Emma Roberts is preparing to return to the world of Aquamarine — and she says it’s already been an emotional ride.

While speaking with PEOPLE about the legacy of the original coming-of-age mermaid movie, the 35-year-old actress also shared the very first glimpse into what it’s been like diving back into the fantasy universe for Disney+’s upcoming spinoff series.

“I’m so excited for the new series. I absolutely cannot wait,” Roberts tells PEOPLE of the recently announced reboot of 2006’s Aquamarine, which centered on the friendship between Claire (Roberts), Hailey (Joanna “JoJo” Levesque) and the тιтular mermaid (Sara Paxton).

“And I’m so excited to bring Claire back to life as a grownup,” she adds. “I remember when I read the pilot, I literally got choked up. I didn’t think I would have such an emotional reaction to it, but I definitely got a little teary-eyed.”

The comments mark Roberts’ first remarks about the newly announced show, in which she is set to guest star.

The sequel project — which received a pilot order from Disney+ and Disney Channel, as PEOPLE confirmed in June — will also see Aquamarine director Elizabeth Allen Rosenbaum return to the fictional town of Baybridge. Rosenbaum is also executive producing the series, along with Roberts and original producer Susan Cartsonis.

It is unclear whether original stars Paxton, 38, and Levesque, 35, will appear in the show, though the latter tells PEOPLE she’s “really excited to see a script” and “how Hailey could develop and be a supporting part of the evolution of this Aquamarine world and everything.”

“There’ve been conversations, preliminary conversations,” Levesque adds of her potential involvement.

Roberts says she hopes the spinoff brings a “whole new audience” to the “universe” of Aquamarine — including her 5-year-old son, Rhodes Robert Hedlund, whom she plans to show the original film. “I wonder if he’ll be into it or be like, ‘Turn it off.’ ”

“There are certain projects that it just feels like lightning in a bottle,” she says of the cult classic, citing the cast’s “chemistry” and the timing of its 2006 release.

“I wouldn’t have said that at the time because I wouldn’t have known to say that, but 20 years later, the fact that we’re still talking about it… and now we’re rebooting the movie as a show, which will be so exciting and hopefully bring in a whole new audience to the Aquamarine universe,” Roberts adds. “It feels really cool that we were all just a bunch of girls in Australia making a movie. And now it seems like it meant a lot to people, which means a lot to us.”

Aquamarine marked one of Roberts’ earliest roles, before she starred in Nancy Drew, Scream Queens, Palo Alto, American Horror Story and more. It has also continues to be one of her most beloved projects, with the star telling PEOPLE, “I get approached about it a lot, especially for a movie being 20 years old.”

“I always feel like I’ve seen it more than I have recently because I always get tagged on TikTok and Instagram of clips of it,” she says of the original movie. “And so I feel like I’m constantly seeing bits and pieces of it and it just makes me so happy to see that it still resonates with people, especially on TikTok.”

“It’s just so funny that it’s had this other life and I feel like a lot of people don’t realize that it was 20 years ago, which is so wild,” adds Roberts.