(2005) WB’s ‘Gilmore’ star has quiet roar

By Terry Morrow

Scripps Howard News Service

Unfortunately for Alexis Bledel, it’s time to talk.

The 23-year-old star of “Gilmore Girls” doesn’t like to do interviews. She feels uncomfortable answering questions about herself and almost never comments on her personal life.

Yet even as she politely makes those limits known, she is gracious about why. “It’s almost more natural to be in character on a set,” she says. “That’s a controlled environment where you know where the boundaries are. In a public situation with reporters, it’s more evasive.

“It feels evasive to me.”

But she knows that interviews are a requirement for her right now. And if she must talk, she has a lot to talk about: “Gilmore” just celebrated its 100th episode, and she has three feature films in the can.

In “Sin City” with Bruce Willis, based on the comic book by Frank Miller, she plays a prostitute named Becky. She has a small part in the West Indian musical twist on Jane Austen called “Bride & Prejudice” and is one of the girl pack in the bonding comedy-drama, “The Sisterhood of Traveling Pants.”

Bledel is almost painfully shy, but rarely coy. When asked, she’ll answer, though she’ll admit she doesn’t think her answers are sufficient to make a very good story.

Shyness got her into show business. Her parents encouraged her to try community theater when she was 8 years old, hoping it would help her overcome her shyness.

She did productions such as “Our Town,” “The Wizard of Oz” and “Aladdin,” and later was scouted in a local mall to model. A modeling career was launched while she was still in high school, taking her to Tokyo, Milan, New York and Los Angeles.

After graduating, she enrolled at New York University as a film major. In the spring of 2000, Bledel got a manager through her modeling agency and headed to Los Angeles, where she quickly landed the role of Rory on “Gilmore.”

As Rory, she plays a woman coming into her own. She’s smarter than her peers but is walking through her coming of age with her mother, a feisty single woman living in an idyllic small town.
In a rare turn of events, Bledel nabbed the role without much acting experience. She suddenly found herself the lead in a one-hour drama among actors with years of experience on her.

“She’s grown enormously,” says veteran character actor Edward Herrmann, who plays Rory’s grandfather. “She was perfectly charming (in the beginning) as she always is, but she was unsure.

“She had come from NYU. She didn’t know whether she wanted to do this. ... To deal with the rigors of this show (is) tough. ... She’s a trooper.”

Still, Bledel doesn’t seem entirely comfortable with it all.

A billboard of Bledel and co-star Lauren Graham hovers at a tourist-busy intersection of Hollywood to promote “Gilmore’s” milestone. Bledel sees such a display as a necessity she’s not entirely at ease with.

Fame “slightly skews everything a bit,” Bledel says. “It socially affects you. It can mess you up. You deal with it. I’m happy where I am now because I am not terribly famous.”

Bledel says she might eventually give up acting altogether.

Such a star turn would mean the spotlight.

“That makes you the center of attention. There’s that many more eyes on you,” she says, “and I don’t want that.”

http://www.fortwayne.com/mld/journalgazette/living/10952204.htm

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