“It certainly didn’t feel like there were any big holes to fill, and that’s no knock on the incredible work that Jennette McCurdy did at all,” Alexander, 26, tells PEOPLE of his former costar, who has since quit acting.
“You want to bring back the familiar faces, like the person whose name is in the title of the show, Carly, and the core friends around her.
“I don’t think we felt some major gaps, but we did feel that there was a slightly different cast composition,” he continues.
“I will say that old habits die hard,” Alexander says of his character, Nevel.