Tori Spelling and Jennie Garth Share What Luke Perry Told Them About Their Reboot

"He was so supportive, and really proud that we were putting it together," Tori Spelling tells PEOPLE

For Tori Spelling and Jennie Garth, shooting BH90210, their hit spin on a reboot of Beverly Hills, 90210, has been bittersweet since the day the show was announced.

“It was a day of the greatest high and the greatest low,” Spelling tells PEOPLE of that fateful day in March, when the new series was announced just hours before news broke that her costar and friend Luke Perry had suffered a stroke. (He died less than a week later.)

  • For more from Tori Spelling and Jennie Garth, pick up this week’s issue of PEOPLE, on newsstands Friday
Beverly Hills 90210 cast
Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic

Since the tragic loss, the cast has become closer than ever.

“It brought us together on such a deep level,” says Garth, 47. “Many times during the filming I thought, ‘He would be so happy right now to see us.’ ”

Perry was not contracted to appear on the reboot, due to his commitments on Riverdale, but executive producers Garth and Spelling, 46, say he was happy to get behind the project.

“Luke was on speakerphone for the first meeting,” says Spelling. “He was so supportive, and really proud that we were putting it together.”

bag-90210-1
The cast of BH90210. Brian Bowen Smith/Fox

Perry even gave words of encouragement when it came to getting the creative concept off the ground.

“He was like, ‘Don’t lose your vision,’ ‘stick to your guns,’ ” says Spelling. “Basically he told us to do what we set out to do and not change our minds.”

Cast of Beverly Hills, 90210
mikel roberts/Sygma/Getty

Now, Spelling and Garth, along with fellow cast members Jason Priestley, Gabrielle Carteris, Shannen Doherty, Ian Ziering and Brian Austin Green, are grateful to be back together — and to continue to share memories of their beloved friend.

“Life came full circle, and we’re stuck with each other at this point,” says Garth. “Not to say we don’t have our ups and downs, but we love each other, and we’re like family. And there’s a reason that, 30 years later, we’re all back together again.”

BH90210 airs Wednesdays (8 p.m. ET) on Fox.

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