After years of playing “wacky girlfriend” characters, Lauren Graham was smitten by the role of single mom Lorelai Gilmore when she first read the Gilmore Girls pilot. “I can never really describe the feeling of getting the script,” the actress, 58, recalled during a March 29 PaleyFest event held in honor of series creator Amy Sherman-Palladino. “I had a feeling of recognition.”
Sherman-Palladino, likewise, knew Lauren would be perfect for the part. “She walked in and after the first line, I’m like, God, it was like that was it,” the writer, 59, revealed during the same panel discussion at Hollywood’s Dolby Theatre. The only problem? At the time, Lauren had a main role on the NBC sitcom Conrad Bloom. “I had to pray that someone else’s show would be cancelled,” joked Sherman-Palladino.
Those prayers were answered. For seven seasons between 2000 and 2007, and one four-episode revival in 2016, Lauren embodied the coffee-slugging hotel manager who’s both mom and BFF to her studious teen daughter Rory, played by Alexis Bledel.
“She’s funny and smart and sees the fun in things,” the leading lady raved to Life & Style about her onscreen alter ego, Lorelai, in an exclusive new interview. “There’s nothing bad about her.”
In fact, Lauren loved the character so much, she can’t even remember not liking an episode. “There were something like 160 or more episodes. I mean, I love all of them,” she shared with Life & Style. “They were all just wonderful conversations. It’s just the lightness and the joy that those characters had together. That’s my favorite.”
‘Gilmore Girls’ Has Left a Lasting Impression on Fans
Gilmore Girls is famous for Sherman-Palladino’s hyper-witty dialogue steeped in pop culture references. “[The magic of Amy is] the writing,” Lauren continued to Life & Style. “So good and so funny and so smart. It is such a specific voice.”
She should know — no one on the show delivered more of the zippy lines than sarcastic, street-smart Lorelai. “I’d look them up,” Lauren once told Glamour of any references that went over her head. “Part of being an actor is research!”
Snappy writing aside, the heart of the series was always the enduring relationships between the beautifully flawed characters — including Lorelai’s judgmental but loving parents (portrayed by Kelly Bishop and the late Edward Herrmann) and the girls’ various romantic partners.
Perhaps that’s why, almost 25 years after its debut, Lauren isn’t surprised at all that Gilmore Girls continues to find new fans. “It’s like a safe place to go to enjoy something with someone who [you] love,” she reportedly said on March 29 of the Stars Hollow-set series. “It meets [you] where you are and grows with you.”
