that "Creddie" is finally happening on the iCarly revival, Miranda Cosgrove is candidly reflecting on her off-screen dynamic with Nathan Kress.

Cosgrove, 30, tells PEOPLE exclusively she's established a "brother-sister relationship" with best friend Kress, 31, over the years. Because of that, she regards having to kiss him on screen as "a little bit weird" after all the years, especially since the last time it occurred was on the OG iCarly's series finale in 2012.

"It was a little weird just because, originally, it was weird, too, because it was one of my first kisses and Nathan and I are like family. We have such a brother-sister relationship that it was definitely weirder when I was little," she admits. "But now, this time around, it wasn't too bad because we're close and we're friends."

Cosgrove adds, "I talk to him on the phone all the time and we just wanted the scenes to be really good. So it wasn't too bad."

The romantic coupling of Cosgrove's Carly Shay and Kress' Freddie Benson is a long time coming. Fans witnessed as Freddie openly — and frequently — made his feelings for Carly known in the Nickelodeon original, but Carly never reciprocated, despite them briefly dating after he saved her from being hit by a taco truck. It wasn't until the Paramount+ revival that Carly began showing interest, eventually having to win Freddie over with a grand gesture early into season 3.

Like the show's devoted fanbase, Cosgrove has also been rooting for Creddie to finally happen.

"It means a lot to me just because, starting with the original show, it's been 16 years, I think, since Freddie first said in the first episode that he had a crush on Carly or loved Carly. And I love rom-coms, so I always want the characters together that are friends that like each other," she explains. "But it's never the right time. That's one of my favorite rom-com tropes. So, I definitely always wanted them together."

Before making his way to Carly, Freddie dated her best friend, Sam Puckett (Jennette McCurdy). As for how she believes Sam would react to the coupling, Cosgrove says: "I'd like to think that Sam would be all right with it."

"But I'm sure if that was actually a part of the show, it would be a lot more complicated," she continues. "She might come back and have a lot of feelings towards it, or ... I don't know. She'd probably pretend she was all right with it because she's such a good friend to Carly, but not be deep down or something like that."

Meanwhile, as the season carries on, Cosgrove says fans will "definitely" see that Creddie has "more to work on within their relationship."

"Even though Carly and Freddie pretty much have the perfect friendship relationship, there's a lot going on with Freddie's mom and how she feels about it, and also Freddie's daughter and Freddie's ex-wife," she adds. "So we touch on that a lot over the rest of the season."

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New episodes of iCarly arrive Thursdays on Paramount+.

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