@ Lukes | Press Reviews

(July 2007) Lauren Graham moving on after series' end

2007-07-18T13:48:00.000-04:00

Jamie Portman, CanWest News Service
Published: Thursday, July 12, 2007

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. -- You've had this really cool, well-paying job for seven years -- and all of a sudden, you lose it. So, what do you do? Well, if your name is Lauren Graham, you're definitely not going to plunge into some sort of depression. Gilmore Girls -- the mainstay of your existence since the arrival of the new millennium -- may have been terminated this spring, but the last thing you're going to do is behave as though your life is over.

Graham knows there are actors out there who never recover emotionally or professionally from the demise of a hit TV series. But she isn't one of them. This summer, even as Gilmore Girls continues to show up on reruns, she's on the big screen, portraying Steve Carell's wife in Evan Almighty.

And before the year is out, she'll have made two more movies. She's too busy to mourn the loss of her long-running series about a zany mother-daughter relationship.

Besides, she's been aware for a long time of a "downside" to being in a hit TV show: it can make you too cozy and comfortable.

Graham, 40, believes an actor needs to be fuelled by adrenaline, and that doesn't happen very often if you have the security of a TV series.

"Part of my love of the acting job is not knowing what's coming next," she explains. "I remember having this feeling a couple of years into the show. I was like: 'There's some feeling that I miss. What is it?' " She realized she was missing the element of "the unexpected" in her career -- "of not knowing what the next thing might be and if I would get it or not get it." Right now, she actually enjoys being in the kind of situation she experienced when she was younger of not knowing what that next job would be, or whether her phone would keep ringing with offers.

"I'm sure that after a while it will drive me crazy," she laughs. "But for now, it feels really nice. I'm doing a movie right now, and I'm going to do something else in like a month, so I know what my next couple of things are, and I'm just really excited to have these different experiences. And you know, I feel that I've kind of earned that." Currently, she's finishing work on Laws Of Motion in which she costars with Matthew Perry for director Craig Lucas. "It's an independent film ... and Hilary Swank is a producer on it and has taken a supporting role just to lend her name to it. That's really cool and inspiring -- to see an an actress whose company is helping get stuff made because she believes in it. It's the story of a dysfunctional family and Matthew Perry is my husband and we have a sort of quiet marriage which is in trouble, and his brother and sister come to stay with us -- to disastrous results.

"It's kind of a dark comedy -- I'm a very conservative, shut-down character who is trying to be nice to these people she thinks are freaks. That's a cool place to be." This summer, she'll again play a wife -- this time to Greg Kinnear. The movie remains untitled, but it's a true story about "the man who invented the intermittent windshield wiper.

"It's a really great story because he felt that his patent was stolen by the car companies. He spent his life, not necessarily fighting for money, which he ended up getting quite a bit of, but for the rights of inventors." Both projects attracted her because their unusual story lines supply that element of "the unexpected" which she was missing so much.

Meanwhile, in adjusting to the end of Gilmore Girls, she's also adjusting to one of the oddities of the contemporary entertainment business: because the series will continue to have a life both in reruns and later in DVD reissues, Lorelai Gilmore will remain an unchanging fixture in the lives of many fans. But Graham now knows it was time to move on.

"I felt the show was telling us it was over," she says candidly. But even so, her emotions were mixed.

"We were all feeling restless. But also you feel so attached. It's like a project that becomes a person. You want to leave that person in the right place or something." She didn't feel the show was in a rut. "We felt that to do that show cost a certain amount of time and dedication. It never got easier. Usually in years five, six, seven on a show like this, you get into a routine. The days become normal. That never happened there." Yet there remained the feeling that Gilmore Girls had run its course. "We discussed all kinds of different options ... and they tried and we tried, and at the end of the day there wasn't a way to do it any differently, and I think they (the producers) thought it was going to cost them a whole lot to renegotiate with everybody." So Gilmore Girls came to an end -- and, says Graham, "it felt like the right thing. It was one of the best jobs I ever had, so of course, it was hard to leave. But when it was done, I thought -- oh, all right!" She knows there could be new television offers down the road, but she's cautious.

"I love television ... but let's face it -- the next thing will be a disaster. It'll last three episodes. That's just the odds. That's just what happens."

© The Leader-Post (Regina) 2007

(May 2007) Gilmore Girls Goodbye

2007-05-22T22:17:00.000-04:00

"I actually felt happier talking like The Gilmore Girls. I literally felt my mood lighten."

By Kate Sullivan
Thursday, May 17, 2007 - 9:00 am

First The O.C., now The Gilmore Girls. I have to stop watching TV, because it appears that every show I love gets killed. Don’t try to sell me that Veronica Mars trip. I’ve tried. It’s not happening.

I’m told it’s hugely draining to create a weekly hour-long drama. Everyone who works on such a show must grievously sacrifice their personal lives. And granted, Gilmore had a good run — seven years. But come on. We needed this show! Or at least I did. The Gilmore Girls — about a 30-something single mom, Lorelei (Lauren Graham) and her brilliant young daughter, Rory (Alexis Bledel) — was a program I could share with my own mom, who lives 2,000 miles away, and is 37 years older than me. (“Did you see Gilmore last week?” is a common question for me to ask her during our phone chats.)

This was also a show I shared with my landlady, who is only a little older than me. We started watching four years ago when both our dogs were dying (and our personal lives weren’t exactly winning best in show). I think we both felt too smart to be watching Gilmore, and maybe a bit mistrustful of its obvious grab at our demographic. But I guess I gravitated toward it anyway because, frankly, I needed the entertainment. So we watched The Gilmore Girls together, for the first time, at her house. And throughout that first episode, we offered running (snide) commentary about how ridiculous the show was. Real people don’t talk like that was the main critique. I’m so sure.

After it was over, we went out on her front porch to smoke. And as we sat there in the pleasant evening calm, smoking and gabbing, I noticed that something was different. We weren’t just talking — we were bantering. We were talking faster than usual. And we were cracking more jokes, with a much drier delivery than usual. In short, we were talking like The Gilmore Girls.

It was a little embarrassing, but I couldn’t deny it: It was fun. In fact, I actually felt happier talking like The Gilmore Girls. I literally felt my mood lighten.

And so began a weekly ritual. I needed that little, mid-week perk-me-up. No show has ever cheered me up quite so effectively. And the longer I watched it, the more I understood that there was no need for shame. The Gilmore Girls was an exceptionally well-made show, with some of the best acting I’ve ever seen — on a stage, movie screen, or on TV. And as my life changed (and I dare say improved), those are the qualities that made The Gilmore Girls an enduring pleasure. Yes, the show featured a fantastic running role by Sebastian Bach as a bar-band hack, and a gratifying occasional appearance from Carole King (who recorded the show’s theme song with her own daughter). Yes, Gilmore featured many other bands and musicians (Sonic Youth, blah blah) and relatable references (Excedrin PM hangovers, Hello Kitty) — and often referenced my top-favorite bands (White Stripes, Art Brut, Wolfmother — they were inside my head, dude!). But the pop-cultural trivia for which the program was known seemed to fade in importance as the show developed. (And I’m hoping against hope all those name-brand references in recent times — Target, TiVo, MySpace, Jeep, Pussycat Dolls — were not backed by dollar signs. Oh, the insidious compromises one must make to watch TV these days!)

Working late over the past couple years, and often preoccupied with American Idol, I’d usually tape Gilmore to watch later. And that’s partly how I came to understand just how well-crafted the show was. Certain scenes and even individual lines were so right on, I’d find myself hitting the rewind button constantly. I often felt guilty for not writing a thank-you note to the show’s creators, just so they’d know their attention to nuance was not in vain. And I’m talking emotional nuance here: Practical details went out the window on a weekly basis. For starters, as mentioned, nobody talks like that in real life. Lorelei’s dog, Paul Anka, was AWOL half the time. I never saw Lorelei clean her way-too-tidy New England cottage. And how she could eat so much and exercise so little — while wearing such tight jeans — remains a question.

That wasn’t a weakness per se. I’m a girl, after all, and I savored the show’s idealised aspects — the shabby-chic interiors, the soft-focus charm of the buildings and town square, the coffee carts, the shiny hair and cute dresses.

And yet as stylized as the show’s surface was, its guts were real. How I marvelled at the lengthy, Altman-esque takes during one unusually tense dinner scene between Lorelei and her wealthy, 60-something parents (Edward Herman and Kelly Bishop). At the scene’s opening, the old folks are strangely cold. Lorelei prods them, repeatedly, and finally they explode, and we watch a tangle of messy, decades-old, perfectly plausible emotions and frailties spill out onto everyone’s sherbet bowls. And we watch them go back and forth: grandma, grandpa, daughter, granddaughter, grandma again — on and on, for minutes, each character expressing something intense and real and understandable — and actually speaking to each other more harshly than ever before, saying things they’ve never said. But that happens in real life. Sometimes, after years, people will suddenly address each other in a totally different tone.

And that’s what happened. And they worked it out, and we got to see a new side of each character. And at the end of dinner everyone was exhausted and bruised, but also maybe a little happier. And their relationships did change a bit after that.

On most shows, characters have crises, and then afterwards they go back to being exactly the same as they were before. That can be comforting for the viewer, but it’s also kind of distancing. It’s just not real. The converse problem is that sometimes when characters evolve a little too much, a show loses its sense of dramatic conflict, and stops being funny and compelling (I think that happened to M*A*S*H).

Gilmore’s grasp of human brains and hearts was so subtle, it didn’t get boring. And because it wasn’t plot-driven, the writers didn’t have to jump the shark. As in real life, everyday things and events — a school paper, a new dog, a grandfather’s heart attack — were plenty interesting. The main show was what was happening inside and between the characters. And again, as in real life, it was always shifting.

Take Rory’s complicated relationship with her college boyfriend, Logan (Matt Czuchry), a great but privileged kid who’s just learning for the first time how to really love another person. At first he was fun, free-spirited, but obviously deep; then, over the past season or so, he became an internet-startup guy, and started using corporate lingo. He changed. Maybe he became more himself. That’s what happens as people get deeper into their 20s. You’ve seen it happen in real life a million times.

See, The Gilmore Girls didn’t just want us to have complex feelings about it characters (like, say, House). It wanted us to have complex and ever-changing feelings about its characters.

That’s a big risk for a show to take, and it didn’t always pay off. Last year, Lorelei broke up with her great love, Luke (Scott Patterson), and tried — unsuccessfully — to reunite with Rory’s father, Chris (David Sutcliffe). He was a nice, decent guy who bugged the shit out of me. He thought his own jokes were cute. Worse, he was rubbing off on Lorelei. And that happens in real life.

The payoff was that I shifted my attentions to the marvelous supporting cast — and discovered the best actors on the show. My favorite was Melissa McCarthy, the actress who played Lorelei’s best friend. On a show where everyone talks over each other, her ability to listen was pretty stunning. It made every single line reading a thing of beauty, note-perfect. (In fact, I look forward to the DVDs mainly to watch her performances.) And I cheered out loud when the noble Luke finally stood up to the mother of his child (a dreadful bitch). How I enjoyed his growing relationship with his science-geek daughter (also wonderfully played, by young Vanessa Marano) — and how I wished Lorelei could see it!

That happens in real life, too. So often, people need to break up and be alone for a while in order to become good enough for each other.

The series finale was nice, mainly because Luke and Lorelei got back together. (And were their names a joke on General Hospital’s “Luke & Laura” the whole time?) But I didn’t really cry or anything. I guess that’s because the characters seemed happy. And it occurs to me now, in light of Grey’s Anatomy, Ugly Betty, and other girly shows of the moment, the characters on Gilmore Girls were always happy. They had tragedies and disappointments in their lives, but they were basically happy people.

And though we rarely see it reflected on TV shows, and never on the news, that’s a part of real life, too.

http://www.laweekly.com/film+tv/screen/gilmore-girls-goodbye/

(May 2007) Stars Hollow Ending

2007-05-22T22:12:00.000-04:00

By Karen Valby
I was prepared to be disappointed. I bet a lot of you were too. And I got nervous there in the beginning, after that hammy introduction of Rory to her hero Christiane Amanpour. Really? Would a journalist of her stature really be impressed by a stammering elf in a cute dolly tee and jogging pants? That's all it takes to get Christiane's business card? But that's it from me today. That's the last time I'll roll my eyes at season 7. Because, and I don't think I'm being overly sentimental here, last night really was a dandy.

At Friday Night Dinner — am I in this post-Gilmore Girls world going to have to start a Friday Night Dinner club? — Emily is crabby that Rory missed cocktail hour to network instead. She wants after-dinner drinks as payback. Lorelai blanches. But when Rory trots in with news that she'll be leaving in three days to start following Barack Obama on the campaign trail (Hollywood loves Barack! Don't hold it against him!), everyone kind of crumples in their seat. Lorelai does an admirable job of pushing her panic aside and is sweetly firm and confident in her daughter's ability to rise to the challenge. Who cares if their month-long roller-coaster adventure is now toast? Her daughter has to get on the bus! This scene may have been the first time this season that Rory has shown any of the spunk and quiet grit of seasons past. Maybe that little girl in the strange purple top will make it after all! Emily, on the other hand, looks sucker-punched at the idea of losing her granddaughter, and thus her hold on Lorelai, so soon. But then Lorelai soothes her by saying, ''After-dinner drinks for sure.'' I wanted to cry tonight. I'm crying!

With Rory so suddenly employed, there's no time to plan the graduation-reenactment party. She and Lorelai have fanny packs and book lights (miss you, Paris!) to find. So Luke takes it upon himself to plan the surprise party that the town needs to feel good about sending Rory off into the world. There's a brilliant moment with Miss Patty sticking her face out of her darkened studio doors, telling Lorelai she's communing with her muse and can't be bothered. Cut to a cowering line of Stars Hollow's finest inside. Later, Luke, so strangely full of go-get-'em pep, cuts off Taylor's caterwauling and spurs everyone into action. Kirk offers to DJ. Oh, Captain K, what I'd do for one of your college mixtapes. (Speaking of Kirk, check out Mandi Bierly's most excellent conversation with Sean Gunn, who shared his top 10 Kirk moments from the last seven seasons.) In one of the night's funnier scenes, Babette comes careening into the town square, her arms waving in front of her like a zombie having a spaz attack, warning Luke of her swollen ankles. Her hair is 50/50, but the ankles don't lie. It's going to rain, and the party will be a washout. I know there's a lot of Christopher fans out there, as well as fans of the ''don't mess with Luke and Lorelai's friendship'' formula. But how not to think that she'd be in good hands with a man who stays up all night in his diner sewing together patches of fabric so her daughter's party won't be ruined. It took me years, but I'm a believer. Marry the guy.

Rory, meanwhile, has ducked out from under her mother's perky wing to say goodbye to Lane. Unsurprisingly, the scene was unfulfilling. These two have drifted, and those actors aren't going to sell lines like ''I don't know what it's like to have a sister, but I feel like I do, you know?'' Suck on that, Gigi! Back at home, Lorelai's on an ironing binge to stave off her frantic sense of loss. When Rory gooses her for some emotion, Lorelai's chin starts puckering, and she insists she's not ready to get sad. It's too soon, and they've got 36 more hours, and oh my, I can't handle this. I wish I owned an ironing board. In a relationship defined by quick wit and banter, thank you, writers, for the quiet, devastating moment when Lorelai checks on her sleeping daughter. The la-la-la music was at its achiest, and Lorelai was in a hoodie, and she was pulling up Rory's blanket, and the chin was going, and not a word was spoken.

I thought nothing could top the oomph of that moment, but when Lorelai and Rory drove up the next day and saw the town clutching pinwheel umbrellas, gathered together under a makeshift tent, my own chin started getting a little crumbly. Why don't I iron? Thank you, Kirk, for lightening the mood! ''Rory, in my official capacity as town sash presenter,'' he says, ''I would like to present you with this sash,'' and then he tells Lorelai that he ''got the material from one of mother's nighties'' Love it!

My composure left my living room when the camera turned to the grandparents standing alone on the edge of the party. So vulnerable, those two! Poor Emily can't stop with the fussy routine, which we all know means that she's cracking a little inside and that sneer is all she's got to protect her. Richard, building on his kind words to Lorelai last week at graduation, is turning into one giant-size, bow-tied teddy bear. He starts praising Lorelai for the love and devotion she earned in Stars Hollow and acknowledging his own regrets before Emily cuts the loving off quick: ''Oh, please don't become one of those 'I had a heart attack, let me express my every thought' types.'' Nice try, Emily, not buying it! Later, she corners Lorelai and needles her again about adding on a spa element to the Dragonfly. See, they'll lend her money, and of course they'll have to get together every now and then to discuss the project, but it's really for the good of the inn. Lorelai finally gets it and announces that they can discuss the matter further over the next Friday Night Dinner. They're alive and well! And the way Kelly Bishop unclenched her jaw and shoulders, the way her whole being visibly softened upon news that she would not lose whatever tenuous tether she had to her daughter, was just terrific. And then she snapped back to Emily Gilmore. ''Don't be late and don't wear jeans!'' Those two will go down as one of my favorite mother-daughter relationships in TV history.

And then we came to the line where a sob surprised me by shooting up my esophagus and exploding in the back of my throat. The grandparents are saying goodbye to Rory, and Emily gets all serious for a second and grabs Rory's arm and tells her, ''It's an honor to be your grandmother, Rory Gilmore.'' After typing that, I'm thinking, well, is that little line, a throwaway on paper, really what made a bomb go off in my mouth? But the delivery was moving without being mushy, and I remain for life a sucker for Kelly Bishop.

Cheers for the graceful wrap-up of the endlessly frustrating Luke and Lorelai story. When Lorelai hears that it wasn't Sookie who planned the whole affair, that it was Luke who stayed up all night sewing a patchwork tent of raincoats, well, what's a girl to do but march across that same street that knocked them on their asses so many times and smooch the guy. I bet many fans will feel cheated that they got but a second of that long-awaited kiss before the camera panned off to focus on the town square. I loved it. I loved that we got to see them reconcile without a lot of words, and that whatever romance they cook up is now their business alone. I don't want to see him giving her a necklace and promising to make babies that very night. I want her wearing the necklace and him rightfully in the background the next morning while she says goodbye to her daughter.

So the series ended where it began, in Luke's diner, with Rory and Lorelai making love to their coffee and ordering an obscene amount of food. When they leave us, they're jabbering away at each other, protected from the world by their enormous, enthusiastic, almost childlike appreciation of their best friend before them. See you later, girls.

And goodbye to you, Mrs. Kim, wherever you are!

http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20039039,00.html

(May 2007) 'Gilmore Girls' takes final bow on last episode

2007-05-22T21:56:00.000-04:00

By: Marshall Fleming

When Amy Sherman-Palladino created Gilmore Girls seven seasons ago, she knew from the start how she wanted the series to end; even down the final four words of the last episode. Unfortunately for her, and the cast, and the fans, and the show itself, she wasn't around when the end ultimately came.

Sherman-Palladino and husband Dan Palladino, (also a writer for the show), left after the shows sixth season, reportedly because they couldn't agree to terms of a new contract with the network. Apparently where the creator and head writer goes, so goes witty dialogue and quality plot lines.

Most fans of the show were extremely disappointed with the seventh season's writing, but still sat on their couches on Tuesdays at 8:00 p.m. to tune in. Then, May 3 a bomb dropped: the CW announced that the scheduled season finale for May 15 was now going to be the series finale. It caught so many people off-guard that even some of the cast and crew didn't see it coming.

It came down to the show's stars, Lauren Graham and Alexis Bledel opting not to renew their contracts.

Leading up to the farewell, many fans were upset that the show would not be having a special send off, and that it would just end with a typical season finale. What most of the producers and cast members were saying, however, was that the episode could really go either way, and that it brought the series full circle.

Rory (Bledel), now a Yale graduate, got a job with an online news magazine, covering Barack Obama's presidential campaign, and would ultimately be leaving home for a long period of time. Had the show come back for an eighth season, writing her back into episodes would prove difficult. Meanwhile, Lorelei (Graham) and Luke (Patterson) seemingly got back together for good.

The episode's writing was nothing spectacular but it did bring some closure to the series. The final scene was similar to the first scene of the series - Rory and Lorelei sitting in Luke's diner drinking coffee. Nothing spectacular. No double-wedding that many speculated would be the finale. No reappearance of one of Rory's old boyfriends to come in and take her away. Just breakfast in the diner one last time.

It still would be nice if Sherman-Palladino would let us know what those final four words would have been.

http://media.www.thetriangle.org

(May 2007) It's Here: Lauren Graham's Final Gilmore Girls Interview

2007-05-15T12:34:00.000-04:00

It's Here: Lauren Graham's Final Gilmore Girls Interview

Lauren Graham by Mark Liddell/The CWThe fast-approaching finale of Gilmore Girls is depressing on so many levels; I get a lump in my throat contemplating even a few of them. It's the end of an era, for starters. Lauren Graham — the closest thing Hollywood is ever likely to get to another Katharine Hepburn — may never again play a character as given to bantering at breakneck speed as Lorelai. For that matter, she may never find verbal sparring partners as worthy as Kelly Bishop and Scott Patterson. But maybe worst of all, the series' demise probably means I'll be talking to my favorite Girl a lot less frequently. With that weighing heavily on my mind, as we began what would be our last interview of the golden Girls age, I held nothing back. In turn, neither did she.

I hear you're going to have a lot more free time on your hands.Lauren Graham: (Laughs) Yes, it would seem that way.

Are you relieved that it's over?
Graham: I feel that way, which is not without feeling mixed and thankful for the experience. But, yeah, I feel relieved.

All indications were that the show was coming back for 13 episodes. What happened?
Graham: Well, you know, there was a lot that went back and forth by the time the [13 episode thing] came out. I had sort of said to them a couple of months ago that I didn't see it coming back, and they had asked to just give them some time to figure something out that would make it work. Both Alexis and I felt tired, and also creatively like the show was in a place where we were either at the end or very close to it. We really couldn't imagine another season. I think they were trying to tempt us with 13, which was tempting, but ultimately it just wasn't going to work for them. We needed the situation to be so ideal, and I think it just wasn't meant to be. I do want to say that the studio and the network were very generous and very respectful in this whole process. We just didn't want to work the schedule we'd been working. But if we're working a lesser schedule, what is the show? The way we'd like to have done it would not have necessarily been good for the show. Right now you have me working six to seven days an episode, and Alexis doing about the same. To do anything less than that just wasn't going to be the same show. They tried to make it appealing for us, and we tried to be imaginative, but then at the end of the day it just felt like we were trying to do something impossible.

Did you and Alexis band together during negotiations?
Graham: Not in a formal way, but we certainly discussed what our hopes were. We were very open with each other. Most of our conversations were, "Can we imagine coming back."

Is it true that Alexis was the harder sell?
Graham: I don't think that's true. I did formally say at one point, "I'm not coming back." Then they thought, "Well, can we do it with just Alexis?" I don't want to speak for her, but we both went back and forth. Ultimately, neither of us wanted to do it without the other one.

Was that a real possibility?
Graham: If she was in a place where she wanted, like, her own show or her own spin-off.... They were trying to think of everything. There was a time when we thought maybe I would produce and not be on the show in the same capacity. I've been at this for a long time; I feel ready to move on. But they were trying to find a way to make it work. There were a lot of scenarios. I had very open conversations with Dawn Ostroff. We tried, but they ultimately said, "You know what? This is just too complicated." And I felt so glad, because I don't think it would've been the same show for another 13. We were trying to find a way we could have a slightly easier schedule, and there was really no way to do that and still have it be Gilmore Girls.

Were you happy with the show creatively this season?Graham: I was happy with the process. I really enjoyed [working with] the writers. I felt every year, even under Amy's leadership, that the show evolved. For the last episode, we tried to match the final shot with the first scene from the pilot, so we went back and watched the pilot — which I haven't seen for so long. And the show now is really different from that pilot, which was more dramatic at the time than your typical WB show. And I think it evolved and got more comedic over the years; every year was an evolution. This year was strange sometimes because I had a lot less to say, and that was really weird. For some people I'm sure that was great, but I would find myself in long scenes where I was not rattling on, and it was just really weird to me. And so I did sort of question, "Are we keeping this character consistent?" And they were responsive to me.

When we spoke last year you mentioned that you'd like to someday be given a producer credit, but you said there was no way Warner Bros. would allow it. Well, this year they gave you a producer credit. What changed?
Graham: I really felt strongly that I was doing the job of a producer. And in order to imagine moving forward — which I was imagining at the time — I really hoped they would recognize the different job I was doing. And eventually they very nicely did. When the creator of the show is gone, the actors end up being the people who have been there the longest. And I got more involved with where the story was headed, and felt that I was having more of an active role. I just thought it was warranted.

I heard that you requested some changes to the finale script….
Graham: How do you hear these things, Mike!? Where will all your moles go now that the show is over! (Laughs)

Good question! So, what changes did you ask for?
Graham: My feeling was [the episode] just felt too light to me — even as a season finale. I thought this should be an opportunity to say goodbye, or at least have some sort of acknowledgement of all these characters. I [also] wanted it to be more dramatic. And David Rosenthal was extremely responsive — more so than he needed to be. So he went back and took another look at it, with more of an eye to, "How can we acknowledge all of these characters? Give everyone a moment." I felt it was important to go a little deeper.

Do you think Luke and Lorelai fans will be satisfied with how things end?
Graham: Yeah. You know, the other thing I felt strongly about is that this is a show that is ultimately about these girls. It started with this mother-daughter relationship, and we haven't been a show where big events happen. So I always worried that there would be some pressure to.... (Laughs) My extreme example was always, "Double wedding!" I just didn't want there to be a big event. But there's definitely a direction [with Luke/Lorelai] that I think will be satisfying.

Were you surprised at how reluctant fans were to let Luke and Lorelai go when she went off and married Christopher this season?
Graham: Well, it was a tough story to follow. We got married really impulsively. I always wanted [the Luke/Lorelai/Christopher triangle] to be as complex as it could be so that there wasn't an obvious choice. It's like when you go see some romantic comedy movie and you're like, "Well, obviously she shouldn't be with that guy." They make it too easy. I just sort of wanted them to write Christopher in a way that made it a real love triangle. But everything happened so fast. The Luke and Lorelai story is where the show started. That should be the thing they're rooting for, because that's what the show set up. That makes complete sense.

Conspiracy theorists maintain that you pushed for a Lorelai/Christopher romance because of your prickly relationship with Scott Patterson.
Graham: You're the conspiracy theorist! (Laughs) I finally figured it out!

No, I'm not! You wouldn't believe how many questions I get about this. Is it much ado about nothing?
Graham: Yes, it was overblown. I mean, I am closer, personally, to David [Sutcliffe]. And we've gone to dinner together. I always thought that maybe people thought I was trying to give him some sort of advantage because we're friends. But that's not it. Like I said, when a show is continuing for so long, I didn't want there to be an obvious choice, because then the show is over; there's nowhere to go. So I always argued for other [romantic complications] because I thought it made the story better. But I always felt that it would cheat the fans to not have the [Luke and Lorelai] relationship be important in the whole of the show.

How would you characterize your working relationship with Scott over the years?
Graham: Totally great. It's a working relationship, like most of them are. But he was so great in that part. I really loved my scenes with him and the chemistry we had. Our banter was among the most fun stuff to do.

Is it bittersweet ending without Amy?
Graham: Yeah. What I hoped — and this is not to take away from David Rosenthal, who I had a really nice year with — was that she would write the finale. But that's not the way she works. She's either there 100 percent [or not at all]. She couldn't just come in and pick up another story that she didn't lay the groundwork for and finish it. I wish she had been more involved this year, because I was playing a piece of her that is so specifically her. I missed her writing.

Have you spoken to her since the announcement was made?
Graham: We e-mailed and we're supposed to have a drink this week.

Are you going to try and get her to divulge the final four words she had planned to end the series with?
Graham: Oh, right — I forgot about that. I think she would've given it up to me had we known this was the end. That was the other weird thing about ending the show like this. When we finished [shooting], there was a 50/50 chance we'd be returning. So when we left the wrap party, we were like, "Bye! See ya next season!" Had we known [this was it], I think she would've given it up and we would've worked it in.

Favorite memories?
Graham: Oh, gosh. There was a real kind of high — that's the only way I can describe it — when we'd get these big athletic speeches and then nail it after 35 takes. (Laughs) And that is a feeling that I really haven't had with another part. To do that language, all systems have to be go; you have to really have a lot of concentration. And that feeling was really exhilarating. I'll miss that experience as an actor. And there was a specific sense of humor and music to the way [Amy] would write these speeches that I'll really miss. And these are people that I loved, whether I see them every day or not. Alexis and I fell over laughing many, many times — partially out of exhaustion. (Laughs) We really bonded in a very unique way. And I'll miss the feeling of [being around] a crew, all of whom I know and feel really at home with and really supported by. That was not an easy show to do and that crew was really great.

Favorite episode?
Graham: Oh my God. I literally can't even remember the last one.

Maybe a scene that stood out?
Graham: There really were so many. The dinner tables, while a drag to shoot because it takes forever getting all the angles, were really, really fun.

So, when's the Gilmore Girls reunion?
Graham: (Laughs) We're totally doing the Gilmore Girls movie. I'm never, ever going to do anything else. There's Gilmore Girls: The Musical. The line of clothing called Lorelai. And the perfume called Stars Hollow.... No, you know, I'm promoting Evan Almighty, which comes out in June. And I have been reading a lot. And sleeping. (Laughs) But I'm auditioning for things, and I'm going to try and do another movie soon.

Would you do another TV series?
Graham: I would do another TV series, but not right away. I love TV. I think I'd do a half-hour single-camera comedy. But I'm going to really just enjoy this time and make sure I'm ready to do something new. If I had the best thing in front of me right now I don't know that I'd be able to be excited about it, 'cause I think [you have to make room] to let the other thing pass. So, yeah, I'd love to take a year and see what else I can do.

Anything you'd like to say to the fans?
Graham: Just that I've been truly thankful for their support and for their fanaticism (Laughs) and their investment in these characters through all the ups and downs of a seven-year process. I can't tell you what a kick I get out of [hearing from the fans], especially the younger people over the years who have grown up with the show and have [developed] a bond with a family member from a different generation while watching it together. I hope when I'm 55 and I've been out of a job for a long time and those girls are running the studios that they remember Lorelai Gilmore.

Ausiello Report (TV GUIDE)
http://community.tvguide.com/blog-entry/TVGuide-Editors-Blog/Ausiello-Report/Lauren-Grahams-Final/800014383
May 6 2007

(May 2007) CW Bids 'Gilmore Girls' Goodbye

2007-05-03T21:56:00.000-04:00

CW Bids 'Gilmore Girls' Goodbye
Series ends its seventh and final season

May 3, 2007

The CW and Warner Bros. Television announced Thursday that the popular multigenerational family show starring Lauren Graham and Alexis Bledel will wrap its seventh and final season on Tuesday, May 15.

"Announcing the final season of 'Gilmore Girls' is truly a sad moment for everyone at The CW and Warner Bros. Television," reads the joint statement. "This series helped define a network and created a fantastic, storybook world featuring some of television's most memorable, lovable characters. We thank Amy Sherman-Palladino, Dan Palladino, Dave Rosenthal, the amazing cast led by Lauren Graham and Alexis Bledel, as well as the producers, writers and crew for giving us this delightful gem for the past seven years. We would also like to thank the critics and 'Gilmore' fans for their passionate support and promise to give this series the send-off it deserves."

Fears about the fate of the show have been plaguing fans for a while now, ever since Sherman-Palladino and her husband/collaborator Dan left the show at the end of the sixth season, when "Gilmore" was on the now-defunct WB. Graham and Bledel only had contracts for one more season with the CW, however, and the fledgling network similarly only committed to the series for a year, which appears is now up.

"Gilmore Girls" captured audiences with the close, playful yet heartfelt relationship between a single mother raising her daughter in the wacky town of Stars Hollow despite pressures from her own parents to conform to their country club ways and marry the baby daddy. The show was known for its rapid-fire dialogue, colorful characters and pop culture references. The show also launched the careers of Milo Ventimiglia ("Heroes") and Jared Padalecki ("Supernatural"), both of whom played Rory's boyfriend at some point during the show.

The show's two remaining episodes will see Rory (Bledel) receiving a marriage proposal, while Lorelei (Graham) sorts out her own love life. The season finale, titled "Bon Voyage," guest stars Rory's idol, CNN journalist Christiane Amanpour.

http://www.zap2it.com/tv/zap-gilmoregirlscancellation,0,2388353.story

(January 2007) Lauren Graham talks about turning 40, the future of her hit show, and branching into movies

2007-01-28T20:04:00.000-05:00

Jamie Portman, The Ottawa Citizen
Published: Saturday, January 27, 2007

Anniversaries can be times of excitement. Or they can be downers. Or sometimes they can be a mixture of both. Lauren Graham has a couple coming up. She turns 40 in March -- and that's the kind of milestone that calls for personal reappraisal.

But in addition to this, Gilmore Girls -- the TV series that has been the mainstay of her existence -- will complete its seventh season this spring and that means contract renewal time, assuming that the show continues and that she wants to stay on.

It so happens that she can't decide how she feels about either event.

Graham, who has won a bouquet of awards for her performance as Lorelai Gilmore, is uncertain about what she would like to see happen to the show.

It might be easier if she had some idea of the intentions of the WB network in the U.S. about the future of this durable series -- carried in Canada by Global -- about a mother-daughter relationship so close that the two are often mistaken for sisters.

"It's very strange not to know," Graham says. "And I have mixed feelings about it. I love that show. I love that character, but I'm tired of doing those long hours for seven years now."

She admits that the work schedule for Gilmore Girls is starting to take its toll.

"I have missed people's weddings. I have missed babies being born. I don't see my friends that much. At best, it's a 12-hour day, and it only goes up from there."

Yet she's clearly torn.

"You know, I'm so grateful. You can't just say -- I want to move on. You can't allow yourself that luxury because there's not enough work. On the other hand, it's no way to live."

Furthermore, Graham has added to the pressures by doing movies whenever possible. She opens Feb. 2 in Because I Said So, a romantic comedy starring Diane Keaton as a mother who has raised three wonderful daughters (Mandy Moore, Piper Perabo and Gilmore) who both adore her and frequently want to strangle her because of her interference in their lives. Graham jumped at the chance to portray the most stable of the three -- a successful psychologist who proves to be a resource for both her mom and sisters -- but she couldn't have done the role without the co-operation of the producers of her TV show.

"It was around this time last year -- a week around Christmas where the show was actually off but the movie was shooting, and they just worked it out. It was so worth it to me because I just can't tell you -- to do this small thing with somebody like Diane after seven years on a TV show -- it just brings me back to all the reasons why I wanted to be an actor in the first place, and makes me a better actor on the TV show."

Moreover, she really loves Because I Said So as a movie. "It's the kind of story I really like. I like stories that are just about how families communicate and relationships and finding love. That's what I like -- and I wanted to work with Diane."

Graham has a second movie, Evan Almighty opposite Steve Carell, opening June 22 -- and she says this was an even more gruelling experience because she was constantly flying back and forth between Virginia and Los Angeles. Often she would have to travel overnight in order to be on the Gilmore set the next day. "It was just incredible that it worked out because it was the only way I could do it.

"But," she adds with a laugh, "at some point I'll find that I can't work like this any more because it is really hard."

She's certainly not the first actor to be in this situation. On the one hand, there is the security of a long-running TV series; on the other hand, there's the attraction of being a freelance performer -- the downside being the lack of job security.

Her own devotion to Gilmore Girls, in which Alexis Bledel co-stars as her daughter, has caused her to turn down some movie offers because she thought they were too similar to the series in dealing with parent-child relationships.

"I'm already on a show that is so well-written. It's about this great mother-daughter relationship and I'm not trying to get away from that ... but in a movie I don't necessarily need to do the same thing. The show I do is already the smartest version of that."

And she certainly doesn't want to start playing the kind of "generic mom" whose main function is ask the kids what they did with the peanut butter.

"It could be me playing the mother of 50 other people. It doesn't feel specific."

Meanwhile, she has no idea how she really feels about turning 40.

"I wouldn't even think about it, except that I'm in this job where people ask me about it," she smiles. So, having been forced to think about it, she's concluded that maybe, just maybe, this would be a good time to cut the cord with Gilmore. When she was a kid, she didn't ever think it possible that one day she would be 40. "Now, it's different. I think it's kind of a cool time, possibly, to be in a place where I'm not working on the show ... There's a lot I want to do in the next 10 years, so the fact that maybe the show is ending and there happens to be this birthday -- it just sort of feels like a mark of time. Those are the years that you did that, and now these are the years where you're going to move on and do something else."

Of one thing she is certain. The show could not continue if either she or Alexis Bledel dropped out.

"It's a package deal," Graham says firmly. "I would never go forward if Alexis wasn't going to be in every episode. It should only be as it is.

"We have always been a good team. We relate in shorthand. I'm not a mom in real life -- I just play one on TV -- so all I knew how to be was like her friend. I would never presume to really mother her in real life -- it's more of a sort of peer relationship."

http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen

(September 2006) 'Gilmore Girls' isn't what it used to be

2006-10-09T14:05:00.000-04:00

Alan Sepinwall

Tuesday, September 26, 2006
Gilmore Girls

(Tonight at 8 on Channel 11) Lorelai deals with the aftermath of sleeping with Christopher, Rory pines for London-bound Logan, and Taylor's attempt at traffic management goes bad in the seventh-season premiere.

"I woke up one morning and looked around the room. Something wasn't right. I realized that someone had broken in the night before and replaced everything in my apartment with an exact replica! I couldn't believe it. I got my roommate and showed him. I said, 'Look at this -- everything's been replaced with an exact replica!' He said, 'Do I know you?'"

-- Steven Wright

WATCHING the season premiere of "Gilmore Girls," I couldn't stop thinking of that bit of vintage Wright. The show looks the same, the actors are the same, they're behaving in a consistent fashion, and yet... exact replicas.

I suppose that unsettling feeling was inevitable. At the end of last season, "Gilmore" creator Amy Sherman-Palladino and her husband, Daniel, quit because they couldn't agree to new contract terms with Warner Bros. studio. Sherman-Palladino not only created the "Gilmore" characters, she lent them her voice.

Like Aaron Sorkin on "The West Wing," David Milch on "NYPD Blue" and a handful of other over-stimulated writer/producers in network TV history, she either wrote or rewrote the vast majority of episodes. (And Daniel handled the ones she didn't.) Lorelai Gilmore is Amy Sherman-Palladino, give or take a fondness for big hats.

As if new showrunner David Rosenthal weren't already starting at a disadvantage, Sherman-Palladino scorched the earth on her way out. First she spent most of last season pushing popular couple Lorelai and Luke apart though the shark-jumping introduction of Luke's previously-unknown daughter April. Then, in a twist that was as loathed by the fans as it was irreversible, she had Lorelai break up with Luke and go to bed with her ex-boyfriend (and baby daddy) Christopher. Sherman-Palladino said she had hoped to stay and continue the story, but it was hard to watch the finale and not imagine her saying, "Get out of that one, suckers!" (Maybe something wittier; she's the Dorothy Parker fan, after all.)

Sorkin pulled a similar stunt when he was forced off "West Wing," contriving a way to put a Republican in charge of the White House in his last episode. It was a mess that his replacements clumsily tried to wave away in a few episodes, but the emotional fallout lingered over the show for months. Milch, meanwhile, left "NYPD Blue" without bothering to tell any of his successors what Ricky Schroder's deep, dark secret was; their improvised answer was so convoluted and lame that fans were almost relieved when the actor's character was killed off.

It's to Rosenthal's credit that he addresses the Christopher situation head-on. He doesn't make it into a dream, doesn't try to pretend they just cuddled all night, doesn't have Lorelai and Luke make a pact where he has a one-night stand and then they pretend like it never happened. The premiere deals honestly with what happened and how the characters would react to it.

Lauren Graham is so good in the final scene that she would deserve an award for it -- if, that is, Emmy voters weren't so oblivious to her existence that she couldn't even get nominated in a year when the TV Academy introduced a rule change that was nicknamed after her.

The problem is that if Rosenthal and company stay true to the characters, there is no realistic way Luke and Lorelai would get back together by the end of this season, which as of now looks to be the show's last. Luke's greatest fear was always that Lorelai would get back with Christopher; she did it, and if/when he finds out, he is not the type to forgive easily. A quick fix will feel phony; a realistic treatment will deny the fans the happy ending they've been pulling for practically since day one.

So if the dramatic, romantic core of the show is good and thoroughly bollixed, that leaves the comedy. And it's in the quippiness where Sherman-Palladino's absence is most keenly felt.

Rosenthal can write a funny line or 12, definitely. Liza Weil's underused Paris Gellar has a nice scene where she screens applicants for her new SAT prep class; when the mother of a prospective student insists her daughter has such potential, Paris snaps, "So did Charles Manson." And Alexis Bledel's Rory, failing to keep up a brave face after boyfriend Logan's forcible exile to London, goes on a memorable rant about whether the phrase "good-bye" is an oxymoron.

But the comedy half of "Gilmore Girls" has always been more than the sum of its punchlines. What's missing is that machine-gun pace, the sense that Graham and Bledel are always a second away from needing an oxygen mask. The season premiere is noticeably slower and less busy than usual. The Dragonfly Inn's kitchen, usually bustling with activity, now looks like it just got shut down by the health inspector.

"Gilmore" has had sluggish episodes before, but those usually came in the middle of a season, and you could always reassure yourself with the knowledge that the phrase "Written and Directed by Amy Sherman-Palladino" would pop up in an episode's credits in another week or two. That's not going to happen now. Anyone who's lived with this show and its characters for the last six years can see that something has definitely been stolen, even if, to the casual eye, the replacement looks and sounds close enough.

Alan Sepinwall may be reached at asepinwall@starledger.com, or by writing him at 1 Star-Ledger Plaza, Newark, N.J. 07102-1200.

http://www.nj.com/columns/ledger/sepinwall/index.ssf?/base/columns-0/1159249405224510.xml&coll=1

(September 2006) Gilmore Girls: Season Seven Premiere

2006-10-09T14:03:00.000-04:00

by Willa Paskin

When Gilmore Girls begins its 7th season this fall it will do so without its executive producer and creator, Amy Sherman-Palladino. Under her direction Gilmore Girls has been one of the quirkiest, smartest, wittiest and most beloved shows on television, boasting razor sharp dialogue, the fastest banter this side of His Girl Friday, a series of realistic, loving, and fraught mother-daughter relationships, and in, Lorelai Gilmore, perhaps the most fully developed female character on television.

But under Palladino’s direction Gilmore Girls has also been one of the most frustrating and flat-out weird shows on TV, consistently forsaking the major characters and plot development in favor of donating exorbitant amounts of screen time to the peripheral, supremely irritating characters that populate Lorelai and Rory’s quaintly surrealistic hometown, Stars Hollow. Without Palladino, Gilmore Girls will certainly be different… it just might be better.

Throughout her tenure on the show, Palladino has shown herself to be like one of those parents who only doles out three pieces of Halloween candy per kid, and insists that one of those pieces is a small box of raisins. Gilmore Girls’ viewers never get as much of the good stuff as they really want.

Take, for example, this past season’s excruciating finale. Both Lorelai and Rory were involved in season-long story arcs in need of resolution, yet neither dominated the episode. Instead, a third of it was taken up by an immaterial talent show. Stars Hollow’s resident “troubadour”, a fellow who sings on the town’s streets, had been plucked off the corner to open for Neil Young. Hoping to catch such a break, dozens of musicians (including Sonic Youth, Yo La Tengo and 24’s Mary Lynn Rajskub) descended on the fictional town, sending Taylor, Stars Hollow’s persnickety top politico, into a tizzy of speechifying that all this music was bad for business and sleeping. One third of the season finale was taken up by content that could be fast-forwarded without missing a thing about our eponymous girls. Raisins.

Of course, Palladino absolutely loves raisins ("But, sweetheart, raisins are candy!") She’s not trying to show you something you won’t like—she wants to show you something she thinks is absolutely fantastic. Her enthusiasm for this storyline radiated off the screen. The fact that most viewers of Gilmore Girls would probably have rather (no offense to Kim Gordon) seen Lorelai than Sonic Youth doesn’t seem to have mattered very much to Palladino.

Indeed, watching the show, one regularly gets the feeling that giving the audience what they want isn’t very high up on her priority list. Not that Gilmore Girls is in the practice of killing off main characters or even keeping love interests apart. Rather, it’s the whimsies of Palladino’s aesthetic sensibility that dictate the happenings on Gilmore Girls. Palladino is probably a big fan of Yo La Tengo. She wanted them on her show, so they were. Her personal taste trumps all else—which is how you explain not only the season finale, but episode after episode when town meetings and recreations of the American Revolution are all that happen on screen.

But Palladino’s taste also accounts for what’s great about Gilmore Girls, and why it doesn’t feel like any other show on the air. In addition to the annoying, kitschy, time-sucking subplots she throws on the screen, she’s responsible for Lorelai and Rory and Emily, for all their talk, and for of a pace and quality not realistically attainable by unscripted humans, but still magnificent and whirling nonetheless. She’s also responsible creation of this crazy town—a charming setting—if only it wasn’t on screen so damn much.

For all she did wrong in the finale, when Palladino finally got around to tackling the major story lines, she did a bang up job. The episode contained a brief, but intense fight between Luke and Lorelei, the culmination of months of tension. It wasn’t long, it wasn’t thorough, but it was well written, well acted—an enormous, painful release. After endless inaction this three-minute fight carried the emotional weight of an entire episode.

Palladino’s restraint with the show stopping, knock down drag-outs makes Gilmore Girls one of the more realistic shows on television. To speak of realism and Gilmore Girls is a tricky thing, given how patently unrealistic Stars Hollow is. It’s a town out of time, where there’s no fast food or gas stations, everyone is bizarre and involved in each other’s business, and they all gather frequently to stage weird rituals on the town green. It’s a town with a troubadour. And Sally Struthers lives there, too.

But in this strange little town lives a woman who, for all her snappy, snide banter, for all her willingness to bicker, avoids truly painful confrontations with the people she loves for as long as she possibly can-- just like most of us. Lorelai regularly ignores the gaping dysfunctions in her relationships with her mother, boyfriend, and daughter. Those people are in her life for good, everyday doesn’t need to be a scene from World War III.

Delaying emotional confrontations between the main characters makes the episodes where they do occur seem quite dynamic – and other episodes less so. Season after season, Gilmore’s major problem has been one of pacing. Watching many of the episodes before Lorelai and Luke’s fight, or before Lorelai and Rory’s reconciliation after a painful falling out earlier this season, or before the consummation of Luke and Lorelai’s relationship last season, when the writers inexplicably squired him off to a Renaissance fair, was like staring at someone treading water: the show’s not going anywhere, at least not this week. Instead of seeing any forward movement in the plot, you watch Lorelai and Rory participate in some ridiculous town spectacle.

That’s not to say every single episode of Gilmore Girls should involve an enormous fight. If Luke and Lorelai had a heart-to-heart every time they met, their arguments would be meaningless, the show would be maudlin and overly dramatic. Gilmore Girls would be One Tree Hill. It is to say that doling out the right amount of plot to keep viewers from feeling bored without degenerating into a soap opera is a complex balancing act, and it’s not one that Palladino has always managed well.

And it may be one that a new showrunner could do better. Someone who could say, “Ok, so we want Yo La Tengo, but how about we skip Sonic Youth? Or, maybe we can figure out a way to integrate Rory and Lorelai into this troubadour storyline, so it doesn’t feel so unnecessary.” Someone such as this might pay more attention to story flow and not let five or six episodes go by with no development on major fronts. Palladino did the hard work, already; she created people and a place that are distinct and interesting and that viewers care about. But perhaps it’s time for someone who’s a little less quirky sensibility will be able to put together a consistently better television show.

http://www.popmatters.com/pm/tv/reviews/5792/gilmore-girls1/

(July 2003) Actress or Activist?: Keiko Agena Fights Racial Stereotyping On And Off Screen

2006-08-29T10:41:00.000-04:00

Actress or Activist?: Keiko Agena Fights Racial Stereotyping On And Off Screen

By Sara Stokoe

Five foot one inch Japanese-American actress Keiko Agena is not one to underestimate. In addition to her recurring role as Lane Kim, Rory's best friend on the WB's "Gilmore Girls," Agena is also somewhat of an activist, and is very involved in the Asian-American community.

When she is not filming episodes of the hit television series, Agena spends her weekends traveling to Asian festivals around Los Angeles with Blacklava clothing company; a grassroots organization whose mission is to raise questions as to how Asian-Americans are viewed in today's society. Their t-shirts contain clever counter-stereotypical slogans such as, "I suck at math" and "Asian is not oriental."

Although she is no longer with them, Agena once belonged to an Asian-American theater company called hereandnow. She performed at colleges and festivals around the country with the theater group, performing interwoven stories from an Asian-American perspective, many of which were taken directly from the lives of the performers themselves. Even though she has successfully moved on from hereandnow Agena continues to support their cause, and Blacklava sponsors them.

Her activism against racial stereotyping also plays a major role in her career as an actress. "As an actor, you have certain responsibilities to choose roles that will be positive images. I wouldn't do anything that was stereotypical or demeaning." In a recent interview with APA, Keiko commented on how she chooses the roles that she will play and the ones that she will pass up. "I call up my friends and ask them, 'What do you think, should I do it? Is it really cheesy? Is it really stereotypical?'" But she notes that it is very difficult in choosing which roles to let slide because "there are not many roles out there."

But because of this lack of desirable, un-stereotypical roles in Hollywood for Asian Americans, Keiko appears to be reluctantly accepting of some of the stereotypes, and acknowledges that some may criticize her for her stance. She commented on how she believes that what Lucy Liu is doing for Asian American actors is great, because "if you prove that you are marketable, and people will pay money to go see you then that will give you some amount of power, and then you can go on to the things you want to do" She notes that while Asian-Americans do not want to be "pigeon holed in just one area…it is really an important first step."

So, while Keiko fights to promote greater racial understanding and end stereotyping, she also has to work with what is out there, and hope that for her, being a high profile success doesn't mean being restricted by her ethnicity.

http://www.asiaarts.ucla.edu/070303/20030703_keiko.html
________________________________

Full Interview with Keiko Agena (May 16, 2003)
Interviewed by Lynna Kim
Transcription by Carol Soon

Lynna: Can you please introduce yourself?

Keiko: Sure. Hi, I am Keiko Agena. I play Lane Kim on "Gilmore Girls."

Lynna: First question, can you tell us where we may have recognized your familiar face?

Keiko: I am from "Gilmore Girls." I have also been on "Felicity"; I had a small recurring role on that, and then just little guest star roles, stuff like that and short films. I am doing more short films now.

Lynna: Tell us something about yourself that the public would never expect, like quirks or eccentricities?

Keiko: Well, I usually say that I ride a motorcycle or that I had a motorcycle, but I've said that a lot so I don't know if people do know that about me, but I used to have a GS 500 Suzuki, black and white motorcycle. That was my primary mode of transportation for a few years and I play the drums, but that's not kind of quirky because that is on the show. I play the drums.

Lynna: How long have you been playing and do you play professionally?

Keiko: Amazingly enough, we have been trying to put a group together. Well, I do have some actual musician friends. I have been playing for about a year, but the name of the band is "Mosaic" and we are going to be playing in June on Tuesday nights at the café, which is a great event, first and third Tuesdays in front of the East West Players building, do a quick plug for that. But the curator for that is letting us play. So we are going to play like three songs, I think. "Mosaic"!

Lynna: Do you play professionally or just as an amateur?

Keiko: I think a lot of people want to play, especially the drums, because the drums are a lot of fun. But there is such an awkward period at the beginning that if it wasn't for the "Gilmore Girls" that kind of forced me to practice, I don't think I would have gotten past that very awkward stage where you are so bad and loud. But because of the show, I kind of had to practice and so now it's getting to be a little bit more fun. Yeah, it's that secret desire that's coming out.

Lynna: The penetration of Asian Americans into the film and television industry finally seems to be breaking through with well-known celebrities such as yourself. But compared with the infiltration of Caucasians, African Americans, and Europeans, the number of Asian faces still remains slim. How were you able to make it as one of the few Asian American regulars on television?

Keiko: Well, for me, I was just lucky enough to get the part. I mean, I like "Gilmore Girls" because it feels like it is kind of an eclectic cast. I like the way they cast it and the way they wrote it. I wish I can take credit for that, but unfortunately I can't. Amy Sherman-Palladino has a best friend by the name of Helen Pai, who I have gotten to know very well. So my character is actually based on her, and unfortunately, some of the things that have happened to me on the show have actually happened to her in her life. But obviously, we stretch it for comic effect on "Gilmore Girls." Her parents were very strict, and the fact that she was Korean was Amy's idea. She was a good friend of hers, and Amy was just fascinated with her life, that she grew up in such a different way. So she brought that storyline into it. And I would like to see more characters, just more on television and film, just so that we had some variety. That would be nice.

Lynna: On the all-to-popular WB series "Gilmore Girls" you play the role of Lane Kim, the knowledge-hungry, word-hungry, eccentric best friend of Rory Gilmore. How accurately do you feel Lane Kim embodies a typical Asian American 16-year-old?

Keiko: Well, it's T.V. so a lot of the things are not exactly the way they are in real life, but I don't know. That would be a good question to ask other people, like how they perceive the way it is played or written. I kind of get both, as far as feedback. Some people recognize aspects of it, certain things about the relationship that they can relate to, but not the whole thing. Every comment I get is that Mrs. Kim is way too strict, you know, she is just extreme, and your mother is never like that. But there are certain little things that people can relate to.

Lynna: You have played the brainy Lane, a romantic lead in "Red Thread," an inspirational college student in "Felicity," and recently a comedic role. What role would you like to pursue in the future? What role fits you best?

Keiko: Well, there are certain things that I feel I can play better just because of my whole life experience, so I tend to gravitate toward those types of roles. There are certain things that I won't audition for because I am just like, "Ugh, I can't" and I struggle. Believe me I struggle! I call up my friends and ask them, "Well what do you think, it has this kind of character name, it has this sort of attribute. What do you think, should I do it? Is it really cheesy? Is it really stereotypical?" And I have some really good friends who go, "Yeah!" and I say, "Ok I won't do it. I won't audition for it." But it is hard because there are not that many roles out there! So you really have to decide that you really don't want to do it if you going to pass on something.

Lynna: Do you think your own personality resonates with the character, Lane? If so, in what way?

Keiko: I think she was written in a different way, but I think this sort of happens with television. It's that it sort of becomes who you are and a little bit with what they envisioned. I always think, and I haven't talked to Amy about this, but I always think that Lane originally was much more cool. I don't know, a little more sarcastic and more laid back, but whatever they gave me, regarding things that were quirky or extreme or goofy, I think I kind of excelled at that for whatever reason. So I think it becomes a little bit of a mix of that aspect of my personality and Lane, however she was originally intended to be.

Lynna: How do you feel about playing a Korean American actress, when in reality, you are Japanese American? Why do you think it was pertinent to the show that you play a character of this certain nationality?

Keiko: I still think that it was just that Helen happens to be Korean American. I don't really know, but I think Amy sort of just saw a good storyline. I think writers just go around and say, "Well that interests me or that doesn't interest me." Amy Palladino and Dan Palladino are married and are two of the executive producers and, just from observing them, I see that this is how they sort of go about doing things. Whatever resonates with them and clicks with them, and is going to hold their interest over a long period of time, that is what they are going to write about. If is sort like, "Eh, I don't know," it has got to hold their interest for a long period of time. Apparently, the storyline is going to hold on to their attention for a very long time.

Lynna: Once a year, Ammy Awards, a take off of Emmy Awards, honors Asian American talent in film and television. Congrats on your win as the Best Female Actor in a TV production!

Keiko: Why, thank you. Whoo!

Lynna: Finally, Asians are being recognized as being phenomenal talents in Hollywood. What did it mean for you to win this award?

Keiko: I was surprised and really happy. I mean you always… Always? Like I get nominated for these things, but when you go, you want to play it all cool, but inside you are like, "Please pick me, there is no chance but please pick me!" So that was kind of the situation I was in. Even though you don't want to be, you heart is kind of racing. I don't know, I was really surprised. I was really glad that people were watching the show and don't hate you. I don't know about other people, but actors are always like, "Do they hate me? No? Alright, I am safe, I am alright. I am ok."

Lynna: Did winning this award make you more confident in your acting abilities?

Keiko: Well, thank goodness, I have gotten a little more confident over time. In general, because you know in this business, in any business you kind of have to increase your confidence level, so I think that is one aspect among other things that has sort of helped me be more confident or at least appear more confident.

Lynna: Who do you see as role models in Hollywood, particularly to Asian Americans? Why?

Keiko: Oh, I might get a lot of criticism for this, because I know that there are better role models (oh but now I am going to get criticism for what I am going to say), but I think it is great what Lucy Liu is doing because she is making money for studios and people are going to argue with me about stuff like that. But I think that if you prove that you are marketable and people will pay money to go see you, then that will give you some amount of power, and then you can go on to do the sorts of things you want to do. So I think that everyone who serves as a high profile actor or performer, who is proving that they can be successful is a big help to all of us. I know that it may not be what we want ultimately because we don't want to be pigeon holed in just one area, but I think it is really an important first step. I support everyone who is going out there and working, you know, doing well for people.

Lynna: What would you say about the B-rated films that aren't as marketable as other films, but are still great films?

Keiko: Well, that is a good question, because I think talent always rises. I wouldn't call it a B-rated film, but I know a lot of people who are watching this or you guys know, but "Better Luck Tomorrow" just came out. It's an independent film, it's an amazing film, it's so talented, it's getting so much buzz because it is good. It is Asian American but I don't support it because it is Asian American, but because it is good, because talent is there, direction is there, the production value is there, and the actors are good. And when you have a product that is like that, people are going to notice, whether it got the funding originally or not. I think it is hard because we are harder on ourselves, sometimes we are too hard on ourselves and on the people of our community, but on the other hand, I think that when you support something it should be for the right reasons. I want to support it because it is good, the talent is there, and that primarily, and of course, because it is helping all of us in the community as Asian Americans.

Lynna: How do you decide what movies you want to be a part of?

Keiko: Most actors would say this, primarily it has to be a good script and you like the writing, and secondly, it's a part that you think that you can shine in, bring out the best in, and I guess the question of whether or not it is going to be successful comes after that. The first two things need to be there, otherwise, why do it? Maybe in two years, I will think "Yay! Big budget. Give me the money," I don't know.

Lynna: How much do you challenge yourself, in regards to taking roles different from what you normally play?

Keiko: That is a good question. I am a little bit of a chicken. I challenge myself all the time, but not where there is evidence. If you get me something like an improv class or some place where it is a friendly environment, I think I let myself go a lot farther. If it is for something, even like a short film or something like that, or television, I think I am much more conservative. I'm much more protective of that, which is something I just shoot for, being experimental in that field. I don't know, everything is a balance.

Lynna: Many critics may say that the entertainment industry does not fuel the minds of young people; in fact, they claim that it fills their minds with violence, sex, profanity, and a warped sense of reality. How do you respond to these attacks?

Keiko: That is really a hot button issue. You are talking about like "Jack Ass" and stuff like that, that are kind of like violent movies?

Lynna: Yeah, yeah, but even normal series, TV series that people might look on and say, "Oh that contributes nothing, it is just entertainment, you don't learn anything or gain from it."

Keiko: I think for myself, I have been thinking about that question a lot, but to be honest I don't really know where I come down on that issue because it is really hard to say. I don't think you can go either way a hundred percent because to say that it is the responsibility of the media to educate us on how to raise our kids, I can't go there, but then I can't completely excuse the images that are being pumped into our minds from all kinds of media, video games, television, and film. So I think there is a responsibility, but I haven't decided where I stand completely on that. I am still thinking about it. I think it is an important question to answer, but I think there is a lot at stake.

Lynna: How did you decide to pursue acting?

Keiko: I just decided that I was going to act professionally just this year, to say to myself that this is what I really want to do. I don't know how other people feel but this is actually a hard question to really commit yourself to because the chances are so slim. I think a lot of people have crazy ideas of how easy it is in this business, but the odds are so slim to be successful, and even just to make a living doing what you like to do. That is what I want, I want to make my money, my income doing creative things and if I can do that and be eighty-eight years old sitting on my rocking chair and looking back on my life, and can say that "I have done that!" and done things that I am proud of, I think that will make me feel successful. So I am putting that out there. That is what I want.

Lynna: What did you want to be when you were younger, before you starting acting?

Keiko: I was pretty young when I did my first play; I was ten. There is that famous quote that someone told me when I was in high school, that Betty Davis said that if you can imagine yourself doing anything other than acting, then you should do it. I kept thinking about that: "Is there anything else? Is there anything else that I can possibly do besides this business, because I should do it" and I think that is kind of what happened in the beginning of this year when I decided, "No, it has been a long process, but this is what I really like to do and you only go around once, unless you believe in reincarnation, but you only go around once, so you should go for it." If you are going to go for it, the time is now to make that decision so I finally decided.

Lynna: Tell us about your future plans.

Keiko: There is a short film by writer and director of "Red Thread," which I am in, and I think she was calling me on the way over here that it was in the film festival coming up here in LA, so you can go check it out there. The other film that I am working on, which I think will be good anyways, even though I am doing costuming for it, but go see it, is going to be called "Sad Happy Sucker." It is going to come out in a while.

Lynna: Thank you for your time

Keiko: Thank you.

http://www.asiaarts.ucla.edu/070303/20030703_keiko_a.html

(June 2005) Emily Kuroda: The Trained Thespian behind Gilmore Girls' Mrs. Kim

2006-08-29T10:30:00.000-04:00

Emily Kuroda: The Trained Thespian behind Gilmore Girls' Mrs. Kim
by Ada Tseng

So who is the actress behind this one-of-a-kind character? A respected theater veteran. APA talks to Emily Kuroda -- who in real life, thank goodness, doesn't resemble the intense, intimidating character that she portrays onscreen.

Gilmore Girls is no stranger to high drama. The season five closer was no exception with the seemingly unbreakable Lorelai-Rory bond was shaken before our eyes. Knife through Lorelai's heart as Rory drops out of Yale. Then, double daggers through any other organ capable of feeling anger and betrayal after the heart has been punctured as Rory moves into her grandparent's house, as Lorelei watches her daughter merge into the claustrophobic old-money world that Lorelai had rejected her entire life.

But in the same episode, there was a brighter subplot. In contrast to the Rory debacle, there was the less intense, but just as notable development of Lane and Mrs. Kim's strained mother-daughter relationship being unexpectedly mended. This is where Emily Kuroda comes in, playing the incomparable Mrs. Kim character, bringing humor, heart, and an element of reality to an otherwise insane character.

Recap Alert! So last year, Lane (Keiko Agena) had been kicked out of the house when her uber-conservative mother (Kuroda) painfully realized that Lane had been lying to her her entire life, living a secret identity where she was fraternizing with non-mother-approved boys who were not Korean doctors, watching TV (instead of reading the Bible), eating french fries and pizza (aka food of the Devil), and acting as a drummer in a rock band (aka music of the Devil). Lane had been living in sin in an apartment with her two male bandmates for a year. Eternal damnation and hellfire. At the end of this season, Lane realizes that the band is not going anywhere, and comes back to her mother, wanting to move back home even if it means going back to her strict rules. However, in a surprise turn of events, Mrs. Kim demands that Lane not give up on her dreams, organizes a tour for them to play on, and ultimately helps Lane inject the passion back into group members so that the band does not go the way of the trilobites. It's beautiful, really. Especially when Mrs. Kim literally breaks down the door of their apartment and storms it like a crazy person, scaring the crap out of everyone -- her specialty.

Although Gilmore fans love her, make no mistake, Emily Kuroda has had a steady career in theater, film, and television way before her Mrs. Kim days. A Japanese-American who grew up in Fresno, California, she's had roles on Doogie Howser, LA Law, and was recently on Six Feet Under. However, Kuroda is most known for her extensive theater work. She is a veteran of East West Players, Los Angeles' premier Asian-American theater, acting in over 35 of their productions over the years. She's received five Dramalogue awards, a Garland award for outstanding performance, and a LA Ovation nomination for Best Lead Actress. Kuroda has become a staple in Asian-American theater -- most recently in David Henry Hwang's M Butterfly and playing Wardina in Chay Yew's A Distant Shore. We can see her on the big screen soon in Shopgirl, the adaptation of Steve Martin's novel starring himself and Claire Danes.

APA: When did you know you wanted to be an actress?

Emily Kuroda: I started out directing and performing in high school. And then I went to college, and I was in drama, and they said, "Oh well, you should be a teacher." And all I could do was get the little crap roles. But then, I saw East West Players come along, and I said "Wait a minute...." I went there for a summer to study, and I said "Oh my God, they were wrong. I can actually act and make a living at it." So, that kind of changed my life. And that was 1978 and I've stayed ever since.

APA: Would you say that theater is your first love?

EK: Yea, because I studied for a long time. Their thing was that you should study first, don't just try to go become a TV star or a soap opera star. So I spent the first few years working odd jobs, and studying and doing theater. So I think I am at home on the stage.

APA: How would you describe your character on Gilmore Girls?

EK: I started doing Gilmore Girls in March 2000, in Toronto. Over the five years, she has grown from being a mean mom, to a mom that has to deal with a daughter who wants to date white people, a daughter who wants to play music, who wants to dress like the other kids. So, the mother is having problems trying to keep up with the times. She still wants to do the right thing for her kid, but she's not sure what the world is like anymore, so it's a constant struggle.

APA: Do you feel like the character is softening, over time?

EK: Yea, I think the character is starting to soften -- even though she kicked her daughter out of her house, for lying to her about her band -- and I think the writers have done something really interesting for the last episode of the fifth season.

APA: How did you go about creating the character? Isn't Lane's character actually based on the life of one of the producers? How much of it is true to her real life and how much of it is made up?

EK: Yes, Helen Pai, who's one of the producers. So it was really great, because usually when they have an Asian family in a show, they put all this "Oriental" stuff in it. But this one doesn't, since it's based on a real person, and also because I think the writers and producers are so with it. When I read for it, I just automatically assumed that I'd have an accent, and the creator said, "What are you doing?! No!" [laughs] I mean, the character does have an accent, but it's not a Korean accent. It's her own specific "goofy mom" accent, which I thought was really cool.

Helen's involved in music, or her husband is. I met with her mom, who was like, [imitates] "Oh God.... What are you going to do? They fall in love. What are you going do do? I don't like it, but OK." [laughs] Her mom's helped me with my Korean, during the few times that I've had to speak Korean.

APA: What is it like working with Keiko Agena?

EK: Oh, she is the best. She's a wonderful actress. She's one of the most down-to-earth girls I've ever known. She's just the most giving, most supportive person. She's just terrific. I wish all stars were like her.

APA: Do you get recognized a lot?

EK: Yea I do. All over. I get people writing me from all over Europe, from Singapore. Gilmore Girls is really hot in Singapore. It's huge. So I get really good treatment in Singapore. Better than here. [laughs]

APA: What is it like being part of a successful TV show for five years?

EK: It's really great. It's like a big dysfunctional family. Everyone knows each other. One guy who was a camera guy is now directing. So, except for all the dialogue we have to memorize, it's great.

APA: Yea, Gilmore Girls is known for the characters talking really fast...

EK: Yea, it's very fast. And it's word-perfect. Letter-perfect. They demand it. So that makes it a little hard. But we're kind of used to it.

APA: How would you describe the differences between working in theater and working on the TV show?

EK: Theater usually has a big rehearsal period, so you can think about things. You can talk to the director and work out things. You can talk to the writer if there's any problems. You can really flesh out a character. Versus TV -- I get the script the night before, and it's about trying to memorize the lines really fast. And time is money, right? So they say, here are your marks. Go! Go! Go! Talk faster. Hit your key lights. OK go. And in between takes, if you mess up, you've got the script person telling you, "You said the instead of and," you got the make-up people there, the director's giving you acting notes, the camera person's saying, "You didn't hit your mark. Can you go there?" "Uh huh, uh huh, uh huh," and they say "Go on again!" and it's like, here I go.... So, it's really fast-paced, versus stage, where before you go on, you can actually take a moment and think about what you're doing.

APA: In terms of most the roles you get and also the ones you audition for, do most of them still want you to do an accent?

EK: Yea.

APA: Is that frustrating?

EK: Yes. But you know, it doesn't happen all the time, and in fact in a lot of my roles, I do the generic roles, where I don't need an accent. But whenever it's a family, they usually have the parents first generation

APA: Since the time you started acting, how has the industry evolved, in
terms of Asian-American roles? Have there been vast improvements?

EK: There's been some improvements. I'm very excited about the things Lucy [Liu]'s been doing. She's been breaking through some of the barriers. My good good friend John Cho has broken down some barriers, and I'm just so proud of him. And he's at the point where he can actually help implement changes with the producers and the writers, and he's doing it because this is very important to him. So, it's slow, but we're getting there. [pauses] But it's very slow.

APA: What other things can we expect from you in the future?

EK: I'm doing some producing now, and some directing. Little things here and there. I keep myself busy.

APA: Thank you so much for your time.

http://www.asiaarts.ucla.edu/article.asp?parentid=25456

(August 2006) Ode to Gilmore Girls: Behind the Musicality of TV’s Beloved Show

2006-08-29T10:19:00.000-04:00

Ode to Gilmore Girls: Behind the Musicality of TV’s Beloved Show
by Ada Tseng

As a smart-talking, endearingly-pretentious, pop-culture reference machine, Gilmore Girls has always taken its music very seriously. You are what you listen to -- especially when it comes to Lane Kim, who best encapsulates the ‘audiophile’ mentality of the show, acting as a mouthpiece for the Gilmore writers/producers who aren’t shy about separating the real deals from the poseurs.

LANE: [On phone] "No, wait, wait, wait. Progressive rock is a really passé style now, but I listed it as an influence because it was a progenitor of great things that came afterwards. I mean, I contend that you can draw a straight line from Yes to Jethro Tull to the Jam to Nirvana, bing bang boom… [pauses]. Who are the Jam? That’s disturbing."

Lane Kim (played by Keiko Agena) -- lead character Rory Gilmore's best friend -- is obsessed with music. Snap judgments made on the account of less-than-stellar musical taste, while a habit of many of the inhabitants of the Gilmore world, is taken to extremes when you’re dealing with Lane. She lives for music; she breathes music; she regularly orchestrates intricate, elaborate schemes, mobilizing friends and fellow townspeople to implement her strategic secretive missions, in order to get her hands on new music that her mother forbids her to listen to.

Music has had many different functions in Gilmore Girls. Plot-wise, the show has, on many occasions, made use of music’s deep-seeded powers to explain motivations and drive a story forward in ways that words and actions might fall short.

It can act as a catalyst to unlikely friendships. When Lorelei encouraged Rory to invite her Chilton classmates to a Bangles concert, it was the first step to smoothing over animosities, and it allowed Rory and former nemesis Paris Gellar to forge a lasting connection of loyalty and trust.

It can symbolize inherent incompatibilities. When Lorelei rejects Christopher’s marriage proposal, she argues that he cannot possibly be ready for marriage, because The Offspring is his favorite band. "The Offspring have, like, one chord progression. They use it over and over. They just popped on new words, called it a single and… I don’t want to talk about this anymore!" The lesson here is this: "Metallica" (one of Lorelei’s favorite bands) and "The Offspring" can never be on the same level.

It can separate the mundane from the exquisite. When Lane puts up an ad to form a band, she must sort through the idiots who don’t know that Kim Deal was in the Pixies before the Breeders, or that Jackson Browne actually wrote some of Nico’s best songs, and ultimately finds a male counterpart that is just as intense as she is. And sparks fly.

But in Lane’s case, it’s more than that. Music is her dream. In season two, Lane passes by a music shop and feels a magnetic pull to go in. Moments after laying eyes on the shiny red drum set, she begs the store-owner, guest star Carole King, to give her drum lessons, and it’s a turning point that changes her life forever: "I have found my calling… My future, my path, my destiny, my thing, my scene, my bag. I’m talking about the number one item on my cosmic to-do list…. I am Keith Moon, I am Neil Peart, I am Rick Allen, with and without the arm, because I am rock ‘n roll, baby!"

The fact that music is such an integral part of Gilmore Girls reflects the seriousness in which the Gilmore team – especially wife-husband executive producers Amy Sherman-Palladino and Daniel Palladino -- takes their music choices in reality.

Breaking from the network format -- other WB shows unabashedly use music for marketing purposes and advertise for the artists at the end of each episode -- Gilmore Girl’s tendency leans towards bringing back the old, edgy and true, rather than promoting the young, pretty, and brooding.

Carole King records a special version of her hit "Where You Lead" for the show’s opening credits, and Sam Phillips provides the background music and score for the show. Over the years, they’ve secured the talent of Grant Lee Phillips (picture below) to play their town troubadour, and well as Sebastian Bach (of Skid Row fame) for a reoccurring role as one of Lane’s band members. Other notable figures who have guested on the show include The Shins, The Bangles, John Gion, and Paul Anka (also the namesake of Lorelei’s dog).

But, the essential piece of continuity that has tied everything together musically, providing a constant outlet for the Gilmore "official" opinions, is none other than Lane Kim – the "Nico-obsessed, Exene wannabe with forty Korean Bibles under her bed" -- who will always express what is right and belittle those who do not understand or meet the standards of artistic eruditeness.

"Dan is hugely into music," says Helen Pai, a co-producer of Gilmore Girls and the inspiration for the Lane character. "You walk into their house, and they get a new speaker every week. I think Amazon has a direct line to their house. Once Amoeba moved in, it was over, essentially. He has, like, 100 ipods."

Pai, herself, is a music fanatic, which is fortunate, because, "with the show, [music] takes up a lot of time." With Pai’s involvement behind the scenes of the show, fact and fiction intertwine. In season two, as mentioned above, Lane meets Dave Rygalski (played by Adam Brody) who becomes her first boyfriend and helps form her first band -- along with bassist Brian (John Cabrera) and lead singer Zach (Todd Lowe.)

Dave Rygalski is actually the name of Helen Pai’s real-life husband, a comedy writer who currently works on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. The real-life Rygalski, who is also a musician on the side, plays the bass for Brian’s character on the show.

"Dave and I got married during the first season of Gilmore Girls," says Pai. "And when you become family, you start having to go to these family events. And my parents would ask him to do insane things. They’re very active in the religious community, but we’re not religious, so it would be one of those things where I’d be dragging him out. So, one week, they wanted to go perform for a retirement home, and they wanted us to sing. And Dave was so sweet, he’d say, ‘Oh, I’ll play the guitar!’ And I, was like, ‘No, we’re trying to get out of this!’

"So Amy would hear stories about this, how Dave gets pulled into so much of this stuff, and he does it so willingly. So, that’s where the character of Dave Rygalski comes from. And they just decided to name the character after him."

So Dave on the show volunteers to play guitar for Mrs. Kim’s church services so he can spend time with Lane. He pretends to be a devout Christian in order to get Mrs. Kim to allow him to take Lane to the prom. Although the Lane’s onscreen relationship didn’t last – Adam Brody departed for The O.C. -- her band, Hep Alien (an anagram for Helen Pai), continued on without the fictional Dave Rygalski. They replaced him with guitarist Gil (Sebastian Bach), and Zach eventually became Lane’s new love interest.

When Gilmore Girls first started, Pai was a script coordinator, taking notes in the writer’s room: "I type like a madwoman," says Pai. "My typing speed is insane, and I think Amy was always impressed by that." Through the years, Sherman-Palladino grew to trust her, and the producers put her in charge of outside projects, like the Gilmore Girls novels, one of which Pai wrote entirely herself. By the end of the sixth season, and now continuing onto year seven, Pai had become involved in everything from set design, publicity, DVD special features, and legal clearances, to sound mixing and post-production tasks.

Pai is also the coordinator who is in charge of any scene in Gilmore Girls in which Hep Alien performs on-camera.

"She’s pretty much been there consistently from the beginning to help out with that aspect of the show," says Agena. "She’s at rehearsals trying to translate what Dan is envisioning, and to make sure we know what we’re doing."

"We get together and work out the kinks," says Pai. "A lot of shows, when they have music on, they’ll go into a studio, pre-record it, and then play it back in their ear. But we actually will try and shoot it live, which is a real challenge."

Agena started taking drum lessons. "It was definitely a highlight when I got a phone call saying that they wanted to teach me how to play the drums," says Agena. "Because I would never learn to play an instrument this late in life, unless it was for something like this."

"These are the things that Amy wants," says Pai. "It was a reality factor. We wanted her to learn so it looked more realistic."

The biggest, and most exciting, Gilmore Girls musical project to date, occurred during the Season 6 season finale, "Partings" [original airdate, May 6, 2006], where they had their own "Gilmorepalooza" in conjunction with Amy Sheman-Palladino and Dan Palladino’s last episode with the show.

"It was something Amy and Dan had been thinking about for a while," says Pai. "Having a troubadour contest." The story they came up with was that Grant Lee Phillips, Stars Hollow’s town troubadour, is discovered by Neil Young’s manager; as a result, musicians from all over the country flock to the small town thinking it is the new hot spot to display their music. The story essentially gave the Gilmore crew the opportunity to fulfill a wish list of all the musical acts that they would want to cameo in the show, to bring them in as street musicians.

"Sonic Youth somehow got in touch with us, because they love the show and wanted to come visit," explains Pai. "They happened to be there when Sebastian Bach was singing ‘Hollaback Girl’ – which was fantastic.

"And they [Kim Gordon and Thurston Moore] were so unbelievably nice. So, somehow Amy got on the topic of – ‘Would you guys like to be on the show?’ And, they said, ‘Sure!’ And from there, we started finding others. I am friends with the bass player of Yo La Tengo, and I knew that he was a huge fan of the show and that Amy and Dan loved them, so I thought we’d see if we could throw that into the mix. And, we loved Joe Pernice and his music...

"The Sparks had contacted us, not to appear on camera, but because we had been working with them on a musical collaboration for the show. So, when they called, we went after them to appear on the show. And lastly, there was Sam Phillips, our music composer, who we weren’t sure would be interested in appearing in front of the camera. But she said, ‘Absolutely. I’ll do it.’"

"I loved that episode," beams Pai. "Musically, that was it. I don’t even need to do any more. This is the top of what it’s going to ever be."

The crowning touch of the musical Gilmore episode is probably the most unnoticeable troubadour performance of them all. But, it’s one that epitomizes the ultimate overlapping of reality and TV magic.

"Daniel Palladino was one of the troubadours," laughs Pai. "It was the scene that starts out with Sonic Youth, the night scene where Taylor (Michael Winters) is walking through. And, at the end of the scene, there’s Dan Palladino singing, with a guy playing stand-up bass, and another guy playing the acoustic guitar.

"The guy on stand up bass is my husband [the real Dave Rygalski]. And, the guy who plays guitar is the guy who plays Sebastian Bach’s guitar off-camera. So, with that scene, the guys who are literally behind the curtain, playing for Lane’s band, are finally out in front of it."

Fellow Gilmore Girls TiVo-ers, knock yourselves out.

http://www.asiaarts.ucla.edu/article.asp?parentid=51438

(August 2006) You Break, You Buy: The Indelible Mark of Gilmore Girls

2006-08-29T10:13:00.000-04:00

You Break, You Buy: The Indelible Mark of Gilmore Girls
by Ada Tseng

Over these past six seasons of "Gilmore Girls," viewers have gotten a glimpse of what Asian Americans on television can be. No token characters, no racial identity issues, just people who light up the crazy world we live in. Creator Amy Sherman-Palladino was just trying to find a funny story to tell, and as a byproduct, a door was creaked open. Helen Pai, Keiko Agena, and Emily Kuroda helped make it happen.

Sometimes things just creep up on you. The friendship that you suddenly realize is rare and more special than you had ever imagined. The black cat with the devil eyes you have to pretend doesn’t freak you out because you’re convinced it senses fear. Ivy. Old age. The sequelae of prolonged ecstasy usage. Often times, it’s the things we don’t notice and take for granted that have the greatest influence. And it’s not until we are able to step back and evaluate the bigger picture that we realize – in the end, it’s the subtleties that pack the most punch.

Even from the perspective of an avid watcher of the show, Gilmore Girls’ influence on society’s perceptions of Asian Americans as in-depth, three-dimensional characters was something that had, for the most part, flown under the radar.

Who knew that a charming family show about a mother-daughter duo in the small fictional town of Stars Hollow, Connecticut; a show that overcame dismal ratings only to become the WB’s second highest-rated series; a show that, before Arrested Development, obliterated all competition when it came to fast-talking dialogue and densely-packed pop culture references – who knew that this show would also become one of the most notable milestones for Asian Americans in the media in the last few decades.

True, there have been more high-profile landmarks. Margaret Cho in All-American Girl is the first that comes to mind. The Joy Luck Club. Better Luck Tomorrow. Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle. All are great moments and important stepping stones. The irony of Gilmore Girls’ accomplishment, though, is that no one notices. That’s also what separates them from the pack. Isn’t that what Asian Americans have been fighting for all these years? To not be typecast? To be represented as normal people? It’s the very fact that these characters are so integrated into the storyline -- that their Asian-ness is not something that is seen as extraordinary or unusual -- which makes Gilmore Girls ground-breaking.

It’s not until you step back and think about the lack of precedents, that you start to realize what a big deal it really is. As a twenty-something, growing up in the ‘80s, the option of seeing Asians on television wasn’t even a luxury, it wasn’t expected at all. Six years of an Asian American family consistently on your screen, every Tuesday night, warming themselves into your hearts, saying and doing hysterical things? My poor eleven-year-old mind would have exploded.

Back in the day, you had your Full Houses, your Saved by the Bells, your Friends, your My So-Called Lives. Great shows; no complaints. But gradually, new and diverse faces started popping up. Lauren Tom in Friends. Lucy Liu in Ally McBeal. Ming-na Wen in The Single Guy. Kayla Blake on Sports Night. Parminder Nagra on ER. On the surface, it seems incidental. But in reality, behind the scenes, it’s an accumulation of years and years of fighting to break down barriers. For every small detail (even for something as recent as Justin Lin’s The Fast and the Furious 3), there has been immense struggle. But we’re starting to see the results.

Think about it: younger generations who have been following a show like Gilmore Girls will see stories about a Korean American character and her family on a mainstream television show and it’ll be completely natural to them.

So how does the Gilmore Girls crew make it look so easy? They seem so immersed in the day-to-day aspects of creating a show that the bigger picture of societal influence doesn’t seem to penetrate their consciousness. According to them, it really is just about telling a good story in the best way that they can.

The Evolution

For the past six years, Lane Kim has been an integral part of the Gilmore world. An official member of the cast from the start, Keiko Agena plays Rory Gilmore’s best friend, a rock-and-roll obsessed teenager who constantly downplays her true self, out of respect (and fear) of her intensely strict mother, Mrs. Kim. It’s been a fully developed story, all the way through. Over the years, we’ve seen Lane through three relationships, we’ve seen her struggle with what she wants to do with her future and discover her passion for drumming, we’ve seen her hidden life discovered by her mother, we’ve seen the heartbreak from both sides as Mrs. Kim kicks her out of the house, we’ve seen her repair her relationship with Mrs. Kim and develop one that is closer than ever before, and we’ve seen her get married to the man of her dreams in what might possibly have been the coolest wedding ever.

Most of the credit goes to Amy Sherman-Palladino, the creator of Gilmore Girls. The character of Lane was inspired by her best friend and Gilmore Girls co-producer, Helen Pai. Ever since they met ten years ago working together on the short-lived Fox show Love and Marriage, Pai has been entertaining Sherman-Palladino with stories about her family. Before Pai knew what she was in for, Amy called to tell her that she had finished her pilot for Gilmore Girls, and she had written into it a Korean American family based on Helen’s life.

“Initially, it was very weird,” says Pai. “I’m not a limelight kind of person. During the first season of Gilmore Girls, we had a panel, and there were a lot of questions about Mrs. Kim and Lane and the stereotypes. And, Amy would then explain, ‘Listen, these are real stories. They’re based on a real person.’ And people came up to me after the panel, and I was very uncomfortable.

“And, I was a little frightened to tell them any more stories!” she laughs. “When she’d ask me about my family gatherings, I’d think, ‘I can’t tell her.’ But then it’d eventually come out. I can’t stop Amy. No one can stop Amy.”

“She’s brilliant,” says Emily Kuroda, who plays Mrs. Kim. “Amy goes out on a limb. Because, look at all the other shows on TV -- with all the young pretty people. Amy hires older people, fat people, ethnic people… Nobody does that! That’s unheard of!”

“One nice thing that I found out,” says Agena, “was that there was a very intricate scene in the pilot where Mrs. Kim is first introduced. They go into Mrs. Kim’s antique shop, they’re walking around in a big maze of furniture. And Amy was actually getting a lot of pressure to cut something. And since the Mrs. Kim scene was a quirky little side story that didn’t really advance the storyline, that would have been a really easy scene to cut. But Amy just really wanted to do it. So I was grateful that she stuck to it.”

Part of what makes the story unique and funny is Lane’s relationship with her mother. It’s an interesting contrast to the mother-daughter relationship of Rory and Lorelei Gilmore, the main characters on the show.

The character of Mrs. Kim has always been a bit of a foreboding presence in Stars Hollow, frequently known to be doing ridiculous things, like following people holding a bat and spraying Rory with a hose to keep her away from her house. Mrs. Kim has been known to break down doors. Once she told Zach he should “swim in the sludge with Satan’s hell-dogs and feed them [his] innards for eternity” for dating her daughter. Mrs. Kim is always around even when you think she isn't. Just when you think you’re safe from her, she pops up from behind a corner and barks something at you. One of her first lines from the pilot was a grave warning to Rory: “Boys don’t like funny girls.”

“The character of Mrs. Kim started out as very no-nonsense and very stiff,” says Kuroda. “I’m not sure where that came from. I’ve never done anyone like her before. In my head, she’s had a really tough life, and she survived it by being very methodical. So that’s the basic feel for her. She’s ‘military’ to me. She’s very practical and she has her rules.”

As a reaction to Mrs. Kim’s uber-conservatism and paranoia, Lane develops a hyper-sensitive fear of getting caught doing something wrong and setting her mother off. She’s always running away, sneaking around, trying to avoid being shipped off to Korea without a return ticket, conceding to a life filled with hymns and Bible passages, and reluctantly going on blind dates with potential Korean doctor mates and their extended families. Most of it is exaggerated for comedic effect; some of it is completely made up; and even when there are elements of truth to some of the events, the stories are told through Helen’s perspective, which, she’ll openly admit, is a slanted one.

“My parents are religious Seventh Day Adventists, and they were very strict,” says Pai. “So, in addition to the Korean culture thing, which is a very protective atmosphere, I kind of felt that I got hit with this double whammy. And yet, I was this American girl that just wanted to go out.

“But even though I was a little bit of a rebellious kid, I really do love and respect my parents. I understood why they were so protective. So I think Amy saw that and thought that it was an interesting character.”

And it is interesting because Lane isn’t your typical rebel. And Mrs. Kim isn’t your typical parental oppressor. There’s love deeply woven in the relationship despite the clear barriers. There’s an added layer of complexity between them because there is not only a generational gap, but a cultural clash as well. Mrs. Kim truly believes that junk food, boys, music, and dancing are influences of the Devil. Unfortunately for the both of them, Lane, a teenager immersed in American pop culture, truly loves: (e) all of the above.

But any small indiscretion results in Lane being locked up in her room and restricted from making any phone calls or having contact with the outside world (Psalm-a-day hotlines excluded). Everything, from something as simple as getting her hands on the new Belle & Sebastian album, has to be done surreptitiously. So, Lane has been forced to lead a double life.

One of Lane’s trademark moves involves hiding her CDs, make-up, and other non-Christian items under the floorboards of her room. She has a walk-in closet filled with psychedelic lights and posters, her personal haven and the only outlet in her household for expressing her individuality. What’s amusing, and impressive, about Lane is how comprehensive and meticulous she becomes about her secrecy.

“There were definitely elements of that [in my life]. Absolutely,” says Pai. “I had the closet where I put up all my posters. My dad knew about it, but he kind of turned the blind eye, until he got really mad at me and took everything down.

“My parents were so strict that when I wanted to go out, I had to sneak out. I couldn’t just walk through the front door. So literally, after they went to sleep, I snuck the phone up to my room, and my friends would be like ’11:00, we’re going to call. Synchronize your watches!’” Pai laughs. “It was kind of ridiculous.”

Because Lane is based on Helen Pai, the character of Mrs. Kim is assumed to be based on Helen’s mother. However, Pai thinks that Mrs. Kim is actually more like her father. “My mom was always the sweet Korean mom, always entertaining the kids. My father is far more the strict one.”

If that’s the case, that both Pai's parents are melded into one character, it might partially explain the mysterious absence of Mr. Kim, who has been mentioned on the show but has yet to be seen. He didn't even bother to show up to his daughter's wedding.

“I know!” laughs Agena. “Where is my dad?”

“Lane has alluded to her 'parents’ [plural] before,” says Kuroda. “That was when I shipped her off to Korea. So, when they told me they were going to have a wedding, I thought, ‘Oh wow, this is exciting.’ But then, I don’t know where her husband was. I guess Mrs. Kim is going home alone.”

“My theory,” says Pai. “And it's really never been solved, is that he is in an import/export business, and he's in Korea all the time. That's what I'm going with. But that has nothing to do with the show. That's just my theory.”

Mrs. Kim has definitely softened and grown over time. The first few seasons focused on the differences between her and Lane, their clashes in character. However, after season five, there was a turning point in Mrs. Kim’s character where suddenly, layers were unraveled, and the viewers started seeing more of Lane in Mrs. Kim, as well as more of Mrs. Kim in Lane. We started to see how similar they really are.

Even though Pai’s parents don’t watch Gilmore Girls– “It’s the same night as some Korean program.” – Pai’s mother has been involved with the show on numerous occasions. “We give her parts of the script, and she says, ‘Now Helen, you have to be very careful, because you’re representing the Korean community,’" says Pai. “She really wanted me to be cautious.”

Pai's mother coached Kuroda on an episode called "The First Date,” which was based on the fact that Pai's mother wasn't happy about Helen dating her now husband, because he wasn't Korean, but how she learned to accept it because he made her daughter happy. “We talked about that for a long time."

"And then she had to teach me Korean.” Kuroda, who’s Japanese American, groans. “I had to speak a lot of Korean for the wedding episode. It was very stressful. My Korean is very bad. I warned them. But I tried my best.”

“She was really nervous about that,” laughs Pai. “I felt terrible. I was like, ‘Emily, I’m sorry, we’re trying to get you stuff as fast as we can.’ She’s so sweet and she just wants to do a good job.”

In terms of keeping it truthful to Korean-ness, Agena says “I think with the show, the intention is there to represent it well, but not necessarily ‘accurately,’ because, after all, it is a comedy. It’s going to take elements of something and blow it up to the extreme.”

Kuroda says the show has Korean consultants -- especially for Lane’s big wedding episode at the end of season six. The wedding had three parts: a Buddhist wedding to please Lane’s grandmother, a traditional Church wedding for Mrs. Kim, and a reception, when Lane and Zach were able to let loose and put on a rock show for all their friends.

It was during this episode when we realize that Lane’s relationship with her mother was exactly the same as Mrs. Kim’s relationship with her mother. It was a long line of Korean mothers wanting their children to be a certain way, and the daughters not fitting into the mold, and therefore feeling the need to hide their lives in order to please them. The Mrs. Kim/Lane storyline had come full circle.

After all the ups and downs that Lane and Mrs. Kim have had in their relationship, this season dealt with Lane having broken up with her boyfriend Zach, coming back to her mother, begging for forgiveness, and moving back home. Seeing her daughter stressed out and going through a tough time, Mrs. Kim lets down some of her guard and exhibits some sympathy and compassion for Lane. In a moment of unexpected brilliance, Mrs. Kim, takes out a bottle of liquor from the cabinet and pours them both a shot: “You have grieved, and now we move on.”

It was that scene, Kuroda says, that drew some criticism from some young bloggers. “Seventh Day Adventists wouldn’t actually do that, cause they’re not supposed to drink,” says Kuroda. “So it really bothered them.”

“That was the best though,” laughs Agena. “That was a total moment. Because you would never think, from the beginning of the series, that those two people would ever get to that point. So it was a nice contrast of how they started. It’s kind of a capper.”

The Impact

Although the Lane storyline is only a subplot of Gilmore Girls, it has been a consistent one. It's given both Lane and Mrs. Kim a chance to blossom into authentic, complicated, well-developed characters that viewers really root for. Mrs. Kim – who Emily Kuroda makes sure to note doesn’t have a Korean accent, to the credit of the producers – is not limited to a caricature of a crazy, strict, backwards-thinking Asian parent.

Ultimately, nobody watches the Asian American characters on the show to see “what Asians are like.” They watch the show because it’s funny. It allows viewers to become emotionally invested in the eccentric characters. Ultimately, what Asian Americans have always wanted is to be recognized for their wide spectrum of qualities, to be appreciated for the quality of the work, and to not be pigeonholed or feel obligated to represent a specific image. Gilmore Girls is an example of mainstream media striking that balance successfully, and as it has shown through its longevity, that if it’s appealing and clever, people will watch.

“One of my favorite things right now is this Asian guy who’s been in a couple of TV commercials. A phone commercial and a Febreeze commercial. He’s just ‘the guy.’ And I don’t know why, but I like that," says Agena. "It’s a character you’ve seen a million times before, but it just happens to be him, and he just happens to be Asian American. And he’s funny.”

As long as we’re in on the joke, we’re in good shape. And besides, as far as positive representation goes -- Lane is a female drummer in a rock ‘n roll band. Who just married her lead singer.

It doesn’t get any cooler than that.

http://www.asiaarts.ucla.edu/article.asp?parentid=51436

(May 2006) Gilmore Girls should call it quits

2006-07-23T22:50:00.000-04:00

'Gilmore Girls' should call it quits
By BILL BRIOUX -- Toronto Sun

Amy Sherman-Palladino calls tonight's Gilmore Girls sixth season finale -- her swan song as the show's driving force -- "the coolest thing we've ever done." The question is: Can and should this eccentric series survive without her?

I say cue the fat lady, bring out the fork, strike the sets. This show is toast with or without Palladino.

The last two or three seasons, Gilmore Girls has almost dared viewers to change the channel. Every character on the series was fluent in smartass. Even the extras had snappy answers to stupid questions. The rat-tat-tat patter, clever at first, became enraging.

Like Northern Exposure's Cicely, Alaska, Gilmore's Stars Hollow is Eccentricville, U.S.A. After a while, shut up with the Dorothy Parker dialogue already.

What saved Gilmore Girls from Exposure's premature flame out was great acting, especially from Lauren Graham as Lorelai and Kelly Bishop and Edward Herrmann as the over-the-top grandparents. They kept the show grounded and real, allowing Sherman-Palladino to spin her flighty fantasy world.

Doing this show without Sherman-Palladino will be like taking Aaron Sorkin out of The West Wing. It will create a different show. That may not be a bad thing; it might be refreshing to see these characters drop the know-it-all blather. Or -- and this is the bigger risk -- it may become Everwood dull.

New network CW probably needs these Gilmore Girls to snare WB viewers next fall. For what -- to string out the Luke and Lorelai romance for another season? Did they learn nothing from those one-too-many seasons of That '70s Show, Friends or Will & Grace? You go, Girls.

http://jam.canoe.ca/Television/2006/05/09/1570407.html

(June 2006) Scott Patterson knows what to do with his GG money

2006-07-23T22:46:00.000-04:00

Scott Patterson knows what to do with his Gilmore Girls money
Posted Jun 16th 2006 12:33PM by Joel Keller

Anyone remember when Scott Patterson -- currently playing Luke Danes on Gilmore Girls -- played Elaine's "spongeworthy" boyfriend on Seinfeld? Well, that was probably Patterson's first big role, but it didn't exactly start the money rolling in. In fact, according to this New York Daily News article, Patterson's earnings in the two years before he got the Gilmore part were $23,000 and $33,000 (yikes -- he made that little money despite his high profile roles? Shows you how hard it is out there if you don't have a regular series).

But seven years on a hit show has Patterson in the money. But he didn't always spend it well. The article details some of the mistakes Patterson made at first -- he lost a bundle on eToys stock, for instance -- before seeking the help of former actor and current financial planner Jeffery Fishman. Now, he's actively involved in planning for his future, whether the acting jobs continue or not.

By the way, Patterson is 47. Wow. Didn't realize he was that old (I figured he was closer to 40). At least we know the guy takes care of himself.

http://www.tvsquad.com/2006/06/16/scott-patterson-knows-what-to-do-with-his-gilmore-girls-money/

(June 2006) Interview with Melissa McCarthy

2006-07-23T22:43:00.000-04:00

Sugar Shot
June 16, 2006
By Sarah Kuhn

Melissa McCarthy would like to thank the producers of MadTV. After all, they inadvertently helped her land the role of Sookie St. James, klutzy chef and best friend to Lorelai Gilmore (Lauren Graham) on the hit series Gilmore Girls. The part originally went to actor Alex Borstein, who is perhaps best-known for her wildly popular MadTV characters Miss Swan and The Gap Troll. MadTV wouldn't let Borstein out of her contract, and McCarthy nabbed the part. Quips McCarthy, "I should have sent all those producers flowers."

These days, it's hard to imagine anyone else bringing sweetly scatterbrained Sookie to life. Still, McCarthy found replacing Borstein a nerve-racking experience--particularly when Borstein showed up at the first table read. "I about had a heart attack, 'cause I thought, 'Oh, my God, they worked out her contract--she still has the part and no one called me,'" recalls McCarthy. "And no one really knew who I was, so I was just kind of standing there, having a bit of a meltdown: 'At some point they're going to start, and then I'm just going to, like, back out of the room.' But she got up, came all the way across the room, and introduced herself and let me know, 'You're not crazy, and I'm playing a different part'-she did some guest-star work on [the show]... She was the sweetest person to me." Incidentally, Borstein's real-life husband, Jackson Douglas, plays McCarthy's husband on the series.

Gilmore Girls returns this fall for a sixth season, but McCarthy is keeping busy in the meantime. She just finished working on a film called One Part Sugar, a comedy about "a little decrepit town that takes its power back from the bad guy."

"I wear a really, really pretty waist-length mullet in it," relates McCarthy. "[It's] just this side of playing a man. It's not my beauty role, but it was really fun."

She's also set to appear at "Achieve Comedy Greatness-From the Ground-lings Up," a comedy-focused Learning Annex panel/class on Tues., June 20. The panel features notable members and alums of The Groundlings, Los Angeles' legendary comedy/improv troupe that has launched such talents as Lisa Kudrow and Will Ferrell. McCarthy's fellow panelists include Cheryl Hines (Curb Your Enthusiasm), Mindy Sterling (Austin Powers), and Michael McDonald (MadTV). "There's a pretty good group going from kind of a variety of angles..." says McCarthy. "I think you get [together] a handful of funny people that have kind of been in the business long enough, and you'll probably get a lot of straightforward answers."

Comic Creation

McCarthy is a current company member at The Groundlings and recalls seeking the troupe out when she moved to Los Angeles about nine years ago. "My sister, who's not in the business at all, sent me an article all about The Groundlings and all the people who had come out of there," she recalls. "It just piqued my interest, so when I got to town, it's the first place I went, and I saw a show, and I had never seen anything like it. I think Kathy Griffin was there, and Patrick Bristow and Mike McDonald. And I saw these people just slightly out of their minds in a delightful way. I thought, 'Gosh, that looks like fun.' So I went back and auditioned and started taking classes and that began a very long love affair with The Groundlings."

Before that, she started her career in New York City, doing standup comedy. "I had moved [to New York] with a friend of mine, and he said, 'You have to do an open mic-it's ridiculous. You're basically doing standup anyway at parties,'" she remembers. "I came home and he had open mics booked for me. I kind of had no choice, and I didn't really know what they were, so I just showed up and I just talked. I did...I guess what's now alternative comedy: stream-of-consciousness stories. I just did that because I've never really been jokey and I didn't really know what I was doing, so I didn't prepare. Things went well, so I kept going back. It wasn't for quite a while that someone was like, 'Your 10-minute set seems like it changes.' I was like, 'Changes? I've never written anything down.'"

From there, McCarthy started acting in plays. "I did years and years of very serious, depressing plays," she says, laughing. "I didn't do anything comedic again until Groundlings. So I spent a good five or six years crying all through little stages in Manhattan."

On Solid Groundling

McCarthy says having such a strong improv background has helped in all facets of her acting. "I think it's really easy to kind of prerehearse your stuff and anticipate how it's going to come out, and I think…as we're learning lines, it plays out a certain way in our heads, and that usually or rarely matches what happens on the day of shooting," she says. "So to not be thrown by that and kind of take it as a nice surprise is always good. It's always much more interesting-if you're thrown a little off balance, it usually works in your favor."

That said, McCarthy doesn't get to use her improv skills much when it comes to Gilmore's whip-smart, fast-paced dialogue. "There is absolutely no changing [of the lines]-not a preposition, not anything," she says. "It is a show that's done verbatim, and it's a rhythm and style show, so it makes sense. It's written at a certain clip and a certain style, and what [creator Amy Sherman-Palladino has] always wanted is for that to translate. That is our job: What she gets out on paper, we've got to get it out of our mouths."

Is that strange for McCarthy, given her extensive improv training? "It is, because I constantly think things are funny in the script and then I always want to elaborate," she says, chuckling. "I've gotten used to not doing it... There's no time for it-that show is so tightly, tightly packed. There's not an extra second that we're not trying to get four pages in."

And that, she says, is why she continues to be a part of The Groundlings. "That's where I write; that's where I get that great interaction with a live audience. That keeps me sane," she says. "If I didn't have Groundlings, I would probably be trying stuff at Gilmore all the time to the point of them wanting to kill me."

"Achieve Comedy Greatness-From the Ground-lings Up" takes place Tue., June 20, 7-9:30 p.m. in L.A. The price for the class is $49.99 for Learning Annex members, $54.99 for nonmembers; use coupon code GRD06 for a $10 discount. Go to www.learningannex.com or call (310) 478-6677 for more information or to register for the class. Location for the class will be provided when you enroll.

http://www.backstage.com/bso/news_reviews/features/feature_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002689831

(July 2006) I've Read the First Gilmore Girls Script!

2006-07-23T22:23:00.000-04:00

by Michael Ausiello
Contains small spoilers, read with caution.

I've Read the First Gilmore Girls Script!
Don't ask me how I got it. Or from whom. But I got it.

By "it," I'm referring to the most sought-after 77 pages in Hollywood right now — the script for the season premiere of Gilmore Girls, penned by David S. Rosenthal. OK, so maybe "the most sought-after" is a slight exaggeration, but it's definitely been the most sought after by me. You see, this script contains answers to some of the new season's biggest questions. Among them: Can Rosenthal mimic Team Palladino's signature, rapid-fire rhythms? How will last May's controversial finale affect Luke and Lorelai? Does the boss favor some supporting characters over others? And, most importantly, is the thing any good?

Let's start with that last question first. I'm happy and greatly relieved — and, if I'm being completely honest, a smidge shocked — to report that yes, it's good. In fact, it's better than good — it's great.

Obviously, I can't get too specific. As it is, Warner Bros. and CW have probably already hired a bounty hunter to track down the source of the script leak. But here are some things I learned about Mr. Rosenthal after reading his debut as show-runner, with a few spoilers mixed in for fun.

He Has Palladino Blood in Him
Translation: He's got Amy and Dan's style down pat. When I finished the script, I almost had to look back at the byline to make sure the last name was Rosenthal and not Palladino. Honestly, I could not tell the difference. Besides nailing the banter, several of his one-liners were classic, laugh-out-loud Palladino. On the downside, like his predecessors, he overestimates viewers' appetite for one Taylor Doose.

He's a Fan of Luke and Lorelai
Now, I'm not going to lie to you. The episode is going to be a tough one for Luke and Lorelai fans to watch. Really tough. Based on how the season ended — and the fact that Rosenthal confirmed to me last week that Lorelai and Christopher did indeed have sex — that much was a given. But I think he handled the fallout from Christophergate with unbelievable grace and dignity — particularly as it pertains to Luke and Lorelai as a couple. Let me put it this way: The episode left no doubt in my mind that Lorelai and Luke are meant for each other.

He'll Always Have Paris
Liza Weil told me herself at the CW party last week that Rosenthal had given her her longest scene ever in the premiere — and she wasn't exaggerating. It's six pages! But it's not the length that stood out, it's the way Rosenthal managed to capture Paris' trademark vim, vigor and bite. Plus, I can't think of a more perfect business venture for Rory's sometime roommate than an SAT prep course. The possibilities for clashes with stupidity are endless!

He's a Hopeless Romantic
And Logan and Rory fans will be swooning as a result. Sure, the episode finds them on opposite continents, but Rosenthal has found a way to bring them closer together than I think they've ever been. All I'll say is his method is sweet, utterly romantic, and it ties in with the episode title, "The Long Morrow." And the end result should put Matt Czuchry fans' mind at ease. (At least for the short term.)

Other scoopy treats from the episode:

Rory and Lorelai spend some quality time together at a *a********* c****

There's a very silly subplot involving Michel, Sookie and *r* ********g.

Lorelai makes a passing reference to the title of one of the best Gilmore Girls episodes ever.

I was left with the impression that there will be a significant time lapse between Episodes 1 and 2.

Emily, Richard, Lane, April and Anna are MIA, but the rest of the supporting cast is pretty much accounted for.

Having said all this, there's no guarantee our Girls won't go to hell in a handbasket beginning with the second episode. But let's celebrate one win at a time. We got over the first hurdle. Rosenthal is clearly a talented guy who gets our little show. That's a good start.

http://community.tvguide.com/thread.jspa?threadID=700004169

(July 2006) Michael Ausiello interviews David Rosenthal - Part 2

2006-07-23T22:03:00.000-04:00

*Warning: Small season 7 spoilers.

Finally: Gilmore's New Boss Speaks

Here's my interview with David Rosenthal, conducted immediately following today's Gilmore Girls press-tour session. Luckily, he was much more forthcoming during our little Q&A than he was on the panel.

Ausiello: What can you tell me about the first six episodes?David Rosenthal: Obviously, the repercussions from the end of last season [will play out]. That's something that is not going to just disappear. It's a major shift, a major change in everybody's lives. It affects not just Lorelai and Christopher and Luke, but Rory as well. There are a lot of consequences, and we fully intend to explore them — the positive and the negative. It's a big deal, not just for the fans, but for us, the writers and producers of the show.

Ausiello: Fans are holding out hope that maybe Lorelai and Christopher didn't sleep with each other.
Rosenthal: No, no, no. That's a pipe dream. Those were two grown-ups who woke up in bed together after spending the night together.

Ausiello: Is Matt Czuchry off the show?
Rosenthal: No. God, no. Rory's going to try to engage in a long-distance relationship. He's going to be in London; she's going to be in college. Obviously, it's a very challenging and difficult thing, and it's going to present obstacles for the two of them. But they're very much in love, so they're really going to work hard to make it work. He's very much on the show and very much a part of her life, but it's from thousands of miles away.

Ausiello: You hinted during the session that there will be other boys in her life.
Rosenthal: There will be people in her life, male and female. Perhaps the return of characters from past seasons.

Ausiello: Marty?
Rosenthal: Marty perhaps will be returning in her social circles, and perhaps some new friends who we have yet to meet. Again, not only did Logan graduate, but Colin and Finn, too. A lot of the people she spent a lot of time with over the season have moved on, so she has to find a new life for herself at Yale.

Ausiello: I heard the first couple of episodes are dramatic.
Rosenthal: Certainly. It's a big thing we have to deal with, but there will be plenty of humor. We're not shifting gears here. We're not suddenly going to lose that spark and that humor that people know and love about Gilmore Girls. We work very hard to maintain that balance between the comedy and the drama. One of the things that I love so much about the show is the ability to shift back and forth between the comedy and the drama. And also to play so much comedy through the drama, and vice versa. That's something that we work very hard to maintain.

Ausiello: Amy told me she believes Luke and Lorelai are soul mates. Do you agree?
Rosenthal: [Tentative] Yeah. That doesn't mean that we're going to see them behind a white picket fence a month from now. But they have a very, very deep bond. I certainly see it and feel it. But sometimes soul mates spend a lot of time not together. Just because someone's your soul mate and may be your ultimate destiny does not mean that there's not a lot to go through before you reach that destiny.

Ausiello: Will April be back?
Rosenthal: Yes, absolutely. April is a part of his life. Luke is going to have some issues this year in terms of his deepening relationship with April and his relationship with Anna. There's a lot to get into there, and we will spend a great deal of time exploring that as well.

Ausiello: Are you aware of all the anti-Gilmore sentiment out there?
Rosenthal: I'm aware of it. I do pay attention to it, but I try to keep my eye on the ball. I try to keep focused on the long term and the arcs for the season and where we want to take these characters — and keeping the show alive and growing so that it can go more than just this season. So this won't have to be the last season of Gilmore Girls, 'cause I do feel like there's a lot more life left in the show. But I think it's up to us, the writers, to make that a reality.

Ausiello: I've never seen Luke and Lorelai fans more riled up. Do you look at that and go, "Maybe we need to do something about this. We don't want to lose these viewers."
Rosenthal: We don't want to lose the viewers, but I gotta say, in our [writers'] room, half of the people don't understand at all, and the other half understand that she's been waiting around for a year for this guy and she feels like he's made a choice. That she's no longer the No. 1 priority in his life. He has other priorities now, and at the end of last season she was really at her wit's end. So I think a lot of people are sympathetic to that and understand that. Again, we're creating situations where the characters can learn things from choices they make and choices they don't make. We're just trying to keep the drama alive. If everything's settled and happy and nobody has any problems or issues, man, that's not going to make for a great TV show. But we respect and honor Luke and Lorelai's history, their relationship and whatever their future holds for them. It's a journey they're on together.

Ausiello: Do you see potential with Christopher and Lorelai as a couple?
Rosenthal: They certainly have to deal with what happened, and it is not a simple thing; it has far-reaching consequences. So, yeah... he's in the show a lot. He's going to be around a lot. I don't want to give away too much, but yeah, he's a major part of her life this year. Absolutely.

Ausiello: At what point does everyone have to get together and decide if this is the last season?
Rosenthal: You know, that's above my pay grade. That's a network and studio decision. Look, the studio and the network I'm sure want it to come back. I know it's going to be one of the signature shows for the CW. We'll just keep doing our work and hopefully make shows that people respond to and like, and we'll see what happens.

Ausiello: Did Amy offer you any advice before she left?
Rosenthal: She did. She wished me luck. I spent a terrific year last year working with Amy and Dan, and she was incredibly supportive, and she told me from the beginning that this was a distinct possibility that she would be moving on and I would be running the show. When she brought me in at the beginning of last year, that's one of the things she told me. She brought me in as an executive producer for that reason. So I feel very honored that I was her hand-picked successor. That was a great thrill for me. At the end of last season she wished me luck, and I'm thrilled to be doing it.

http://community.tvguide.com/thread.jspa?threadID=800003763&tstart=0&mod=1153206902015

(July 2006) Lauren Graham Speaks!

2006-07-23T21:54:00.000-04:00

Exclusive: Lauren Graham Speaks!

Michael Ausiello

It can no longer be said that my close, personal relationship with Lauren Graham is one-sided. Why? Because last Friday, Gilmore Girls' bedazzling banterer had just survived a massive flood in central Virginia and was stranded alongside elephants, giraffes and all manner of wildlife on top of a humongous ark, covered in dirt and melting under 110-degree temps, and you're never going to believe what she did. She picked up her cell phone and called... me.

Ausiello: Are you OK?
Graham: [Frantic] I'm [shooting Evan Almighty] the sequel to Bruce Almighty, where God tells Steve Carell to build an ark, and he refuses to do it, so animals start following him and he starts, like, growing long hair and a beard — he starts turning into Noah. But we have this ark that we've built that is literally at least one football field long. It's truly insane. I've been stuck on top of the ark for, like, hours and here I am. Hello.

Ausiello: Are you sure this is a good time? I got a call from your manager saying you might have to postpone.
Graham: I'm OK now. I called [my manager earlier] and was like, "I've been on top of the ark. I have dirt on me that's, like, 3 inches thick." And they're like, "OK, it's not really the flood. Calm down." [Laughs] But I'm OK for the moment.

Ausiello: How much more filming do you have to do?
Graham: It's endless. It overlapped with [Gilmore Girls] by, like, a month, so there were about 30 days where I would work in one place, fly overnight and work in the other place.... It's been, like, two and a half months. And then we still have two or three more weeks here in Virginia and then like three weeks in L.A. doing effects and green screen and stuff. It's huge. It's a huge shoot — animals and a flood and craziness!

Ausiello: How meaty is your role? This isn't the kind of thing where you spend four months filming and you only get 10 minutes of screen time, is it?
Graham: There's no way to say now, and I certainly wouldn't offer conjecture that would harm me in anyway. You know, I'm his wife, and it's a great part. The family is important to what happens in the movie. It's a bigger job than I've ever had, so I'm just happy with that.

Ausiello: How is it working with Steve?
Graham: It's been great. It's been totally great, especially because now we're nominated for [a TCA Award] together. We had a fistfight this morning.

Ausiello: That's right! You're up against one another in the best-comedy-actor/actress category!
Graham: I know! Isn't that funny? So, it's been really fun. It's just been really fun.

Ausiello: How does it feel to be nominated against all men?
Graham: It feels really cool because those are the guys on TV that I enjoy the most. That, to me, would make a great dinner party. It's totally unexpected and really cool, and [the critics] have been so important to the success of the show and to me in particular, so I'm really thankful. This is the time of year when I start getting asked a lot about [the Emmys], because I think I've become, like, the Susan Lucci [figure] — except I'm not even nominated.

Ausiello: Are you aware of the changes in the Emmy system this year?
Graham: Yes, but I don't totally understand them. I know that it's sort of like they hole up everybody in a screening room and you're sort of forced to watch an episode. I don't really understand what the difference is.

Ausiello: As I understand it, Academy members will decide the top 10 to 15 nominees in the major categories, and then a blue ribbon will choose the final five, but only after watching episodes of all the pre-noms.
Graham: Well, I think that's interesting, but I wonder if it will help or hurt, frankly, because the [Gilmore] episodes I like the most tend to be the most dramatic. I think our strongest episodes are the least funny, [but we're] in the comedy category. You're still gonna be watching it along with something with a laugh track, and it might seem weird.

Ausiello: Well, speaking of Gilmore, what was your reaction when you found out Amy was leaving?
Graham: I still am in some sort of denial. She was directing the [season finale] and she told me personally one night after work. You know, there had been rumblings, but there always are this time of year, because they have renegotiated pretty much one year at a time. I thought there was a chance for a reconciliation. From what I understood from her and then from what was printed, the reasons why don't really match. So I don't know. They're both really talented.

Ausiello: How do you feel about it on a personal level?
Graham: I feel sad. I feel sad because I think this is probably going to be the last year of the show and we won't all end it together. There have been ups and downs over the years, like any collaboration, but I trust her dialogue. I haven't always liked where the story's going, and I haven't always liked the plots, but I really enjoy her language. And she really had a huge part in every episode. On the other hand, we're in the hands of David Rosenthal, who's very talented, and who's really kind, and who really deserves the belief that the show will be really good. Most shows, at this point, don't have their original show-runner still attached. And we have a much bigger crew of writers now, because when you're a husband-wife team writing every other episode, you don't have a lot of other writers. So we now have some really high-level people who are fans of the show, and I think that energy might be really important. It's our seventh year, so we have to look at it as an opportunity to kind of have a renewal. But [Amy and I have] been e-mailing back and forth. I think it'll be OK.

Ausiello: One of the things Amy and Dan wanted was a two-year deal, which struck many people as odd because you and Alexis have made it pretty clear that you're leaving after next season. What's your take?
Graham: I mean, I don't know. I think it's really better left... I think they hoped that we would change our minds.

Ausiello: Is there a possibility of that?
Graham: There's no way to say. No one's approached us about [an eighth season]. It's a lifestyle thing as well as a creative thing. I'm not set for life or anything. I need a steady job, and this is a wonderful character and a great show and something I'm really proud of. So there are definitely reasons to keep doing it. But to me, when you start staying someplace for money or security, it shows in your work. It's a very difficult show to do. It's a lot of language and that makes for very long hours.

Ausiello: Will it be a decision you and Alexis make together?
Graham: It will be something we talk about. We talk about major things involving the show frequently. I don't think we'll ever get in a situation where she wants to stay but I don't and one of us is holding out. We wouldn't do that in a vacuum without the other one knowing.

Ausiello: Would you ever continue without Alexis?
Graham: Never. Can you imagine? "Lorelai's Place." I, like, move into Luke's diner and, you know, hang up a new sign and start singing the theme song and directing all the episodes. That would be terrible.

Ausiello: I'm not sure if you're aware of this, but the majority of fans I've heard from hated that Lorelai ended up in bed with Christopher in the finale.
Graham: I don't think people were probably thrilled — of course, all my references are 50 years old — when somebody shot J.R., you know? Oh my god, I'm 100! It stirs up your passion for what you would like to happen and for the characters you're interested in. And it's human. The thing I don't like on television is when somebody does something that makes absolutely no sense just for the shock of it. [The Lorelai-Christopher thing], to me, was such a long time coming. This was built into the story for a long time — that Lorelai didn't feel understood [by Luke] and they weren't communicating. [Christopher and Lorelai] have a connection and it made total sense to me, just given the story. To me, that's a satisfying season finale. I'm sorry if people were upset.

Ausiello: Fans also didn't understand why Lorelai was so passive when Luke shut her out of his life with April.
Graham: I totally agree. But I've [voiced] these complaints before and it always gets sort of explained to me like, "We're going somewhere. You have to trust." And our show is not that "plotty." It's not Lost. It's not like you get a lot of, "And then they're all living in a cave," or whatever happens on Lost. The whole season has an arc of these little moments of behavior. I don't think this is a passive character, but both in the Rory situation and in that April situation, it's hard to play. But I do think the payoff was good. And had you not had all those episodes where you and I and everybody was frustrated, would the payoff be as good? I don't know. I really trusted [Amy's] way of telling a story and that's her way of telling a story. There may be some difference in that this year, and then will people complain about that? "Too much happened!" You know, "Lorelai's too sassy again!" If you have a show you like or characters you like.... it's like the Clippers. The Clippers don't always win, but I still like going to a Clippers game. If you like the team, then come back and watch the team. But that's another reason why I think maybe this will be our last year. I think the story is kind of headed to a place where Rory will graduate from college and something is gonna be resolved with this [Luke/Christopher] thing. And maybe Lorelai ends up with Mr. Big.

Ausiello: Do you know what David has planned next season?
Graham: No. But he doesn't either. I had a nice meeting with him not that long ago, and the writers are just sitting down together to break stories. I know that he'll talk to me about it because he's like that. So, I think I'll know more than I might normally have.

Ausiello: Will you be more involved in the creative process?
Graham: No. I would like to be a producer on the show, but that's not anything they're gonna let me do.

Ausiello: Why not?
Graham: I think, at this point, any request [might lead to], "Well, if you want something then we want an eighth season" kind of thing. It's nothing quite that bold. It's not David's decision anyway; that's higher.

Ausiello: That's [Warner Bros. TV president] Peter Roth.
Graham: Yeah. But they have their reasons. It's important to me to be involved in that way. I'll still be involved, just in a less formal way.

Ausiello: I have one more question that I've been dying to ask you since September. Did something happen backstage at the Emmys between you and Jennifer Love Hewitt? You looked like you were about to claw each other's eyes out when you presented together.
Graham: Oh my god, that's terrible!

Ausiello: The way she darted to the podium and left you in the dust....
Graham: That was the only thing! I was in a tight dress, and she was in a more Audrey Hepburn kind of shape, and I just think she could move faster. I was laughing. I was just sort of like, "And here I am, nine hours later.... the nominees for.... " [Laughs] No, there was nothing. She's a doll. She's a really sweet girl.

http://community.tvguide.com/thread.jspa?threadID=800003763&tstart=0&mod=1153206902015

(July 2006) Michael Ausiello's Q&A with Milo Ventimiglia

2006-07-23T21:50:00.000-04:00

Milo Ventimiglia Q&A

By popular demand (152 e-mails and counting), here's the complete transcript of my interview with Milo Ventimiglia, conducted last Friday during a preplanned meet-and-greet at TV Guide's Gotham headquarters. Juicy, scoopy bits abound — particularly the stuff about Lauren Graham's Gilmore Girls contract that you just know I'll be asking her about tomorrow if, er, when she lands her first Emmy nomination!

Ausiello: Inquiring minds (read: TVGuide.com readers) must know: Are you single?Milo: Yeah.

Ausiello: How's single life treating you?
Milo: [Chuckles] That's about all you'll get out of me.

Ausiello: Any chance of you going back to Gilmore Girls?
Milo: Never gonna happen.

Ausiello: Because the Palladinos are gone?
Milo: Yup.

Ausiello: But what if the new show-runner, Dave Rosenthal, asks you? He might be a fan of yours.
Milo: I appreciate that, but I'm pretty busy this year.

Ausiello: So you feel that Jess' story is done?
Milo: I felt that it was done a long time ago, but Dan and Amy kept saying, "We got some cool things, and we're really hoping you'll be a part of it." So I went back and I kind of enjoyed what Jess turned into. He turned into a grown-up. Watching [my] last episode, I was like, "It's done."

Ausiello: Were you surprised that Amy and Dan left?
Milo: No. I think they thought that [Warner Bros.] was willing to take care of them like they take care of John Wells and Aaron Sorkin. Those guys have major empires. [Amy and Dan] had always been developing with the studio and trying to find some things to do, so the fact that they stepped away doesn't surprise me. Amy said she knows what happens in the last scene of the final episode, so who knows how that's going to turn out. But I'm not going to be part of it. It was always nice that they kept wanting me to come back. And I always had a good experience working with them. And, I have to admit, they gave me my first public push. All the work that I did [before Gilmore Girls] was very much under the radar, and still pretty much under the radar.

Ausiello: Do you think next season will be the last?
Milo: I know Alexis' contract is up, and she really wants to leave.

Ausiello: Lauren's contract will be up as well.
Milo: No, it's not. I think she bartered for more money one year to secure another [season].

Ausiello: Are you sure? I just talked to her, and she made it pretty clear that she was only contracted for one more season.
Milo: Eh, you probably know more than me.

Ausiello: How was Rocky VI?
Milo: Rocky VI was fun.

Ausiello: Did you do any boxing?
Milo: No. None. I'm his son. I'm a Philadelphia businessman with, like, suits off the rack. Rocky's on his own; Adrian's passed away. My character's off working in corporate Philadelphia. Paulie, in the original script, had a girlfriend, and was still working at the meatpacking place, so Rocky was just on his own. He didn't have anybody around. He starts thinking about boxing again, and ESPN does this thing where they match up old fighters and new fighters in a computer to see who would win per stat. And they match up Rocky versus the current champion, and in the computer, Rocky wins. So there's all this speculation about what would happen if they fought. Here's a guy in his mid- to late fifties, and the other guy is in his prime. It's obvious that the current champion would win, not Rocky. It actually comes to a head when they set up an exhibition match to see who would win it. We shot many different endings.

Ausiello: What kind of shape is Sylvester Stallone in?
Milo: The best. He was in great shape. He was at fighting weight. I couldn't get over his stamina, and I'm not even talking about boxing so much. He wrote the film, produced it, directed it and acted in it. The responsibility of all those things, as well as being in peak physical shape and having a pretty good temperament... I found him to be patient, incredibly intelligent. He really wanted the cast and crew to understand what he was going for. I never had a hard time understanding what he was looking for. And he was really respectful to the people who were working hard, who put the time in, did their homework and came prepared. I hope he gets some recognition for being an artist, because he really is. Of course he's done a lot of big action movies — Tango and Cash, whatever — but when I first read the script, take away 30 years of Rocky history and it was a beautiful, beautiful script that he wrote.

Ausiello: When does it open?
Milo: December 22. I think they're going to start running trailers for it with Pirates of the Caribbean.

Ausiello: Did you ever think about waiting to see how the movie does before committing to a TV show like Heroes? This could launch a movie career for you.
Milo: You know what? Doing both is fine. TV is steady work. I never expect a job to give me that huge break. I just go in and do the best work I can.

Ausiello: Speaking of Heroes, your character believes he can fly. Will you be wearing tights?
Milo: (Laughs) No, but they made sure my jacket was [big enough] in the pilot so when I fall it opens wide [like a cape]. There's an element of the superhero, so there is going to be action and suspense and what not. But at the base of it, [series creator] Tim Kring really wanted to have these everyday people dealing with the fear and exhilaration of having certain powers, like flying or walking through walls or bending space and time. That's what the story is. It's these people going through regular human emotions of, 'F--k, I can't believe I'm about to jump off this building, but I really, really bet I can.' A lot of the stuff I've done has been very cerebral, very wordy, but the characters that I've played are very different than what I'm playing here. This guy has a really big heart. He looks after other people before he looks after himself. But at the same time, Tim didn't want him to be a pushover or a wuss. He didn't want him to not be able to stand up for himself and for others around him.

Ausiello: Have you seen Superman Returns?
Milo: Not yet. I'm excited to see it. I saw the last X-Men movie, and I got really excited about seeing a Bryan Singer film. I was a big fan of the first two X-Men movies.

Ausiello: The third one sucked.
Milo: I wouldn't say sucked, it just wasn't the first two.

Ausiello: You're probably going to be asked this at press tour, so you can rehearse your response now: If you could have any superpower, what would it be?
Milo: I would want the power of persuasion. Think about it: You could walk into a foreign country and start a war — if you're so evil. If you're peaceful, you could walk into a foreign country and end a war just by talking to someone. It's kind of like Obi-Wan Kenobi, a Jedi-type thing.

http://community.tvguide.com/forum.jspa?forumID=700000049&start=15

(July 2006) Michael Ausiello interviews David Rosenthal - Part 1

2006-07-23T21:38:00.000-04:00

Warning: Small season 7 spoilers.

Michael Ausiello

Finally: Gilmore's New Boss Speaks

Here's my interview with David Rosenthal, conducted immediately following today's Gilmore Girls press tour session. Luckily, he was much more forthcoming during our little Q&A than he was on the panel.

3:40 pm: Damn wi-fi!! It went down just as the session started. But we're back up and running now.

3:43 pm: Got the Luke-Lorelai question in. Dave didn't say anything specific about how he planned to repair the relationship, just that fans should "stay tuned."

3:50 pm: Lauren Graham is clearly optimistic about GG post-Palladino.

3:53 pm: Lauren left the door open to doing another season. Alexis didn't address it.

3:55 pm: Yikes! A reporter just asked David about Heidi Klum, and Lauren jumped to his defense. "It has nothing to do with anything. Next!"

3:59 pm: David is being extremely tight-lipped about future plotlines.

4:00 pm: Lauren concedes that things are more "open door" with David, but she doesn't want that to be seen as a diss on Amy and Dan.

4:01 pm: If this is the final season of Gilmore Girls, David says he will ask Amy how she intended to end the show.

4:02 pm: Alexis is going to see how this season goes before deciding on another year.

4:05 pm: Bad news, Logan fans: David says Logan will be staying in London. Also, Christopher will be a bigger presence than ever before. (Don't shoot the messenger!)

4:07 pm: No plans on bringing Milo back.

OK, just had a 15-minute interview with Rosenthal. I'll transcribe and post later, but here are the highlights: Matt Czuchry is not leaving the show. Logan and Rory will have a long-distance relationship. Lorelai and Christopher did have sex in the finale. Marty will be back. It sounds like Luke and Lorelai will be broken up — at least during the first part of the season. He's aware that fans are not happy about how last season ended.

I'll try to get the complete transcript up later. My head is spinning! My battery is about to die, or else I'd live-blog the Mars session, too.

- Submitted by Mookie

(July 2006) The new Gilmore guy speaks

2006-07-23T21:36:00.000-04:00

From Maureen Ryan at the Chicago Tribune:

The new 'Gilmore' guy speaks

In contrast to the cuddly “Veronica Mars” session, the “Gilmore Girls” session had a feel of a cage match.

In one corner: New “Gilmore Girls” showrunner David Rosenthal, who was meeting the press for the first time

In the other: Members of the press who have written about and raved about and ranted about “Gilmore Girls” for a six seasons, many of whom were unhappy with where the sixth season ended up, and wondered how this new guy would be able to take over a show with such a specific tone and such specific voices.

It was a tough crowd. At least Rosenthal was flanked by the show’s two stars, Alexis Bledel, who didn’t talk much, and Lauren Graham, who talked a lot.

She specifically said that if the press reported her as saying negative things about Amy Sherman-Palladino or Daniel Palladino, the show’s former head honchos, she would be upset. But, having said that, she said she already had the first script of the new year, which appeared to be unusual by this point in the production process.

She also indicated that the process was more collaborative than it had been under the Palladinos. She added that though where she understood where Lorelai ended up and how she got there, she’d been unhappy with the way her character was written last season, and had expressed her concerns.

“It wasn’t my favorite stuff to play, to kind of be dictated to by Luke, but again it was a believable conflict and a believable obstacles between them. That’s why the ending [of the season] made perfect sense because she tried to kind of be in a place that wasn't natural to her, that wasn't who she is. And so ultimately she couldn't take it anymore,” she said.

“But I think you had to have that build-up to get to where we got. I mean, if everything had gone the way the fans wanted it to go in terms of that relationship, the show would be over, or I would just be calling Rory, like, ‘What are you doing tonight?’ … to me this is a relationship with a lot of built-in problems between two people who are very different, who are trying to find a common language, and so it made sense to me.”

Regarding whether she’d leave the show when her contract is up at the end of Season 7, Graham said she hasn’t made up her mind.

“I have felt that way but I haven’t been in this particular collaboration before and I think we’re all really excited to see where the show can go. I read the first script and I love it,” she said.

“I am a huge fan of Amy and Dan. I loved that writing. I had some of the best, most interesting, fun, great scenes ever. But I also think there is room for it to grow and, you know, there's all these people now where we had a more specific, smaller group working on it,” Graham said. “Now we have these people who I sat down with the other day who are so enthusiastic, who come in as fans, who come in as people who have kind of fresh voices to lend to it, and I think it's going to grow.”

Bledel said she’s also undecided about returning. “I really don't know what this year is going to be like,” she said. “I think it's going to be really different, and I'm just going to see what it's like and then decide how I feel.”

As far as capturing the tone of the show, Rosenthal said that he’s hired new writers and there are now a total of eight writers on staff, all of whom come to the show as fans of the Gilmores.

Rosenthal said he’s not treating this as the end of “Gilmore Girls,” but that if it emerged that this year was the show’s last, he’d try to find out from Amy Sherman-Palladino what she’d envisioned for the show’s last scene. She’s long said she has the last scene of the show mapped out in her mind, down to the show’s last two spoken words.

The session did turn extraordinarily frosty when one writer asked Rosenthal about some personal troubles he had that involved a fascination with Heidi Klum. He turned red in the face, and it felt like the temperature in the room instantly dropped 30 degrees.

“My personal life is not an issue here,” Rosenthal said. “It's not worth getting into. I'm just here to talk about the show.”

“How does it make you professionally the right person for this show?” the questioner persisted.

“It has nothing to do with anything. Next,” Graham snapped.

Later, Graham made a surprising admission. She doesn’t much like working with the dog who plays Paul Anka. But he will be back in the new season.

Nothing against that particular dog, she said, but “I just am not a fan of dog comedy,” she said.

After the session, Rosenthal spoke with several reporters. Part of the transcript for that session is here, the other part is on the jump of this item.

What do you feel like your take is on the show is, that might be different than what went on in the past? What do you bring?

“I’ve brought in a whole new team of writers. We have one wonderful returning writer from last year, but everybody else is new [Rina Mimoun from ‘Everwood’ is one of the new writers]. And as Lauren said, they come in as real true fans of the show.

“I think that kind of passion and perspective is great for a show, especially for people who find themselves inside the show, a show that they’re huge fans of, a show that they’re invested in. So I feel like that perspective is exciting, it’s exciting for me to hear from them, for them to share their thoughts and ideas and opinions. That’s something I feel has really impacted us creatively in a very positive way.”

“Gilmore Girls” has one of the most passionate, vocal fan bases out there. Is it the kind of thing where you just have to make the choices that you make and you can’t worry about people’s reactions?

“I think it’s wonderful, believe me, the reason the show is still on the air and does so well and I think it may have had its highest ratings ever last year because of that passionate fan base, so I completely respect and love that they’re out there. But yeah, ultimately, we spend all day every day talking about this show and talking about the characters and working very hard, in a very focused manner on it. And ultimately we have to do what we feel is in the best interest of the show, both short term and long term, in terms of where the characters are going.

“And also, we have the benefit of seeing arcs. We have the benefit of seeing the future and knowing where we want to take them. So while something may be disturbing in the short run, or upsetting or confusing to a fan, we as the writers recognize that, yes, that’s upsetting but ultimately that’s the journey that this character has to go on, they’re required to do this or that. It can be hard to go through different experiences that can be hard on them or hard on the fans, but ultimately we’re interested in personal growth. Obviously if characters never went through difficult times or never suffered, or had to face obstacles it would be hard for them to grow.

“One of the beauties of the show and one of the reasons it continues to attract such a loyal fan base is that the characters are able to grow and change and develop, like Alexis said. I mean, she’s really grown and changed over the years as has Scott [Patterson, who plays Luke]. And so that’s something that I feel is a huge identity of the show.”

How does it feel to be on a different network? Is there a different energy?

“I gotta say, we’re on the same night, the same time, I know in Los Angeles we’re on the same channel. I would imagine we’re on the same channel across the country. For us the work is exactly the same and the effort is exactly the same and the show is exactly the same. So it’s really just a question of how it’s presented and how it’s marketed and how it’s broadcast and that’s not something that we really deal with. And I’m sure that [the CW folks] will do great.”

Is the character the Paul Anka, the real Paul Anka, is he going to be back on the show?

“There are no plans for him to come back, but he was terrific on the show, so it wouldn’t surprise me. I mean it was a dream sequence. But the dog will definitely be back, I promise.”

Will the rift between Lorelai and Luke be similar to the rift between Lorelai and Rory last year? The fans hated how that played out. Are you going to play this out differently?

“Yeah, we never want to what’s been done in the past, Luke and Lorelai, their relationship is unique, it’s not a mother-daughter relationship, it’s boyfriend-girlfriend or fiancés. So we’re going to explore that, we’re going to let the characters take us where they will. It’s not going to be like the Lorelai-Rory [situation]. I’m not saying it’s always going to be pleasant or pretty, I mean, they’re two adults and they’re going to have to deal with what’s happening.”

Was there any nail-biting at all or did you always know you would be on the new network?

“No, I don’t think there was ever any question. It always seemed a no-brainer to bring ‘Gilmore Girls’ along.”

- Submitted by Mookie

(July 2006) Gilmore Girls' going through multiple off-screen changes

2006-07-23T21:32:00.000-04:00

Cleveland Plain Dealer: Gilmore Girls' going through multiple off-screen changes

Wednesday, July 19, 2006

Beth Harris - Associated Press

Los Angeles -- All the drama won't be confined to the fictional town of Stars Hollow this fall on "Gilmore Girls." A new network, new executive producer and some new writers have shaken things up behind the scenes.

Add to that the fact that Lauren Graham and Alexis Bledel, who play the close-knit single mother and her daughter, are entering the final year of their contracts. Neither did much Monday to put to rest rumors about the show's fate after its seventh season, which begins Tuesday, Sept. 26.

"Your legal contracts are up, and you begin to imagine what if," Graham told the Television Critics Association's summer meeting. "I don't want to be in a situation where I feel sorry for me. I've seen that happen to actors and shows where the thing is done, let it be over. I don't know that we're in that situation."

Bledel added, "I really don't know what this year is going to be like. I'm going to see what it's like, then decide how I feel. We'll see."

Graham wasn't thrilled with last season's story line that had her Lorelai character giving fiance Luke a now-or-never ultimatum after he asked for patience in dealing with his newly discovered 12-year-old daughter. Luke let Lorelai walk out of his life.

"It wasn't my favorite stuff to play, to be dictated to by Luke, but again, it was a believable conflict and a believable obstacle between them, and that's why the end made perfect sense," Graham said. "If everything had gone the way the fans had wanted it to go, the show would have been over."

And Graham "wasn't a fan" of the painful separation between Lorelai and her screen daughter, Rory.

Those scripts were written by show creator Amy Sherman-Palladino and her husband and co-executive producer, Daniel Palladino, who both left the comedy-drama last season after failing to reach agreement on a new contract with Warner Bros. Television.

Graham made it clear, however, that she is "a huge fan of Amy and Dan's."

"I loved that writing, but I also think there's room for it to grow," she said.

The Palladinos, who handled the majority of the scripts, said they wanted to add more writers to ease their burden.

Dave Rosenthal, a writer and producer on the show, is in charge now, and he oversees an eight-person writing staff. He said he's not treating this season like it will be the show's last.

"The goal is to do 22 good episodes of Gilmore Girls' and let the rest take its course," he said.

Sherman-Palladino has said she knows how the show should end. When the time comes, Rosenthal said he'll call her.

"I would definitely like to talk to Amy about that," he said.

- Submitted by Mookie

(April 2006) "Gilmore Girls" Rocks Out

2006-05-04T23:46:00.000-04:00

Whatever sticky situation Lorelai and Rory find themselves in at the end of Gilmore Girls' sixth season next month, they'll be marching toward it to the beat of a different drum, er, drums.

The series' season finale, which tapes Friday and airs May 9, is starting to resemble an indie music fest as much as an opportunity to embroil our heroines in romantic entanglements, family squabbles and life-altering changes before the summer hiatus.

The musical subplot centers around singer Grant Lee Phillips, who serves as town troubadour (he walks around treating people to impromptu musical interludes) for Stars Hollow at least once a season, being chosen to open a show for veteran rocker Neil Young. Upon hearing about Phillips' luck with the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer, a groovy lineup of performers parade into town hoping to get into the act.

Heading up the impressive program is Sonic Youth--Kim Gordon and hubby Thurston Moore--appearing with their daughter Coco. The alt-rock band will perform an acoustic version of their new single, "What a Waste"--a teaser from their upcoming album, Rather Ripped, set for a June 13 release.

Pop-rocker Joe Pernice, '70s-era pop band Sparks, alterna-rocker Sam Phillips (aka Leslie Phillips, not the late record producer who signed Elvis), Yo La Tengo and musical-comedy vet Mary Lynn Rajskub (computer whiz Chloe on 24) will also show up to play along.

Meanwhile, lest you forget you're watching the WB, Alexis Bledel's Rory will be having issues with sometimes-boyfriend Logan (Matt Czuchry), Lorelai's (Lauren Graham) parents might be moving to Stars Hollow (eek!) and, of course, Lorelai and Luke's (Scott Patterson) engagement will hit yet another snag. Actually, the couple's relationship is "reaching a boiling point," Gilmore Girls creator and exec producer Amy Sherman-Palladino told Entertainment Weekly.

Although the season finale is particularly packed with melodic possibility, music has always played a large role in Gilmore Girl-land. Lorelai's love for '80s girl-groups, such as the Bangles and the Go-Go's, is an established bit of Gilmore lore, while Rory's best friend Lane digs David Bowie and the Ramones.

Guest stars have included the aforementioned Bangles, Skid Row's Sebastian Bach, the Shins, Paul Anka and Carole King, who also sings the show's theme song, "Where You Lead," with daughter Louise Goffin.

At one time there were rumors that this season would be Gilmore Girls' swan song, but it definitely appears as if everyone is sticking around for at least one more, which will take place on the new CW network now that the WB and UPN are closing up shop.

"They [executive producers Sherman-Palladino and Daniel Palladino] are looking to end it after next year," a WB source told E! Online TV columnist Kristin Veitch in December. "But if it continues to do well, it could go beyond the next season. Both Lauren and Alexis have expressed interest in returning, if things go well with Amy and Dan."

And why not? There's so much more music to play.

http://www.eonline.com/News/Items/0,1,18748,00.html

(April 2006) Team Palladino Says "Goodbye, Girls" by Aussiello

2006-05-04T23:35:00.000-04:00

Michael Aussiello

My fellow Gilmore Girls fans, the news we've all been dreading has now been made absolutely, 100 percent, painfully official: Series creator Amy Sherman-Palladino has opted not to renew her contract and will be leaving at the end of the season — and she's taking husband Dan with her.

"Despite our best efforts to return and ensure the future of Gilmore Girls for years to come, we were unable to reach an agreement with the studio and are therefore leaving when our contracts expire at the end of this season," said Amy and Dan in a statement. "Our heartfelt thanks go out to our amazing cast, hard-working crew and loyal fans. We know that the story lines from this season will continue into the next, and that the integrity of the show will remain long after we leave Stars Hollow."

(Crickets)

Yeah, I'm speechless, too. I've had more than a week to mentally prepare for this outcome — heck, I even wrote a story and watched helplessly as it was accidentally pushed live for a brief period last Wednesday — but I still can't believe they're actually leaving. The thought of Gilmore Girls heading into what is likely to be its final season (and its first on a brand-new network) without its mama or her right-hand man is unfathomable. But it is happening. And it's a total bummer.

I won't know for sure why they're bolting until I actually ask them (hopefully in the next few days), but as I reported on Friday, the primary sticking point was apparently the length of Gilmore Girls' renewal. AS-P wanted a two-year pickup, a demand that Warner Bros. refused to meet since Lauren Graham and Alexis Bledel are only on board for one more year. Instead, the studio was ready to pay them just shy of $5 million for a one-year deal, an offer that was apparently good enough to refuse.

According to a statement released by Warner Bros., "While we are disappointed that Amy Sherman-Palladino and Dan Palladino have decided not to stay with the show next season, we are very confident that Dave Rosenthal, an experienced writer/producer with the show, will make the transition seamless moving into the seventh year of Gilmore Girls. We want to thank Amy for creating and nurturing this wonderful series for the past six years and giving us one of the most memorable mother/daughter relationships in television history."

(Crickets)

For now, I leave you with this quote from Graham, given to me around this time last year when it looked like the Palladinos might not return this season. I think she sums the whole thing up pretty well:

"I think it would be terrible [if Amy and Dan left]. We've had our ups and downs, but it's not a show that has ever had anyone else with the vision that she and Dan, who really are a force together, have. You can feel when someone else is trying to write Gilmore Girls-ish dialogue, you can just feel that it's... I know some people think that we talk too much, or the tone is not for everybody. Sometimes I just want to take a breath or have a reaction shot. I get it. But this is the person who is telling the story. So someone would be stepping in trying to replicate that, and I just think it's a bad idea."

(Crickets)

http://community.tvguide.com/thread.jspa?threadID=700000865

(April 2006) 'Gilmore Girls' will have to continue without the Palladinos

2006-05-04T23:22:00.000-04:00

NEW YORK (AP) — The popular WB series Gilmore Girls will have to continue without the husband-and-wife team that has been its creative force since the beginning.
Amy Sherman-Palladino and Dan Palladino said Thursday they will leave as executive producers following the end of this season, its sixth. The show's production company said Gilmore Girls will continue next season with Dave Rosenthal, who has been a writer-producer there, running things.

The WB is closing up shop this fall, but Gilmore Girls is expected to move to the new CW network, which is a combination of the current WB and UPN networks.

"Despite our best efforts to return and ensure the future of Gilmore Girls for years to come, we were unable to reach an agreement with the studio and are therefore leaving when our contracts expire at the end of the season," the Palladinos said in a statement.

With stars Lauren Graham and Alexis Bledel under contract for one more season, next year is widely considered to be the show's last one. Graham said in an interview with The Associated Press in January that she would like to leave at the end of next season.

Amy Palladino told the AP then that she believed the show could go on for longer than one year. She and her husband had said then that they were thinking of leaving and were already preparing the show to run without them.

"We want to thank Amy for creating and nurturing this wonderful series for the past six years and giving us one of the most memorable mother-daughter relationships in television history," Warner Brothers Television said in a statement. Their departure was first reported on TVGuide.com.

http://www.usatoday.com/life/television/news/2006-04-20-gilmore-girls-producers_x.htm

(April 2006) 'Gilmore' Girl Leaving Stars Hollow

2006-05-04T23:18:00.000-04:00

LOS ANGELES -- "Gilmore Girls" will in all likelihood continue next season on The CW. But it will go on without the woman who created the show's distinctive rat-a-tat-tat dialogue and guided the show for six years.

Amy Sherman-Palladino, who created the critically acclaimed series and wrote about a third of its episodes, is leaving the show at the end of this season. Her husband and fellow executive producer, Daniel Palladino, is also departing.

"Despite our best efforts to return and ensure the future of 'Gilmore Girls' for years to come, we were unable to reach an agreement with the studio and are therefore leaving when our contracts expire at the end of this season," the couple says in a statement. "Our heartfelt thanks go out to our amazing cast, hard-working crew and loyal fans. We know that the story lines from this season will continue into the next, and that the integrity of the show will remain long after we leave Stars Hollow."

The sticking point between the couple and Warner Bros. TV, which produces "Gilmore Girls," was apparently over the length of a contract extension. Several news reports say the Palladinos wanted to continue the show beyond next season, but the studio offered only a one-year deal.

The show's core cast, including stars Lauren Graham and Alexis Bledel, is only signed through next season, and The CW -- which is being formed from a merger of The WB and UPN -- has only committed to the series for a year at this point.

David S. Rosenthal, who joined "Gilmore Girls" this season as an executive producer, will take over as showrunner next season. His other credits include "Ellen" and "Spin City."

Warner Bros. says it's "disappointed" that it couldn't work a deal with the Palladinos, but "we are very confident that Dave Rosenthal, an experienced writer/producer with the show, will make the transition seamless moving into the seventh year of 'Gilmore Girls.' We want to thank Amy for creating and nurturing this wonderful series for the past six years and giving us one of the most memorable mother/daughter relationships in television history."

http://www.zap2it.com/tv/news/zap-gilmoregirlscreatorleaves,0,5190525.story?coll=zap-tv-mainheadline

(April 2006) A sad day for 'Gilmore Girls' fans

2006-05-04T23:15:00.000-04:00

Maureen Ryan

The news that "Gilmore Girls" executive producers Amy Sherman-Palladino and Daniel Palladino will be leaving the show at the end of the season is very bad news for "G.G." fans.

It's worse news for those who had hoped for great, or at least good, things from executives at the new CW network. They’ve already demonstrated questionable management instincts by letting this happen.

One has to wonder, Why bring “Gilmore Girls” over to the new network, which most TV observers expect to happen, without its crucial creative team at the helm? Whatever benefit the CW would have gotten from renewing this much-loved show will be destroyed by the fact that the distinctive vision of its creators will be gone.

The thing is, “Gilmore Girls” is not “CSI: Stars Hollow.” It’s not a procedural, nor is it like any other drama on TV. It doesn’t have predictable characters who speak predictable lines; it’s not a straightforward show with familiar moving parts and story lines.

More than just about any other show on TV, “Gilmore Girls” is the product of the unique creative voice of Sherman-Palladino. Sure, every fan can tell stories about the “Gilmore Girls” episode (or episodes) that made us want to tear our hair out, but when it’s on a roll, “Gilmore Girls” is great, and that greatness usually sprung from the pen of Sherman-Palladino and her husband.

So you can’t just pluck some guy from the writing staff, as the CW executives clearly plan to do, and end up with the same show. It’s just not going to work. I’d love to be wrong about this, but with “Gilmore Girls,” I know I’m not.

Believe it or not, I actually can see the CW’s side of this whole debacle. According to TVGuide.com’s Michael Ausiello, who’s been all over this story like white on rice, the Palladinos wanted a two-year deal in order to continue with “G.G.” CW executives balked, understandably, since stars Alexis Bledel and Lauren Graham only have one year left on their contracts.

But smart TV executives would have made the next season happen, somehow, with the Palladino team at the helm. But then, if these executives were such geniuses, they would have known that the show without Amy Sherman-Palladino at the helm would not be the same show, and not worth continuing.

Sigh. It makes me wonder if next season on the CW, we’re going to see a lot of shows in the vein of “South Beach” and “Pepper Dennis.” I was hoping we’d get the best of both the WB and UPN with the new CW network, but maybe we’ll just get more of the same -- a few good shows and a lot of dumb decisions.

The truth is, I’d rather see the show end than see it linger on without the Palladinos. And though the Palladinos, in a recent Tribune interview, professed to be resigned to the fact that the show might continue on without them, I don't quite believe that.

Despite its rough patches, which I’ve complained about like any other longtime fan, “Gilmore Girls” is, week to week, a swell show with an unmistakable, unique voice.

It’s not fair to keep it going on a respirator. We all deserve better than that.

http://featuresblogs.chicagotribune.com/entertainment_tv/2006/04/a_sad_day_for_g.html

(April 2006) House of Freaks song on 'Gilmore Girls'

2006-05-04T23:09:00.000-04:00

Richmond Times-Dispatch
Thursday, April 27, 2006

Here's a reason to stay up extra late to watch "Gilmore Girls" at 2:30 a.m. Tuesday -- House of Freaks' "40 Years" sung by the show's resident troubadour, Grant Lee Phillips.

The choice of the song, written by the late Bryan Harvey, was made by Amy Sherman-Palladino and Dan Palladino, the show's departing executive producers who are also music supervisors for the show.

Dan Palladino, reached by phone yesterday, said he was a fan of the band -- composed of Harvey and Johnny Hott -- in Los Angeles in the 1980s.

"I always loved that song. It was played a lot in L.A."

More recently, he heard that their albums were being rereleased.

"I said to my wife, 'We've got to get this song on the show some way.'"

And then, the horrible events of Jan. 1 when Harvey, his wife and their two children were slain in their Richmond home.

"It so horrified me," said Palladino. "It's such a horrifying story. There's nothing worse than that.

"When that happened, we had dwindling times when we could get our troubadour to sing a song. But it was absolutely imperative we get '40 Years' into the show as our own tribute to Harvey. And, it's a great song."

Nationally, the "Gilmore Girls" episode aired this past Tuesday on the WB. But because Richmond doesn't have a WB affiliate, the show will air on WWBT, the local NBC affiliate, at 2:30 a.m. next Tuesday. -- Douglas Durden

http://www.timesdispatch.com

(April 2006) Musician off to Left Coast to appear in 'Gilmore Girls'

2006-05-04T23:07:00.000-04:00

After a fast five minutes with the makeup artist on the set of ''Gilmore Girls," Joe Pernice met with the popular TV show's hairstylist. The latter took one look at the mussed do of the creative leader of local indie rockers Pernice Brothers, mumbled ''No need," and walked away.

''The show's producers wanted me to play a busker," said Pernice, 38, who had traveled a considerable distance from the band's record label in Dorchester to spend one day at Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank, California. ''They asked that I show up to the set looking a bit disheveled. I told them that it would be no problem any day of the week."

Though Pernice Brothers' songs, posters, and T-shirts have appeared in ''Gilmore Girls" episodes, this is Joe's first appearance on the show, which has featured cameos by musicians as diverse as the Shins and Carole King. Pernice, a Holbrook native, will play a singer-songwriter who arrives in town hoping to be discovered. The tale is not pure fiction. Pernice has found through ''Gilmore Girls" a new audience for songs that rarely receive mainstream exposure.

''The show's creators have the freedom to share the music they love with a pretty large audience," said Pernice. ''They find a way to make the music fit the mood and the mood fit the music. It works."

Pernice's cameo won't be the only one to please indie-rock fans. Look for walk-ons by Yo La Tengo, Sam Phillips, and Sonic Youth.

''I'll sing half a verse of 'Amazing Glow,' then the chorus," said Pernice. ''It's less than 45 seconds, which is more than enough time to ask anyone to look at my mug."

The ''Gilmore Girls" season finale airs Tuesday, May 9, at 8 p.m.

RON FLETCHER
http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2006/04/27/musician_off_to_left_coast_to_appear_in_gilmore_girls/

(May 2006) Spotlight: Gilmore Girls

2006-05-04T23:04:00.000-04:00

Tara McEwan
Dose

Tuesday Global 10 p.m. ET/PT, 8 p.m. MT

Players: Lauren Graham, Alexis Bledel, Scott Patterson, Kelly Bishop

The Pitch: Season 6 comes to a close amid a graduation party for Logan, an ambush at Friday night dinner and an onslaught of appearances by notable musicians including Sonic Youth, Yo La Tengo and Sparks in Stars Hollow.

The Prognosis: For six years, Gilmore Girls has built a strong following by exploring the beautifully complex mother-daughter relationships between Lorelai (Graham) and Emily (Bishop), and Lorelai and Rory (Bledel). The first half of the season, which saw Rory snub her mother and move in with the grandparents, proved to be a brilliant, months-long tug of war between Lorelai and Emily over Rory’s future.

But then Lorelai and Rory made up, rendering Emily invisible and the love lives of our two heroines took centre stage. The show’s dramatic tension promptly took a nosedive. The introduction of Luke’s long-lost daughter, a wedding postponement and Logan’s continued childish behaviour put Lorelai and Rory into a position neither character had assumed before: the submissive female. Um, Max? Dean? Jess? These ladies have never picked a relationship over happiness.

With the departure of Amy Sherman-Palladino (head writer and show’s creator), it’s anyone’s guess where the characters end up in Season 7. And if the latter-half of Season 6 is any indication, the season finale is the last chance to see the Lorelai and Rory we’ve loved for six years.

(February 2006) Lorelai and Rory's fight & the future of the show

2006-02-16T16:56:00.000-05:00

"Gilmore Girls": Change hard for characters, creators, WB
By David Bauder - The Associated Press

BURBANK, Calif. — This season's "Gilmore Girls" story line where the normally tight mother-and-daughter team of Lorelai and Rory feuded and gave each other the silent treatment caused some sharp arguments among the show's rabid fans.

Turns out there were some divisions on the set, too.

"It wasn't my favorite," admitted Lauren Graham, who plays mom Lorelai.

Lorelai and Rory have since made up; tears flowed. Their rapid-fire repartee is back, although usually by phone. Rory is back at Yale now, and, in one busy episode this month, became editor of her school paper and moved in with her boyfriend.

The show's creators are clearly trying to push things and avoid the fatigue that usually afflicts television shows in their sixth season.

Long the WB's most critically acclaimed series, "Gilmore Girls" has quietly grown to become its second most popular after "7th Heaven." The show averages just under 5 million viewers a week, up from 4.1 million two seasons ago, according to Nielsen Media Research.

Last month's announcement that the WB and UPN will shut down to form a new network in the fall has left all of their programs in flux. But "Gilmore Girls" would seem to have earned the right to determine its own destiny and make the move to the new CW network.

The growth has come despite the widely objected-to story line.

Part of Graham's problems with the feud were personal; she missed working with co-star Alexis Bledel every day. Primarily she believed it didn't ring true to her character.

"I struggled with the idea that this character, being the parent, would go so far as to stop speaking to her daughter and not make more of an effort," said Graham, taking a break in her trailer on the Warner Bros. lot. "We had it in bits and pieces, but it was hard for me to justify — that I wouldn't try harder, that I wouldn't reach out more, that I could stand to be away from her for that long."

She questioned co-creators Amy Sherman-Palladino and Dan Palladino more this year than ever, "and I'm sure they enjoyed it not at all," Graham said.

Some critics took her side. Ted Cox of the Chicago Daily Herald said "it seemed suddenly as if the characters were being manipulated to create drama, rather than allowing the drama to flow naturally out of the characters."

The Palladinos concede that it's tough to come up with new stories for a long-running show without them seeming contrived. But in this case, they said it was important to do something that shakes Rory to her foundation — a typical rite of passage for budding adults, who learn about themselves by how they respond.

"To really rock Rory's world, we had to go to what the core of the show was and to really have them have a rift and explore what the show would be," Sherman-Palladino said. "I know there are two camps. Personally, for me, I've loved the psychological implications of this year more than any other year because we've really gotten to do some real mother-daughter stories."

Think deeply about the characters, and the silence rings true, she said. Lorelai has spent her life trying to do everything differently from her own mother. And if it was Lorelai taking time off from Yale, her mother would have personally dragged her back to school.

While things are better now between Lorelai and Rory, it's not so for Lorelai and Luke, her diner-owner beau.

They're engaged after an agonizingly long courtship. But the sudden emergence of Luke's daughter from a previous relationship has thrown their marriage plans in doubt.

It's never simple, is it? Driving wedges between seemingly well-suited characters is another risk to an audience's patience. The Palladinos like the idea of exploring the difficulties in bringing together two strong personalities very set in their ways.

"It's very different if you get married at 29, than at 38," Sherman-Palladino said. "It's a very different world, and that's what we're trying to tap into."

The future of "Gilmore Girls" is a convoluted plot itself. The Palladinos say they're undecided about whether they will continue with the series after this season — alarming news for fans of a series that, more than most, reflects the strong sensibilities of their creators.

One factor that may have driven them away — a pilot for a new series, a romantic comedy, that would have been filmed in New York — is no longer in the picture. It was scrapped with the WB's dissolution.

The Palladinos are making plans for a cliffhanger ending to this season (wedding? no wedding?) and for the show to run without them in the fall, just in case.

Graham said the signs point to one more season after this one; the production company is making sure to add another year for people who had six-year contracts. Graham said that's when she'd like to move on, citing the show's workload.

"Getting the language perfect requires a number of takes that you might not have on another show," she explained. "It's just a lot of work — 13, 14 hours door-to-door. I've missed weddings, I've missed babies being born. I'm not complaining, because of what it has brought me, but I would be ready for a different balance."

She has a hard time imagining the Palladinos not involved, particularly if the series is coming to an end.

Television economics may also play a part in the decision. The WB is canceling "7th Heaven" because, after a decade on the air, the network's most popular show was losing money because it was so expensive to make.

"They've come to us before and asked point-blank how long we think the show can go," Sherman-Palladino said, "and we say it's a family show, it can go on forever. If '7th Heaven' could have gone on for 10 years, why couldn't this show go for 10 years? There's no reason. They're going to be hard-pressed to assemble a cast this good on television again."

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/artsentertainment/2002803523_gilmoregirls14.html

(Jan 2006) Hit programs cheat the intelligent

2006-01-26T16:55:00.000-05:00

Popular television shows offer no place for the smart girl
By: Megan Yodzis
Issue date: 1/26/06 Section: Campus
www.bgnews.com

Popularity.

This is an interchangeable term that means something different for everyone. For one person it can mean being the best at everything - being the skinniest, having the best clothes, hair and makeup. For others it can mean just simply having the most friends.

With all these aspects that make up popularity for our generation of females, where does intelligence fit in? Obviously not on television, according to a presentation yesterday by Cindy Conaway about "Smart Girls on Television."

Ever since the days of Beverly Hills 90210 the smart girls haven't gotten much screen time, Conaway said. Now television shows focus on sex appeal, and who can get the hottest guy or girl.

In the presentation, part of the Brown Bag Luncheon series, Conaway focused on five popular shows from the past decade. These included Beverly Hills 90210, Gilmore Girls, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Freaks and Geeks and My So Called Life.

For each of the five shows she cited specific scenarios where the "smart girl" was left waiting in the cold while the male characters always favored the more "beautiful" girls.

In the popular television hit, Gilmore Girls, the main character Rory is seen as the smart, cute, girl-next door type in the beginning. Peer pressure and the influence of seeing other more popular girls began to change her.

In the show Rory drops out of Yale, her dream college, and no longer talks to her mother. Seeing an example such as this never showed the consequences of what happened because Rory decided to be a rebel. So girls who watch it will think it is okay to act like that.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer, another teen drama that was also a big hit, also had a character who progressively changed. A quiet, reserved girl on the show named Willow changed completely when she was introduced to Buffy.

Willow was picked on in high school and had a crush on a guy who saw her as merely a tutor. When she met Buffy, her life, along with her clothes, makeup and hair all began to change.

"When a character in any show meets a cool new friend, they stop acting like they did and begin to take on a different role." Conaway said.

Freshman Laura Robinson disagreed with Conaway on the subject of peer pressure and the part it plays in television.

"Not every girl who watches these shows wants to be exactly like the popular or beautiful girls shown," Robinson said.

The networks who run these programs choose to focus on sex appeal, and no longer academic work according to Conaway. They even pick the actress that will be best consumed, meaning girls will want to be them, and guys will have fantasies about them.

"Sex sells much better, and society understands this," Conaway said.

The smart girls have disappeared from the television shows all together, Conway continued. Sex appeal and popularity is all you need to succeed in life, she said, and that is the message we are currently receiving from these television shows.

There are no shows that have role models for the disabled, heavy and "smart" girls to follow, Conaway said. This seems harsh and unfair to some people, but that is how America thinks.

"In real life these girls are not just ignored, they have low self esteem and are not as driven," Conaway said.

Jason Kirby, a graduate assistant in the American Culture Studies Department, disagrees with Conaway.

"Television just does not seem to enter into the equation for me when I am making fun of someone," he said.

Teenage girls in our society are learning lessons from the shows they watch. Along with the ideas about body image versus grades, the lessons currently being learned include not hanging out in school and go out with the bad guy.

"Put away the books, and pull out the credit card," Conaway said.

There is a big difference in the girls on television and the girls in real life. Conaway believes it is wrong to alter images and ideas in television and hopes for an activist streak in television to come along with a more moral and ethical basis.

http://www.bgnews.com/media/paper883/news/2006/01/26/Campus/Hit-Programs.Cheat.The.Intelligent-1505074.shtml

(2005) US TV sex scenes 'on increase'

2005-11-30T12:23:00.000-05:00

The number of scenes on US TV featuring sex has nearly doubled in the last seven years, a study has suggested.

The survey for US health pressure group the Kaiser Family Foundation showed there were 3,783 scenes in a 1,000-hour sample, compared with 1,930 in 1998.

It found that 70% of shows had sexual content, ranging from a reference to full depiction, with five sex-related scenes per hour on average.

TV bosses said parents have technology to bar content they deem inappropriate.

The foundation's survey found the number of sex-related scenes in the leading teen TV shows was nearly seven per hour.

Behaviour link

It cited examples including a discussion of sex on the WB's Gilmore Girls to a depiction of sexual intercourse in Fox's The OC.

The study examined programmes on ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, WB, PBS, Lifetime, TNT, USA Network and HBO.

Lead researcher Dale Kunkel said it was generally accepted that TV influenced children's behaviour.

"Their sexual knowledge, attitudes and behaviours are all shaped in part by the characters in stories that television conveys," he said.

Tony Vinciquerra, president and chief executive of Fox Networks Group, said parents had controls such as the V-chip, which is built into TV sets to allow parents to block shows based on ratings.

Safety message

He added that TV bosses were aware of parents' concerns.

"We have debates every minute of every day about what goes on television," he said.

The Kaiser study suggested a slight rise in shows promoting a message about contraception and the risks in having sex.

Among the shows that featured sexual content, 14% had discussions about waiting to have sex or safe sex, up from nine per cent in 1998.

The report follows a review in April by the Parents Television Council, which claimed that many US shows did not have enough prior warnings on sex and violence.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/tv_and_radio/4424366.stm Kaiser Family
Foundation: http://www.kff.org/

- Submitted by Trisha

(2005) Girl power rules on 'Gilmore'

2005-11-30T12:20:00.000-05:00

October 25, 2005

BY DOUG ELFMAN TELEVISION CRITIC
'GILMORE GIRLS' / **1/2

Fans of "Gilmore Girls" and TV critics wring their hands about why the show, now in its sixth season, gets shafted by the Emmys and remains a niche in TV ratings. But its fate -- to beat ceaselessly against the currents of mass consumption -- is sealed.

Why? Because it seems as if one must have enjoyed the escapist, female sensibilities of literature classes to get "Gilmore." If you were won over by Hemingway's expatriate cafe dwellers and Fitzgerald's lushly wasted lives, you might be among those who like spying on the chronological narratives in "Gilmore's" idyllic village of Stars Hollow, Conn.

Just like in those early 20th century fictions, the value of idle wealth is both questioned and glorified in "Gilmore." Earlier this year, daughter Rory stole a yacht with her rich boyfriend. When she was released from jail, her Yalie friends threw her a party where everyone dressed in black-and-white prisoner outfits and sang, "For she's a jolly good felon."

That Gatsby-esque gathering followed last season's extravagant outing where everyone dressed as a character from a Quentin Tarantino film. Such references to pop culture and intellectual sustenance whiz by in a flurry. In another episode, verbal allusions covered painter Frida Kahlo and the 1970s sitcom "Benson,"; the movies "Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice" and "Paper Moon," and Mennonites and meth heads.

To say "Gilmore Girls" leans implicitly to the cultural left, then, is an assumption about intellectual fiction that, regarding "Gilmore," is not off base. That's why Madeleine Albright, the former secretary of state, fits in during a one-scene appearance tonight (7 p.m., WGN-Channel 9).

The significance of Albright's role is to comfort Yale dropout Rory (Alexis Bledel), who was such a bluestocking as a small child she became upset after learning the late Charlotte Bronte was unable to attend her sleepover.

There's even a difference struck between old wealth and new. A few shows ago, a new-wealth woman took a dig at the riches of Rory's grandmother, Emily (Kelly Bishop), who then put the woman in her place -- during a Daughters of the American Revolution party, no less. Each affluent woman smiled with grace during the exchange.

"You were a two-bit golddigger fresh off the bus from Hicksville when you met Mitchum in whatever bar you happened to stumble into," Emily told the woman with royal composure. "He's still a playboy, you know. Well, of course, you know. That would explain why your weight goes up and down 30 pounds every other month. But that's your cross to bear. But these are ugly realities. No one needs to talk about them."

A sharply feminine aesthetic of the show is acted out by the leads, Lorelai (Lauren Graham), her daughter Rory and grandmother Emily. It's womanly, not because Rory's boyfriend this season bought her a handbag costing between $800 and $8,000. Such consumerism would merely make it a mainstream show targeted at women.

It's womanly in its empowered, lit-class way. The females, who wear youthful applications of blush, are captains of their ships. They never seem to cry. Their witty anger turns outward, not inward. They lead. Men follow.

This isn't man-bashing fiction. It's a positive-reward system for males, though. They keep women satisfied, and for that wise choice, they are allowed to be peripherally heroic. Lorelai asked her boyfriend to marry him. He said "yes" faster than a Jane Austen bride. They celebrated by drinking Zima and falling into bed.

"We should drink Zima and have sex every single night," Lorelai announced.

"OK," he said meekly.

As in seasons past, the dialogue is quicksilver and often broadcast as loud as in a stage play. "Gilmore Girls" scripts are so wordy, actors have undergone vocal coaching to spill it all out; "Gilmore" is a throwback to dramatically comic plays that inspired black-and-white films.

It's all very unusual for TV or any other contemporary medium. I have found myself rooting for "Gilmore," even though the sixth season has been weighed down by drawn-out story lines and overly eccentric acting. The exception is tonight's episode, the best in some time. It's funny and thematically satisfying.

The season's crisis remains mother-daughter. Will Lorelai and Rory repair their rift -- concerning Rory's dropping out of college -- so that Lorelai may attend Rory's 21st birthday party? One thing's for sure. There will be cake. Rory's grandmother assures us of "a chocolate praline crunch cake completely covered in pearls -- ah, to be 21 again."

Oh, yes, I remember that birthday cake well.

http://www.suntimes.com/output/entertainment/cst-ftr-elf25.html
- Submitted by Trisha

(2005) Gilmore Girls: The One with Madeline Albright

2005-11-30T12:15:00.000-05:00

Posted Oct 27, 2005, 2:26 PM ET by Karina Longworth
Filed under: Drama, OpEd, WB, Gilmore Girls

Sweeps aside, only on Gilmore Girls would a character's dream logic transpose their own mother's voice into Madeline Albright. Following in the tradition of such "big name" Gilmore guest stars as Norman Mailer, the former Secretary of State appeared in bed with Rory Gilmore on Tuesday night, as a vehicle for the voice of Rory's astranged mother Lorelai. As Rory fretted over her upcoming 21st birthday, Albright delivered the quips with the proper cadence ("Walk into Denny's before 5, and you'll get a discount"), but still – was this not the most discordant prime time dream sequence since Maddie Hayes looked in the vanity and saw Dr. Joyce Brothers? More importantly: am I the only one watching this show who is old enough to get Moonlighting references?

The best part of this episode, besides for Rory and Lorelai's identical speech about their now-squashed plans for the former's birthday ("We were going to go to Atlantic City. We were going to sit at the blackjack table and be playing 21 when I turned 21, and then we were going to win and buy 21 things and then there was somethng with 21 guys that would be totally inappropriate..."), was Rory's reaction to her grandparents' clueless attempts to regulate her virginity. Noticing that Rory always seems to have mussed hair when Logan comes aorund, Emily informed Richard, "I think she's getting ready to have RELATIONS with that boy!" Oblivious to the fact that Rory and Logan have been doing it forever, Emily invited a reverend to come to dinner to ... encourage Rory to keep her pants on. God's representative launched into this whole speech about Rory's "ultimate gift". "You can only gift it to one man," he reminded her. "If you gift it to the wrong man, then when the right one comes along, you'll have to gift him a sweater." A remarkably composed Rory then broke the bad news: "I'm afraid the ultimate gift ship has sailed. Awhile ago. It's probably in Fiji by now. [pause] So, have you seen The 40 Year-Old Virgin? I think you might like it." The next day, Emily locks Rory out of the poolhouse.

This episode ended pretty abruptly, with Luke agreeing to be part of Lorelai's creepy sausage-spitting Halloween tableau, which we'll never see, because the show is taking next week off. But, when it comes back on the 8th, guess what? Jess comes back!

http://www.tvsquad.com/2005/10/27/gilmore-girls-the-one-with-madeline-albright/
- Submitted by Trisha

(2005) Gilmore Guy Moves to Philly

2005-11-30T11:59:00.000-05:00

'Gilmore' guy moves to Philly

THANKS TO W.C. Fields, Philadelphians are so used to the city being a punchline that some of us actually got excited Tuesday night when the WB's "Gilmore Girls" showed some enthusiasm for Philadelphia.

Turns out that Jess (Milo Ventimiglia), Rory Gilmore's (Alexis Bledel) bad-boy-boyfriend-turned-novelist, is now living here and working for a small publishing house on Locust Street.

Who knew?

(Before we get too worked up, let's remember that Rory's been living and working in Hartford, Conn., a place that not even the ever-optimistic "Gilmore Girls" has been able to make look cool. When I came to Philly from Hartford a couple of years after college, I thought I'd died and gone to heaven.)

Citing a recent New York Times piece that talked up the city as a new mecca for up-and-coming artists - and others who can't afford Big Apple housing - Rory even remembered the picture that accompanied it of all those twentysomethings standing around on a roof trying not to look as if they were posing for a picture.

At least, though, she didn't pick up on the Times story's eyebrow-raising claim that some Philadelphians refer to the city as New York's "sixth borough."

"Gilmore Girls" executive producer Daniel Palladino, who wrote Tuesday's episode, said yesterday that he moved the New York-born Jess to Philly because "it just sounded different from him going to Brooklyn... It just seemed like the right thing to do."

It was Palladino who read the Times story originally, and after talking to a few people who confirmed that Philadelphia did indeed have a "burgeoning creative arts" community, suggested it as Jess' new home to the show's creator (and his wife), Amy Sherman-Palladino.

"We try to put as much authentic detail in people's lives as we can," he said.

As for Ventimiglia, who left the show a few seasons ago but continues to date Bledel in real life, his character will probably return a time or two this season, Palladino said.

"He is going to remain in Philadelphia," he added.

http://www.philly.com/mld/dailynews/living/13130260.htm
- Submitted by Trisha

(2005) Gilmore Girls: The Birkin

2005-11-09T17:37:00.000-05:00

Gilmore Girls: The Birkin
Posted Oct 20, 2005, 2:13 PM ET by Karina Longworth
Filed under: Drama, OpEd, WB, Gilmore Girls

A lot happened in this episode – Taylor renamed all the streets in "Historic Stars Hollow"; Emily started mailing Lorelai antiques to "smoke [her] out" of their fight; Richard accidentally pressured Logan into marrying his granddaughter. But above all else, this episode will be remembered for one thing and one thing only:

This was the one where Logan gave Rory a Birkin.

It's not as dirty as it sounds. A Birkin is a purse, made by Hermes. They are extravagantly expensive (in the four to six figure range, depending on when it was made and out of what); they are always in demand, and they never go out of style. Owning a Birkin is a big deal; getting one as a "just because" gift from your boyfriend is almost unheard of.

At the start of the episode, Emily assumes that Logan and Rory are havig problems, because she hasn't seen him around - and, of course, because Rory's been sleeping until 8:30. But when she hears tell of the purse, Emily becomes as cheerfully flummoxed as Emily Gilmore ever gets. "That's a VERY nice purse," she tells Rory. "A Birkin bag! A Birkin bag for Rory! I'm just saying, Richard never bought ME a Birkin bag. Oh, this is exciting!"

The bag forces the issue of where Rory and Logan are in their relationship. Now, I don't know very many rich people, and I've certainly never dated anyone with the means to obtain accessories that have their own wait lists. But does one buy one's girlfriend an Hermes bag if they think they're in a casual relationship? If they're just "hooking up", or "hanging out", or doing whatever it is the young, attractive people do nowadays?

But you've seen the promos, if not the episode – you know that Rory says "I love you," and Logan doesn't exactly respond in kind. In fact, he says, "The lady who sold this purse to me said that was going to happen." It wasn't all that bad – Logan went on to say, "I've told a lot of girls I love them before and I didn't mean it, so I'm not going to do that to you. Woah ... that didn't come out right." They end the scene with a big kiss, but if I were Rory, I'd be immeasurably confused. If Logan doesn't love her, what earthly reason might he have to buy her a $10,000 purse – and in hot pink, no less!

http://www.tvsquad.com/2005/10/20/gilmore-girls-the-birkin/

(2005) New season of Gilmore Girls won't leave fans hanging

2005-08-20T23:44:00.000-04:00

Hal Boedeker Sentinel Television Critic
Posted July 26, 2005

HOLLYWOOD, Calif. -- Gilmore Girls won't leave fans hanging over its romantic cliffhanger, but family turmoil peaks when the WB series starts its sixth season Sept. 13.

When last seen, Lorelai Gilmore (Lauren Graham) was asking Luke Danes (Scott Patterson) to marry her.

"We're going to answer the proposal pretty much right away,'' series creator Amy Sherman-Palladino says.

The estrangement between Lorelai and daughter Rory (Alexis Bledel) will play out over the season's first half. Rory has moved in with her grandparents, Richard (Edward Herrmann) and Emily (Kelly Bishop). "Which is Lorelai's worst fear in the entire world,'' Sherman-Palladino says.

"For Lorelai, her investment in 'I want this kid to be different from me' really kind of gets attacked,'' Graham adds. "It brings the family conflict on to a new level.''

Rory is taking time off from Yale, but she'll still be with boyfriend Logan (Matt Czuchry).

"We really like them together,'' Sherman-Palladino says. "I like the fact that she's got a boyfriend who doesn't just fall at her feet and find her the angelic, darling, wonderful, perfect thing that I think she is. He's a difficult boy. He is not a commitment guy.''

The Gilmore Girls crew knows what it's like to be jilted. Once again, the Emmys ignored the comedy-drama despite stellar reviews. "We're terrifically disappointed,'' says David Janollari, president of WB Entertainment. "We all walked around very gloomy on that Thursday morning [the nominations came out], as did Amy and Lauren.''

Hal Boedeker can be reached at hboedeker@orlandosentinel.com.
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/entertainment/orl-bkgilmoregirls072605,0,3488643.story?coll=orl-caltop

- Submitted by Trisha

(2005) Here's who Emmy should pick

2005-07-17T13:48:00.000-04:00

Commentary: Awards often slight worthy candidates
By Lynn Elber
Associated Press

Saturday, July 16, 2005; Posted: 10:18 p.m. EDT (02:18 GMT)

LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- We have two words for Emmy voters and they're not "Desperate Housewives." Think "Gilmore Girls."

If the WB series doesn't -- finally -- make a substantial dent in the television nominations announced Thursday, we're going to write a guidebook for voters, "Emmys for Dummies."

The goal is to recognize good work, whether done by a a freshman phenom like ABC's "Desperate Housewives" or a series on a smaller network, even a youth-oriented one like the WB that seems to be missing from Emmy voters' remote controls.

"Gilmore Girls" is far from the only show or star slighted by the members of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. No best-actor bid last year for Ian McShane as an Old West powerbroker in HBO's "Deadwood"? It's enough to make a grown man cuss a blue streak.

But "Gilmore Girls" has been ostracized since its 2000 debut, save a single nomination for makeup. It's the poster child for Emmy abuse.

A sophisticated confection about a single mom and daughter, the series is smart, funny and touching and features a cast consistently up to the challenging material.

So, for starters, how about giving star Lauren Graham, who's been nominated for Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild awards, a comedy series actress bid? Kelly Bishop's version of a grandmother of steel is overdue for a supporting actress nomination.

And, hey, how about some recognition for series creator Amy Sherman-Palladino and her husband and fellow executive producer, Daniel Palladino?

Let's put this in perspective. It's as if the movie industry had the chance to honor a classic romantic comedy like "It Happened One Night" (1934, five Oscars) or "Annie Hall" (1977, four Oscars) and took a pass.

"Why she's not showered with awards, I don't know," "Gilmore Girls" leading man Scott Patterson said of Sherman-Palladino.

She returns the compliment to him and the rest of the cast, but with more evident frustration.

"Lauren, good God -- the fact that she hasn't gotten a nomination for the work she does is astonishing to me," Sherman-Palladino said.

Recognition for her own efforts would be "lovely" but wouldn't enhance the creative pleasure of working on the show, she said -- although there is, Sherman-Palladino concedes, the harsh reality of money and power to consider.

"In business terms, there's a little more shine when you go to make your next deal and you've got a fancy statue sitting next to you and your lawyer," she said.

A chance for new blood
Emmy omissions are inevitable given the academy's tendency to repeatedly reward the same entrenched shows and actors (Candice Bergen finally took herself out of the running after her fifth award for "Murphy Brown").

But there is wiggle room this year with a number of perennial Emmy favorites missing, noted Tom O'Neil, author of "The Emmys" and host of Web site that handicaps awards shows.

"Frasier," "Friends" and "Sex and the City" wrapped their runs and "The Sopranos" took a break before it returns for its sixth season. Whether Emmy is bold enough to put edgy shows like FX's "Nip/Tuck" or "Rescue Me" in their place remains to be seen.

"This year we'll finally find out if voters snub cool networks like the WB, FX and UPN because they're geezers who won't give young-skewing programs a chance or because there just wasn't room in the past to recognize hip cable shows after obligatory nominations were doled out to the big network series," O'Neil said.

Who else should be on the Emmy ballot and maybe even nab an award in September? Here are a few worthy dark-horse contenders we're rooting for:

- Terry O'Quinn, the steely eyed Locke of ABC's "Lost." His character is a puzzle within an enigma and O'Quinn is peeling off the layers with finesse.

- Denis Leary, who deftly handles both the action and the psychodrama in FX's "Rescue Me" as a firefighter in a constant personal state of 911.

- "Queer as Folk," the Showtime series which brought relationship drama back to TV before "Desperate Housewives." Its gutsy depiction of homosexuality may make some Emmy voters uneasy, so how about a safe but deserved nomination for Sharon Gless' brassy turn as a mom who loves her gay son unconditionally.

- George Lopez, who as the sometimes goofy, always loving family man in his self-named ABC comedy conveys an easy warmth often lacking in modern sitcom dads.

- "Reno 911!," the Comedy Central series about a ragtag group of sheriff's deputies that raises improv comedy to new heights but can't get arrested by Emmy. A real crime.

- Kristen Bell of UPN's "Veronica Mars," a lovely newcomer who has earned rave reviews for her performance as a teenager who combines high school with sleuthing.

- Kathryn Joosten, for general excellence in any supporting role. We loved her a few seasons back in "The West Wing" as the president's no-nonsense secretary, Mrs. Landingham, and now we've gotten to savor her as an incarnation of God in "Joan of Arcadia" and obnoxious neighbor Karen McClusky in "Desperate Housewives."

Copyright 2005 The Associated Press.
http://www.cnn.com/2005/SHOWBIZ/TV/07/13/apontv.emmymisses.ap/index.html

(2005) Between TV shows, Alexis Bledel works on a new career

2005-06-06T00:16:00.000-04:00

By BRUCE WESTBROOK
Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle

It's Alexis Bledel's favorite time of year.

The Houston-born star of TV's Gilmore Girls gets three months off between seasonal grinds. She uses her hiatus to rest, visit her family in Houston and pursue her next career: making movies.

Bledel's first film was 2002's Tuck Everlasting. Her latest is The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, opening today.

"It's extremely tempting to take a break during hiatus," said Bledel, 23, who's trying to take time off before Gilmore Girls resumes production in July. "But interesting possibilities pop up."

That's why she's spending two weeks making an unnamed indie film — and spent last summer making Sisterhood and the Austin-shot action film Sin City.

"I really like working on movies," Bledel said. "It's appealing to do different roles and stay interested."

For five seasons on her WB dramedy, she's played Rory Gilmore, a smart girl who lives with her zany single mom (Lauren Graham).

In Sisterhood, Bledel plays Lena, a shy, aspiring artist who's among a tight group of female friends. She could almost be Rory's younger sister. A bigger stretch was Sin City's Becky, a hard-edged gal in a gory story.

Bledel got Gilmore with no professional experience. While growing up in Houston, she acted in school and modeled for the Page Parkes agency. She was studying at New York University when she tried her first audition — and won her career-launching role.

Suddenly, the 18-year-old was engulfed by work. She was due on the set at 6 a.m. daily, and at week's end she often didn't leave until 6 a.m. Saturday.

"I hadn't planned to work this hard, this young in life," Bledel said. "I was shocked. The hours are insane. I'm excited for when I can just do movies, which are so much more reasonable."

Bledel knows she must strike while the iron is hot, which is why she makes movies when she can. "I'm just trying to set it up so when the show's over, I can still work. People on TV often have a hard time translating into the film world."

During her rare free time she lives quietly, avoiding the party scene and tabloids. Recently Bledel made a major grown-up move: She "purchased, gutted and remodeled" a house in Los Angeles.

"I'm very laid-back and do normal stuff," she said. "I like seeing my friends, having dinner parties, going to movies and going shopping." Her dates have included former Gilmore co-star Milo Ventimiglia.

Bledel has advice for guys asking girls for dates: Take them to see Sisterhood. "They'll be the hero of the day, and it'll do them some good, too."

Bledel believes guys "see girls getting into cat fights and back-stabbing" too often in teen movies. "In reality, female relationships are a lot more about love and support than guys might think. And guys can relate to this. It's about human experiences."

Sisterhood departs a bit from Ann Brashares' best seller, especially with Bledel's character.

"It would have been far too heavy — too much crying and emotional stuff," she said. "They lightened my story and made it this beautiful summer romance (set and shot in Greece), but still in keeping with the character."

Also "shy growing up" and also "quite a klutz," Bledel related to Lena. But she was first drawn to the project without a role in mind.

"I was impressed they were going to make a movie with actors, not teen pop stars," she said. Also, director Ken Kwapis "wanted to tell the story right and wasn't afraid to ask questions about girl stuff he didn't know."

Though she sounds ready to move on from Gilmore, "basically I have to do the show until the studio and network decide they're done with it," Bledel said. "I think it'll end nicely when Rory graduates from college," which could come in two years.

Until then, at least her on-the-job training is paying off.

"I feel pretty confident about myself," Bledel said. "Now I'm ready to see what else is out there."
bruce.westbrook@chron.com

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/features/3205487
Submitted by Trisha

(2005) Family Values Equal Success

2005-06-03T13:33:00.000-04:00

May 30, 2005
By A.J. Frutkin

When broadcasters announced their 2005-06 schedules, the Family Friendly Programming Forum added several more feathers to its cap. Among the projects it supported this year through its script development fund were ABC's Commander-in-Chief, UPN's Everybody Hates Chris and the WB's Related.

Of course, the meaning of “family friendly” continues to evolve. In fact, the Forum’s greatest success to date is having funded the pilot script for the WB’s Gilmore Girls, about a mother (Lauren Graham) who became pregnant as a teen and gave birth out of wedlock.

Dawn Jacobs, a Johnson & Johnson advertising vp and a co-chair of the Forum, said the group’s definition of family friendly has more to do with a program’s cross-generational appeal than it does with promoting a particular set of moral values. “At the end of the day, a show has to be engaging. And the best way to do that is by depicting real-life situations and problems,” Jacobs said. “There can be issues, but we ask the networks to resolve those issues responsibly.”

While ABC entertainment president Stephen McPherson said Commander-in-Chief is as much a family drama as it is a political one, he added that the show will feature “adult-themed story lines dealing with politics and power.” He also noted the Forum’s support of the series is a credit to the organization. “I think there’s a misperception that family friendly requires an exceedingly soft depiction of the nuclear family,” McPherson said.

Perhaps surprisingly, even Chris Rock’s edgy stage persona hasn’t prompted advertisers to squirm when it comes to Everybody Hates Chris’ family-friendly label. “The salt that [Rock] dishes out on stage is not in the fabric of the series,” said Shari Anne Brill, vp/director of programming at Carat USA. “This is about a family whose core values are working hard, getting the best education for your kids that you can and making something of yourself.” For the Forum, a group comprised of more than 40 national advertisers, its biggest win this year may be that all six networks participated in the initiative for the first time.

With the new shows’ pickups, Jacobs said its job is done for this year. “We don’t drive content,” she said, noting that should sensitive subject matter arise in these programs down the line, “typically the networks will let us know as individual advertisers.”

http://www.mediaweek.com/mw/news/recent_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000938196
Submitted by Trisha

(2005) Sisterhood reveals secrets of 'Traveling Pants'

2005-06-03T13:29:00.000-04:00

May 29, 2005
BY CINDY PEARLMAN

LOS ANGELES -- Size matters. It's especially relevant when you star in a movie about a pair of magic Levi's. At the moment, three young actresses are lamenting the jean size of Lindsay Lohan.

You might have heard that Lindsay recently dropped some pounds.

"Weight. It's a very emotional issue," says America Ferrera, who at 20 has enough curves to have starred in a movie called "Real Women Have Curves." "Lindsay is thinner, but it could be stress," says "Gilmore Girl" Alexis Bledel, 23. What if someone in Hollywood told either of them they needed to get down to size 0 for a role? Now it's "Joan of Arcadia" herself, Amber Tamblyn, 22, who begins to spaz out. "I'm sorry, but the size of my butt doesn't make me a good or bad actress. Give me a break!"

Actually, each is getting a big break this summer by starring in "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants," which opens Friday and is based on the best-selling teen novel by Ann Brashares. The book revolves around lifelong friends who must spend their first summer apart. Tamblyn is the future filmmaker, Bledel is shipped off to Greece to stay with her grandmother, and Ferrera is the overweight girl mandated by a custody agreement to stay with her father and his fiancee. They bond by shipping a pair of magic jeans back and forth to each other.

Over breakfast at the Park Hyatt Hotel in Century City, the princesses of "Pants" -- each wearing jeans -- took on bigger topics to see if they fit.

Q. Has anyone ever told you girls to drop a few pounds for a role?
Bledel: Before I got "Gilmore Girls," I was modeling. I went in for a call and was told, "Sweetie, you need to lose two inches off those hips." I was 14.
So I just replied, "I have more jobs than I can do. I'm in high school. I can't go to all the trouble of losing the two inches, so I'll pass." Someone might tell you to lose weight, but you can say no.

Ferrera: I think Hispanic women are beautiful with their curves. I'm not sure who feels that way in Hollywood. I was never told to lose 50 pounds. If they think that they just don't bother with you. You just don't get the role and you never know why. That's still better than physically harming yourself and becoming unhealthy just to star in a movie.

Q. Did any of you borrow from your very recent teenage years for the angst in "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants"?
Ferrera: Well, I play a girl visiting her father who is absent in her life. My parents separated when I was younger and my father was completely absent. So I wouldn't say my acting in this movie just comes from my life, but I didn't have to stretch too far for the feelings of being isolated, abandoned and out of place.

Bledel: I have my first kiss in the film, but we're not going there on how it happened in real life!
Tamblyn: To me, the film is about best friends and how you don't have to see each other all the time. But then you're back in each others lives and just immediately connect. That's a great thing.

Q. What makes something a good teen film these days?
Tamblyn: This movie will be a shocker for most people. They're going to expect something fluffy and sweet. A teeny-bopper film. People might even make fun of this film before they see it, which is fine. I just give them a nice smirk and say, "Go see it and talk to me afterward." It's about issues of life and death. It's not fluff.

Bledel: My character is pretty, but doesn't see herself that way. She's extremely shy and has a very active inner life. Her life is also sort of a mess and she really doesn't know how to behave. I think a lot of girls can relate.

Ferrera: I love that the movie isn't about who is your boyfriend and are we going to the prom. It's about an internal transformation and not about wearing a pretty dress. It's also not about young girls being jealous of each other and hating each other. I'm sick of those movies.

Q. When something different like "Joan of Arcadia" comes along, it gets bashed by the media (and now it's canceled by CBS). Why did the ratings dive, Amber?
Tamblyn: Honestly, I think certain magazines really had it out for us from the beginning of the season. We were the show about God, and the magazines didn't like that.
So when it came time to stick it to us when we were going through a little rough spot they were really able to help push the whole "Don't watch this show anymore because it's gone to hell." Even though the show didn't at all go to hell. It's a great show about something.

Q. How do you handle fame at your age?
Bledel: Well, I remember it was 5 in the morning. I'm leaving my house to go to the set of "Gilmore Girls." I'm really tired and just when I walk outside, a bus slowly goes down the street with my face on the side of it as Rory Gilmore. I thought, "Ewwww." It's so early. I just can't stand seeing me.

Ferrera: I called her and said, "You have this huge billboard in Times Square." (Bledel shakes her head.)

Q. Is it hard to have a regular life when you're Joan of Arcadia? Can Joan go to her high school prom?
Tamblyn: I did go to the prom with my friend Sam, and it was horrible. I left early. I couldn't stand it. It wasn't like I was too good for it or whatever.
I just didn't identify with the whole school dance thing. This has nothing to do with my television show. I just don't get into the whole school dance thing. I do like to break dance, but they don't have that at the prom.

Q. Have you met any adult stars who have made you really go weak at the knees?
Ferrera: I think Tom Hanks was at the same hotel I was staying at to do an interview and I got so scared. I didn't want to see him. I love him so much and what if I fainted? I'm serious!

Bledel: Oh, we're not going there. It's private.

Tamblyn: I love David Bowie.

Q. So many young girls are obsessed with these "Pants" books. What was your entertainment obsession as a little girl?
Bledel: The Secret Garden or Little Women. Can I also say A Little Princess?

Ferrera: I loved that movie "Now and Then." My friends and I saw it about a million times when it came out, and we assigned each other characters. I was the girl with the big boobs.

Tamblyn: Oh, I loved that movie "Labyrinth." David Bowie. In spandex! Enough said.

Q. For every young girl who wants to act but has no industry connections, what is your best advice?
Tamblyn: Just don't take no for an answer. Audition, audition, audition. You have to get out there.
Ferrera: Just act. I wouldn't hear "no" when it came to auditioning for the junior high school production of "Romeo and Juliet." I was 7 and in third grade. My sister said, "You can't."
But I went down to the junior high and they took pity on me. That's how it began for me. When I was 17, I went to a professional audition and booked my first role in a Disney cable channel movie, which led to "Real Women Have Curves." You have to start with baby steps. Who knows where you'll end up.

Q. What's next?
Bledel: Sleep.
Tamblyn: Who knows?
Ferrera: I'm in "Lords of Dogtown" this summer and I'm a full-time student at USC studying international relations and not acting -- because I wanted my life outside of acting to be, you know, a life.

Distributed by Big Picture News
http://www.suntimes.com/output/movies/sho-sunday-pants29.html
Submitted by Trisha

(2005) Still a 'Gilmore Girl,' but also a woman

2005-06-03T13:27:00.000-04:00

By Bob Strauss
Film Writer

Rory Gilmore is growing up.

Actually, Alexis Bledel, who plays the precocious teenager on television's acclaimed "Gilmore Girls," was already an adult when the series began.
But this year, 23-year-old Bledel is following her TV mom Lauren Graham's path into attention-grabbing movies with two image-changing roles: Becky, the deceitful young hooker in the violent and stylish "Sin City"; and Lena, a timid teenage artist who comes out of her shell while visiting Greece in "Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants."
"Directors think I'm more capable than they might have thought I was before, because they're seeing different sides now," says the delicately featured Bledel, whose pale blue eyes are as striking in person as they are on screen.

"I understand that; they just think of you as they've seen you. I think, in this business, it's at least 50 percent about what you look like and 50 percent what you can do," the former teenage model adds.

"Sisterhood" director Ken Kwapis was determined to show us Bledel's quieter side.
"Rory is very, very verbal," he notes. "This was an opportunity to do just the opposite, to create a character through silences and pauses and awkward physical behavior. Alexis was so excited about that."

"The show is all about the writing, it's not really about the acting," Bledel says of her day job, which starts its sixth season in the fall. "We do have to sort of fit in our performances between the words. So it's actually lovely to have an opportunity to not say everything the character is thinking and just act it."

Of course, being adept at articulate, witty dialogue isn't a bad thing. Especially when English is your second language; born in Houston to a mother who was raised in Mexico and an Argentinean father, Bledel learned to speak Spanish first.

She acknowledges that her Rory image draws intelligent movie scripts her way. As for still being asked to play characters five, six or seven years younger than she is, well, actors have worse problems than that, too.

"I'm always excited about the prospect of playing someone my own age," Bledel admits. "But I'm really not horrified by the idea of playing a teenager, either. I know that I look young, and I know that I have a lot of time to play older characters. And no matter the age of a character, hopefully, they're all having rich human experiences."

http://u.redlandsdailyfacts.com/Stories/0,1413,217~24244~2891677,00.html
Submitted by Trisha

(2005) Bledel Charts New Territory

2005-06-03T13:25:00.000-04:00

(Sunday, May 29 12:04 AM)
By Jay Bobbin

LOS ANGELES (Zap2it.com) - Alexis Bledel still enjoys being a girl, or more to the television point, one of the "Gilmore Girls."

About to appear on movie screens in "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants," the young actress has just finished her fifth season on The WB's comedy-drama about a close mother-daughter relationship. Besides continuing in summer repeats in its traditional Tuesday slot, the series is repeating earlier episodes virtually every day on ABC Family. The first three seasons are also available on DVD.

Those chart the growth of wiser-than-her-years Rory Gilmore (Bledel), who keeps pace mentally and verbally with her single mother, Lorelai (Lauren Graham), but is at an emotional crossroads as the show heads toward its sixth year.

In the season finale that aired two weeks ago, the normally driven Rory was reassessing virtually all the plans she had made for herself. To a degree, her decisions involved her current beau -- privileged Logan Huntzberger (Matt Czuchry) -- and his rather picky family, but her ultraconservative grandparents (Edward Herrmann, Kelly Bishop) also factored in. A result of it all: one very panicked Lorelai.

"Rory has been on a very specific path for most of her young life," Bledel, 23, reasons, "so last season was the year that sort of opened her eyes to the fact that there are so many other things. She realized how competitive the field she was trying to get into is, and how slim her chances actually were, and how hard she'd have to work ... when she already was working hard. We saw more about her than her academic goals, and it was fun to see where it would go."

Executive producer Amy Sherman-Palladino determined, according to Bledel, that viewers had "never really seen [Rory] mess up too much. She was almost annoyingly perfect. You just never saw her do anything normal teenagers do, and Amy said when Rory messes up, it's big. That's like her affair, if you can call it that, with Dean (Rory's ex-boyfriend, with whom she became intimate while he was separated from his wife). I certainly don't want to judge Rory, but it was an interesting surprise when I got that script."

Sending Rory to Yale could have altered the show's premise by separating her from Lorelai, but frequent phone calls and visits home kept the relatives united. "I think it's been done as smoothly as possible," Bledel says. "For a while, it seemed like they were on the phone a lot, but they're so important to each other, they always go back to each other at the end of the day with whatever they've experienced."

Bledel moonlighted by playing a young prostitute in the recent highly stylized movie "Sin City," for which she worked in front of a blank "green screen" for directors Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller.

"It was unlike anything I'd ever done or seen," she reflects. "It's stunning visually, really amazing to watch. Making it was challenging but kind of fun at the same time. You basically have only your costume and the other actors to help get you into character. Working with two directors was a great experience; they were harmonious as a team, and you got double the input."

Last summer was busy for Bledel, since "Sin City" was filmed at the same time as "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants," based on the Ann Brashares novel and opening nationwide Wednesday, June 1. Among those playing her best friends in the new film is Amber Tamblyn ("Joan of Arcadia"), and Bledel says "it was fun working with people my own age or close to it. We just had a blast. The director (Ken Kwapis) would be like, 'OK, girls, it's time to shoot. Girls? Hello?'"

"Gilmore Girls" frequently places Bledel opposite older actors, and she says, "I love working with people I can learn a lot from, but it's a whole new experience to co-star with people my age.

You're all on the same page in a lot of ways. Since Amber also has done a series, it was cool because we could commiserate about the long hours. That's something nobody wants to hear you complain about, but when you know someone else has been going through the same thing, you can at least complain to each other."

Most movie scripts don't demand the rapid-fire dialogue Sherman-Palladino built into "Gilmore Girls" from the start. "It's hard," says Bledel, who adds that when she gives voice to a film script, "People are like, 'Slow down. Take your time.' I'm not used to that luxury, and it's wonderful. There are so many more possibilities, and you can just slow your whole performance down and see what you can find. [Doing a 'Gilmore' scene over], it's like resetting all the buttons and basically starting from scratch."

When her lengthy stint as Rory is finally finished, Bledel admits she'd have to think long and hard about doing another series after playing someone so tailored to her.

"It's been so intense," she says. "I'd hope to work on things with shorter commitments and just ease my way through. I've actually started to give a lot of thought to when the show ends, because it's been life-changing in a way. By its nature, it's all-consuming, so a lot of my life has been built around this schedule for the last five years. It's exciting to think about the future, though."

http://tv.zap2it.com/tveditorial/tve_main/1,1002,271952991,00.html
Submitted by Trisha

(2005) Q&A with Alexis Bledel

2005-06-03T13:22:00.000-04:00

June 6 issue - Q&A: Alexis Bledel

You might not approve of Alexis Bledel's latest squeeze on "Gilmore Girls." But in "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants," all her relatives hate her boyfriend. She spoke to NEWSWEEK's Ramin Setoodeh.

You shot the movie in Greece—and held a fish?
It was gross. I felt bad because they had somebody from the humane society but for fish—the fish society, of some sort—in Greece. We're scrambling to get the shot in time so the fish isn't out of water for too long.

Did you kill any?
No, but I was terrified.

You rode a donkey, too.
We had a couple of donkeys. There was the temperamental donkey and there was the donkey who acted like he was high.

Do you think the handler slipped him something?
That's probably against the donkey-protection program in Greece.

There's a swimming scene in "Sisterhood" exactly like "Tuck Everlasting."
I know, how weird is that? It's not my favorite thing to strip down. But it keeps happening.

Season three of the "Gilmore Girls" just came out on DVD. Do you like doing the commentaries?
They make us. I sometimes don't want to. I watch these other TV shows from our network and I've never seen one where the actress does commentary. I feel like I'm getting duped because I have to do a commentary every couple of weeks.

How do you talk so fast on the show?
It's really hard. You have to measure your breaths. I've found a good rhythm to it—once you get into it, it doesn't feel as fast as it is.

Could you get a Vespa on "Gilmore Girls," like the one in this movie?
I wish. It's the most wonderful thing when you're on the set and they clear the street. You can just tear down. But Rory would probably get a cute Vespa with a matching helmet.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8017763/site/newsweek/
Submitted by Trisha

(2005) Romance is hot for ‘Gilmore Girls’ (w/ Scott Patterson)

2005-05-12T22:45:00.000-04:00

WB's Tuesday-night drama holds its own in ratings

This season, things finally heated up between Luke Danes, played by Scott Patterson, and Lorelai Gilmore, played by Lauren Graham.

The Associated Press
Updated: 5:26 p.m. ET May 11, 2005

LOS ANGELES - The jilted woman sits in front of the TV set and fast-food cartons, watching Judy Garland belt out “The Man Who Got Away” and wallowing in heartache.

There’s an insistent knock on her door. It’s him. A torrid glance, an embrace, the music swells. Fade promisingly to black.

For hopeless romantics, the destination of choice is WB’s “Gilmore Girls,” which saw its ratings grow as the relationship between Lorelai and Luke heated up in the fifth season.

Lorelai Gilmore, sexy single mom to Rory, and Luke Danes, hunky diner owner, finally evolved from pals to lovers, only to break up and then get together again.

Meanwhile, aspiring journalist Rory has boosted the R.Q. (romance quotient), suffering through her own roller-coaster fling with fellow Yale student and newspaper scion Logan.

In its highly competitive 8 p.m. ET Tuesday time slot against Fox’s powerhouse “American Idol,” “Gilmore Girls” has repeatedly ranked No. 2 among its target audience of young adults 18-34 and young women.

The series also has seen a respectable increase in overall viewership, drawing 4.7 million total viewers for the season so far compared to 4.1 million last year.

As the finale approaches (Tuesday, May 17), the future is looking uncertain for Luke and Lorelai: New opportunities threaten to take her away from her tiny Connecticut town and love. There are hints, however, that other pressures may be building.

For Rory (Alexis Bledel), an internship with Logan’s (Matt Czuchry) media tycoon father forces her to doubt her career choice and more.

Scott Patterson, who plays Luke, doesn’t need to track the ratings to know their direction. Viewer fervor is his measurement of interest in his on-screen fling with Lorelai (Lauren Graham).

“The kind of fan mail I get, the kind of response I get out in public is stunning,” Patterson told The Associated Press. “People love this show. They think it’s really happening. It’s wild.”

'Moonlighting' syndrome
There’s known danger when TV characters convert desire to action. Call it “Moonlighting” syndrome, a reference to the hit 1980s Cybill Shepherd-Bruce Willis series that fizzled after their characters gave in to lust.

“Gilmore Girls” benefited from the unfulfilled longing between Luke and Lorelai, Patterson said, but he wasn’t worried that the show would “jump the shark” — lose its way — if they got together.

“I never thought that because I know how good the writing is. Now there’s a new tension created,” he said.

His confidence is based on the stellar talent of Amy Sherman-Palladino, the show’s creator and executive producer (the latter title shared with her husband, Daniel Palladino).

Patterson’s relationship with the show began slowly. He was cast in the pilot, then was offered two episodes, then four. Now he’s been in just about every episode, playing the perfect square-jawed, big-shouldered hero, albeit a cranky one.

Among the show’s delights is the clever repartee, the sort of rapid-fire banter that film buffs savor in classics including 1940s’ “His Girl Friday” with Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell.

The challenge for Patterson is to keep it real when Luke is confronted by motormouth Lorelai.

“The big trick, if there’s any trick, is not to get caught up in her rhythm or in that fast-banter thing, because when you do you lose the character. That’s not Luke.”

'I never take rejection personally'
The 46-year-old Patterson, who grew up in New Jersey, turned to acting after seven years in minor-league baseball. He played in school, including Valencia Community College in Orlando, and turned down scholarships at Arizona State and USC when the Atlanta Braves drafted him.

Traded after three years to the New York Yankees, he says the four years he spent with that team’s farm club ended up killing his dreams of a big-league pitching career.

“It was not a good experience, all in all, to be in that organization in the early ’80s,” he said, calling the Yankees’ front office “asleep at the wheel.”

An extended visit to Europe helped him shake off the disappointment, but the sour experience prepared him “for just about anything. ... I never take rejection personally.”

He tried acting at the urging of a New York couple he’d met abroad and “fell in love with it. I found something I could train at, something that would challenge me. I could see I could take my work ethic and make up for a lot of lost time.”

Supporting TV and movie roles led to “Gilmore Girls” and sudden celebrity. One reward is the chance to help charities, said Patterson, who focuses on those that serve ill youngsters and is helping raise money for Johns Hopkins children’s facility.

The extraordinary bravery of the kids he meets lends perspective “if you ever complain that the hours (at work) are too long, or whatever you come up with.”

© 2005 The Associated Press.
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/7820125/

- Submitted by Trisha

(2005) Jennifer Wilbanks Was in Good Company: Top 5 Runaway Brides on Television

2005-05-12T22:43:00.000-04:00

From the May 16 Issue of INSIDE TV

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 11, 2005--

INSIDE TV, the new weekly magazine for television fans, picks the Top 5 "Runaway Brides" of television, who, like Jennifer Wilbanks, the Duluth, Georgia woman who fled to New Mexico and faked her abduction in order to avoid walking down the aisle, wore running shoes under their wedding gowns:

RACHEL on "Friends"
Rachel Green (Jennifer Aniston) was about to get married in the middle of Central Park to her boring fiance Barry (whom she compared to Mr. Potato Head), when she fled the scene to start a whole new life in New York City.

LORELEI on "Gilmore Girls"
While Lorelei (Lauren Graham) celebrated her upcoming nuptials to Max (Scott Cohen) at her bachelorette party (which was held at a drag club), she realized she just wasn't into marrying him. Instead of walking down the aisle the next day, she and daughter Rory bolted from Stars Hollow and went on a mystery road trip (which ended at Harvard).

AMY on "Judging Amy"
Things seemed doomed from the start for Amy (Amy Brenneman) and Stu (Reed Diamond), since she didn't even have time to plan her own wedding. On the big day, the bride had a full-blown panic attack at the altar and realized she couldn't go through with it.

VALERIE on "What I Like About You"
When Val (Jenny Garth) reunited with her high school sweetheart Rick (Edward Kerr), she was in heaven. But, when her sister Holly (Amanda Bynes) informs her as she's walking down the aisle that Rick has been seeing his ex, Val decides to pull the plug on the wedding mid-ceremony.

DAPHNE on "Frasier"
The day before Daphne (Jane Leeves) was set to marry Donny (Saul Rubinek), she discovered that Niles (David Hyde Pierce) was in love with her -- and acknowledged that the feeling was mutual. On her wedding day, Daphne showed up in her wedding dress on a Winnebago with Niles, and the two sped off together.

INSIDE TV (http://www.insidetv.com/) is a weekly magazine designed exclusively for television fans. Created by the TV Guide Publishing Group, INSIDE TV provides breaking news and stories on television's hottest shows and stars, and behind-the-scenes information on the latest styles, fashions, and trends influenced by television.

- Submitted by Trisha

(2005) Audio Interview w/ Amy Sherman-Palladino

2005-05-08T22:32:00.000-04:00

...
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4631902
(click to hear an audio interview with Amy Sherman-Palladino)

The Mind Behind the 'Gilmore Girls'
by Terry Gross

Creator Amy Sherman Palladino, center, and show stars Lauren Graham, left, and Alexis Bledel. GilmoreGirls.org; the WB

Fresh Air from WHYY, May 5, 2005 ·

Amy Sherman-Palladino is the creator and executive producer of Gilmore Girls, on the WB network. The show is about a single mother and her daughter who are best friends.

Lauren Graham plays Lorelai Gilmore, the hip mom who does her best to keep teenage daughter Rory (Alexis Bledel) from repeating her own mistakes. Lorelai was a teenager herself when she became pregnant with her daughter.

The popular show is now in its fifth season. Warner Brothers has just released season three on DVD.

- Submitted by Trisha

(May 2005) 'Gilmore Girls' scene hits close to home

2005-05-04T16:50:00.000-04:00

By John Breunig - City Editor - Published May 2 2005

When "Gilmore Girls" creator Amy Sherman-Palladino decided the television show's young heroine, Rory, needed to start a newspaper internship while studying at Yale University, she didn't call on the WB's research department to find an appropriate spot."

We took out a map and said, 'She could be here or there. Well, that looks good.'

"Unlike the fictional setting of "Stars Hollow" somewhere between Hartford and New Haven where part of the show takes place, Sherman-Palladino stuck with the real name of her setting of choice. She did, however, cloak the name of the newspaper. On tomorrow night's episode, which airs at 8 p.m., Rory Gilmore will start her internship with the "Stamford Eagle-Gazette."

"When we wanted to find a newspaper for her to intern at, we wanted to find something slightly realistic in relation to Yale," Sherman-Palladino said Thursday night as she was wrapping post-production on the season's final four episodes. "She can take a train and not work at the 'Podunk News.' It's a place with a legitimate newspaper."

In an interview with Stamford's real-life daily newspaper, Sherman-Palladino took a crack at guessing the first question.

"Why are we sucking your town into Hollywood crap?"

Actually, Stamford viewers will not be subjected to faux renditions of the Government Center, Cove Island Park or the Stamford Town Center, as Rory will be confined to the fake newsroom on the Warner Bros. backlot.

The script's stage direction describes the newsroom: " This is the office of the 'Stamford Eagle-Gazette,' a regional newspaper with about three hundred and fifty employees and a circulation just under 40,000. We're in the editorial offices; a center bullpen area houses reporters, feature writers and support personnel. Around the periphery are offices for editors (News, Business, Sports, Features, Lifestyle, etc.)."

It, umm, sounds familiar."

It feels pretty much like a newsroom. There's a conference room that someone probably should have put a plant in at some point," Sherman-Palladino said. "This newsroom is kind of crappy, though it won't be the same guy pumping gas that is doing the political column."

For the record, there is no plant life in The Advocate's conference room.

Though The Advocate and the WB television network are owned by Tribune Co., Sherman-Palladino says the choice of a Stamford newspaper setting is a coincidence.

"Gilmore Girls," which is wrapping its fifth season, focuses on the mother-daughter relationship between Lorelai (Lauren Graham) and Rory Gilmore. The show has recently experienced something of a resurgence, with a cover story in TV Guide and a spread in Entertainment Weekly. Its ratings have rallied to the No. 2 spot on the network, behind warhorse "7th Heaven." TV Guide called it "TV's fastest-talking, most whimsical hour, where nothing dispels a calamity faster than a good, old-fashioned one-liner."

Rory's move to a newspaper seemed inevitable, as the rapid-fire pace of the show's overlapping dialogue echoes that of such movie classics as the 1940 newsroom comedy, "His Girl Friday," starring Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell."

That rhythm is the best. That's what I enjoy," Sherman-Palladino said. "People talk quicker in those older movies, like (the Katharine Hepburn-Spencer Tracy movie) 'Pat and Mike.' It's repartee that I personally enjoy listening to. And, you know, it's all about me."

It really does seem to be all about her. Not only does Sherman-Palladino toss out obscure references (see "Pat and Mike," above), just like those she puts in the mouths of her characters, but she is living proof that real people can talk as quickly as actors with scripts. Sherman-Palladino buzzes her rat-a-tat-tat musings at the pace of woodpecker that has consumed too many cups of java with Lorelai and Rory at Luke's Diner. Apparently, the staff at the Stamford Eagle-Gazette is addicted to her speech rhythms as well."

We stopped short of calling anybody 'Smitty,' but we have people walking and talking and handing things off," she said.

Sherman-Palladino, a native of California, previously worked on shows such as "Roseanne" and "Veronica's Closet." While she and her husband, Daniel Palladino, were visiting Connecticut in search of Mark Twain's wallpaper (see obscure references, above), she was inspired to create a show about a small town. Daniel Palladino is also a producer and writer for the show.

It's hardly the first television show to boast a Connecticut setting. Lucy and Ricky Ricardo spent their final seasons on "I Love Lucy" in Westport; a "Bewitched" Samantha Stephens stored her broom in the closet of her home at 1164 Morning Glory Circle in Westport; and "Dark Shadows" used exterior shots of the Lockwood-Mathews Mansion in Norwalk.

After making a cameo as a train stop on "The Twilight Zone" and as the setting for city resident Gene Wilder's cable series of mystery movies, Stamford finally got a prime time slot of its own four years ago as the address of ABC's "My Wife and Kids," starring Damon Wayans.

Rory Gilmore, portrayed by Alexis Bledel, finds her way to the city after her boyfriend's father, "Mitchum Huntzberger," who owns several publications, adds the Stamford Eagle-Tribune to his holdings. In last week's episode, he offered Rory an internship. In the season's remaining episodes, she will begin her efforts to turn the internship into a summer job.

Though Sherman-Palladino resists offering too many details of the plotline, she reveals that the perennially poised Rory will be somewhat shaken as she is thrust into the real world. Rory's pursuit of a newspaper career is consistent with the character's development since the series pilot, when she declared that her role model is CNN international correspondent Christiane Amanpour.

"I am obsessed with Christiane Amanpour. And we've already established it's all about me," Sherman-Palladino said. "There is no one cooler on the face of the Earth. If she was a dumb broad with a pushcart she would still be the coolest person with a pushcart. She is always in the trenches and not worried about her hair."

As newspaper editors can attest, print journalists who surrender to the lure of television do not always make for ideal interns. The question of whether Rory is bound to follow her role model into television journalism is one that momentarily silences Sherman-Palladino.

"Um, no," she eventually offered.She waited a beat to clarify her response."All roads do not end in TV. Even on TV they do not end in TV."

http://www.stamfordadvocate.com
Copyright © 2005, Southern Connecticut Newspapers, Inc.

- Submitted by Trisha

(May 2005) Top 10 All Time Greatest TV Moms

2005-05-04T16:47:00.000-04:00

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 4, 2005--In honor of Mother's Day, Inside TV, the new weekly magazine for television fans, has chosen its picks for Top 10 All-Time Greatest TV Moms. Marge Simpson, the animated mother of the dysfunctional Simpsons, beat out Lorelai Gilmore ("Gilmore Girls"), Clair Huxtable ("The Cosby Show"), and even Mrs. C. ("Happy Days"). In an exclusive interview with Inside TV, daughter Lisa Simpson had this to say about her mom: "After all these years, she still makes pearls and a beehive work." Read the entire interview in the May 9 issue of Inside TV (on newsstands May 5).

Here are the Top 10 All-Time Greatest TV Moms, according to Inside TV:

10. Bree Van de Kamp ("Desperate Housewives," actress Marcia Cross). The law-abiding mother hides her son's hit-and-run accident to keep him from going to jail. Her words of wisdom: "I would love you even if you were a murderer."

9. Elyse Keaton ("Family Ties," actress Meredith Baxter). She doesn't agree with her rabid Republican son Alex, but supports his right to be different. Her words of wisdom: "I bet Skippy didn't stay up all night worrying about Watergate."

8. Carol Brady ("The Brady Bunch," actress Florence Henderson). She's a lovely lady who is also a loving mom and stepmom. Her words of wisdom: "The times might have changed, but people haven't."

7. Caroline Ingalls ("Little House on the Prairie," actress Karen Grassie). Even though the Ingalls are poor, Caroline manages to whip up pretty party dresses for her girls. And no one stands up to the snobby Mrs. Oleson like she does. Her words of wisdom: "I'm sure Nellie has her good qualities somewhere."

6. Marion Cunningham ("Happy Days," actress Marion Ross). This nurturing mom helped turn surrogate son Fonzie from a thug to a lovable lug. And she's the only one allowed to call him by his birth name -- "Arthur." Her words of wisdom: "Life would be so much more pleasant if we just had more closet space."

5. Lorelai Gilmore ("Gilmore Girls," actress Lauren Graham). She's a sassy single mom who is her teenager daughter's best friend. Her words of wisdom: "I'm afraid once you're heart is involved, it all comes out in Moron."

4. Olivia Walton ("The Waltons," actress Michael Learned). She gives up being a singer, painter, and dressmaker to raise her family, and battles polio, tuberculosis, the Depression and World War II. Her words of wisdom: "I think you could be anything you want to be, doll."

3. Clair Huxtable ("The Cosby Show," actress Phylicia Rashad). She's the supermom of the '80s -- a lawyer with five kids -- who stands her ground with Cliff. Her words of wisdom: "If you don't get it together and drop these macho attitudes, you are never gonna have anyone bringing you anything, anyplace, anytime, ever!"

2. June Cleaver ("Leave it to Beaver," actress Barbara Billingsley). She manages to vacuum while wearing fancy dresses, pearls and high-heels, with never a hair out of place. Her words of wisdom: "I wish Wally wouldn't use words like 'flaky' and 'kooky.'"

1. MARGE SIMPSON ("The Simpsons," animated - voice of Julie Kavner). She's a modern day June Cleaver who juggles bratty Bart, precocious Lisa, and pacifier-addicted Maggie, while keeping hubby Homer in check. Her words of wisdom: "Let's forget our troubles with a big bowl of strawberry ice cream."

May 04, 2005 10:01 AM US Eastern Timezone
http://home.businesswire.com

- Submitted by Trisha

(2005) 'Gilmore Girls' Wedding Marks a Milestone

2005-05-01T18:59:00.000-04:00

By Kate O'Hare

These days, if a show lasts into its fifth season, it's a TV miracle of considerable proportion.

Few know that better than Amy Sherman-Palladino, creator of The WB Network's "Gilmore Girls," which airs its 100th episode Tuesday, Feb. 8.

At first, she was just in it for the shoes.

"I didn't think we'd shoot the pilot," Sherman-Palladino says. "Then when we went up to Canada to shoot the pilot, I said, 'At least I got a free trip to Canada.' I'd never seen Toronto. I went shopping on Queen Street. I bought nine pairs of shoes in two weekends. How about that?
"So I figured, 'Hey, take some pictures, get some shoes.' Then they put us on, but they put us on opposite 'Friends,' so I figured, 'One season, you have a show on ... second season, OK, they'll cancel us midseason.' Now I'm, 'Well, maybe we'll get to the 100th episode. Who knows?' "
Having proved that negative thinking is no impediment to success, Sherman-Palladino then had to pick the story line for this milestone episode.

Sherman-Palladino went for a wedding. She is the writer and director of "Wedding Bell Blues," in which Richard and Emily Gilmore (Edward Herrmann, Kelly Bishop) -- parents of innkeeper Lorelai (Lauren Graham) and grandparents of college student Rory (Alexis Bledel) -- decide to renew their vows in a lavish ceremony.

Lorelai and Rory throw Emily an impromptu bachelorette party, which goes about as well as fans might expect. Then at the big ceremony, Rory's father, Christopher (David Sutcliffe), arrives.

The process begins with applause and cheering as the cast gathers over a tasty buffet of Chinese food for a read-through of the script. The actors deliver lines in their signature snappy fashion -- including Herrmann on the speakerphone -- and the reading is pretty entertaining even without props, costumes or sets.

A few days later, a fuzzy pink hat on her head, Sherman-Palladino sits in the director's chair at the Wilshire Ebell Theater in Los Angeles, where the wedding scenes are being filmed.

"We shoot here a lot," she says. "First, it's down the street from where I live. I walk to work. I love that."

On this day, there are loads of well-dressed extras; lovely tulle and ribbons draped everywhere around the elegant, dark-paneled interior; and huge bouquets of real roses.
Although she was an enthusiastic pessimist about her show's chances, that doesn't mean Sherman-Palladino didn't think she had five seasons of stories in her "mom and daughter who are best friends" concept for "Gilmore Girls."

"I've never pitched a show in my life that I couldn't see year five," she says. "When you do a good family show ... until people actually die off and are put in the ground, they're driving each other crazy. Even after they're dead, they've got all the baggage and the damage of the dead person. It goes on for generations."

Right now, Sherman-Palladino's main issue is a close-up that's just a little too close. "Way too tight," she calls out to the cameraman. "Serious intimacy issues here."

http://tv.zap2it.com

(2005) 'Gilmore' pair pact with WB for new show

2005-04-28T14:57:00.000-04:00

By Nellie Andreeva

"Gilmore Girls" creator Amy Sherman-Palladino and Daniel Palladino have received a six-episode commitment from the WB Network for a new series project.

Additionally, the Palladinos have inked a deal with "Gilmore Girls" producer Warner Bros. TV to continue as executive producers/showrunners on the WB dramedy for another season.

Even though "Gilmore Girls" officially has not been picked up for the fall, a sixth-season order for the show is considered a shoo-in given its creative and ratings resurgence this season.

Averaging 4.7 million viewers -- 15% above its average last season -- "Gilmore Girls" is the WB's top-rated show in adults 18-49 and the network's second most-watched behind "7th Heaven."

"'Gilmore Girls' has enjoyed an incredibly successful year, both in terms of high quality and high rating, which is a tribute to the amazing cast and Amy and Dan, who write the show in such a unique and highly qualitative way with great humor and great elegance," WB Network entertainment president David Janollari said. "From the beginning of the show, it's been Amy's point of view and voice that's driven the show to its success, and I'm thrilled and delighted that they will be back to write and run the show next year.

"Giving Sherman-Palladino and Palladino a commitment for a new series was a no-brainer, Janollari said."

We decided we wanted to be in business with Amy and Dan on their next venture," he said. "Because the success of 'Gilmore Girls' has been equally rewarding for us and for them, I'm very excited to get in the development process with them on their follow-up to 'Gilmore Girls.'

"Both Sherman-Palladino and Palladino said that they were surprised by the "Gilmore Girls" audience comeback, a rare feat for a show in its fifth season.

"We went (into the season) in very good spirits, thinking if this is the last year, we're going to make it a creatively satisfying year, we're going to give the WB everything we've got to go out in style," Palladino said. "We do it for the fans, for the people watching, and it was the most gratifying part last year that they came back and liked the show."

Sherman-Palladino also gave credit for the show's turnaround to Janollari, who joined the WB in the summer."

He's been a real terrific spark of new energy that has been great for us, the show, the actors and everybody," she said.

Next season, Sherman-Palladino and Palladino will continue to steer the "Gilmore Girls" ship and prepare it for a possible life without them, while also focusing their attention on development. The two are set to pitch show ideas to the WB this week. For their next series, the duo, whose background is in half-hour comedy, are looking into the light hour and half-hour genres.

"We want to do more of what we've been doing (on 'Gilmore Girls'), definitely want to do more hourlong (projects) in the style we have enjoyed doing, and we also have other ideas that might drag us back to the half-hour arena," Sherman-Palladino said.

Sherman-Palladino and Palladino, who have penned more than 80 of "Gilmore Girls' " 110 episodes, previously worked on ABC's "Roseanne." Sherman-Palladino, whose credits also include NBC's "Veronica's Closet," is repped by CAA. Palladino, a "Family Guy" alum, is repped by Ted Chervin at BWCS. The two also are repped by attorney Jeanne Newman.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr/television/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000895547
- Submitted by Trisha

(April 2005) Lauren Graham Dishes Girls, Guys

2005-04-19T12:16:00.000-04:00

Friday, April 8, 2005
Lauren Graham Dishes Girls, Guys
by Michael Ausiello

If there's any justice in the world, come September, Gilmore Girls leading lady Lauren Graham will be standing on stage at the Shrine Auditorium clutching a certain gold statue with sharp, pointy wings. Of course, when it comes to the annual Emmy derby, justice can be an elusive thing — and that's particularly true for WB stars. "Lauren should have been nominated 110 years ago," asserts Gilmore's creator, Amy Sherman-Palladino. For her part, the 38-year-old actress prefers not to dwell on such matters, insisting, "Most of the positive stuff that's happened to me has just dropped out of nowhere." Well, there's certainly been a lot of positive stuff going on in Stars Hollowland this season, thanks in large part to the long-awaited romance between Graham's Lorelai and Scott Patterson's Luke. During a shooting break on the show's Burbank, Calif., set, Graham opened up about Girls' current creative and ratings resurgence, life after Lorelai and her controversial comments about would-be spoiler Christopher.

TVGuide.com: The show is on fire this year. Are you happy with the new, romance-driven stories?
Lauren Graham: To me, the juiciest stuff, the scenes I love the most, are the ones within the family. I love the relationship between Kelly Bishop (Emily) and Lorelai. That relationship is as essential as the Lorelai-Rory relationship. We have two mother-daughter stories and those are, to me, the core of the show.

TVG: And what about Luke and Lorelai?
Graham: It's been fun to have Lorelai in a relationship. I always thought that [Lorelai] is someone whose development was arrested as a teenager, having been faced with raising this child and going off on her own. It made sense to me that she was sort of immature in terms of being able to handle men. But you want to see growth and development, so this relationship makes sense. I'm not sure where it ends up. Is this a three-year story, a four-year story...? Is it Luke and Lorelai together? Is it Rory's father, Christopher? Is it Rory and Lorelai holding hands and jumping off a cliff? Is it a wacky double wedding in Paris? I don't know.

TVG: Why haven't Luke and Lorelai said the L-word to one another?
Graham: It's not that it hasn't happened, we just haven't seen it. I assume that they are saying "I love you" to each other, but we just haven't seen it. I remember Amy saying, "We want Luke to be the same, but now you're together." This is how Luke would do it. That's what's appealing about him.

TVG: In January, you raised a bit of a stink when you told me you thought Lorelai belonged with Christopher, not Luke (Ask Ausiello 1/26). Fans see it very differently.
Graham: I was speaking in terms of the show's idyllic point of view. I think the wish-fulfillment element would dictate that the family gets back together. But I also think Luke-Lorelai is very appealing.

TVG: Some have speculated that you chose Christopher because you and Scott don't get along.
Graham: No, that's just what I used to feel. [Luke-Lorelai] could be interesting and gratifying. I was more thinking about where the story started. Is the answer her even ending up with a man? I don't really know.

TVG: So, how is your relationship with Scott?
Graham: It's fine. I think these characters have a great chemistry and that does mirror our chemistry as people. We're not intimates. We talk kind of how we talk [on the show]. We work well together.

TVG: But you're not best friends.
Graham: No. [Pause] It's a very happy set. It's a very functioning, working set, and I think some of that is helped by us having a little bit of a life outside. But I'm here an average of 50 hours a week, so there isn't a lot of socializing for any of us.

TVG: How has your relationship with Alexis Bledel [Rory] changed?
Graham: It's mainly from her. She's really grown up. She was a different person when she got here. She got here when she was 19. I hate to sound like her TV mom, but she's really blossomed. She bought a house, she's embraced that [acting] is something that she's good at. When she got here, she didn't know anything; she just had no experience. It's a tough adjustment for anybody. But we have always, always had a really positive time together. And that's something that I really value and really feel proud of. We are a team.

TVG: How long do you see the show lasting?
Graham: I see it going seven [seasons], partially because there are very few TV stories that need to be told beyond that — especially in a drama that's not procedural. In terms of my life, I'd like to be working different hours. I would like to start a family. I would like to shift the balance. It used to be that all I could do was watch Oprah and go to the gym. And now I work these long days and... it has taken a toll.

TVG: How would you feel about going on next season without Amy and Dan Palladino?
Graham: I think, at this point, it would be a terrible idea. We are in a successful time. We've had our ups and downs, but it's not a show that has ever had anyone else with the vision that [they] have — especially if we have two more years. You can feel when someone else is trying to write Gilmore Girlish dialogue... I just think it's a bad idea.

TVG: Amy says she already knows what the last two words on the show's final episode will be. Any guesses?
Graham: We've all been asking her about this. She won't tell me. I'm like, "Is it 'I do?' Is it 'Stop talking'?" Maybe it's "Cats rock!"

TVG: In your opinion, who has been the best extra ever to grace Gilmore Girls?
Graham: [Laughs] Oh, there was this guy from TV Guide once, he had this whole backstory about a hooker and I was like, 'Dude, whatever...' Oh, wait — that was you!

TVG: Good answer!

TV Guide
- Submitted by Trisha

(April 2005) The Gilmore Girls Take On Idol

2005-04-17T15:06:00.000-04:00

You may recognize the two actresses gracing the cover of TV Guide this week. The Gilmore Girls, Lauren Graham and Alexis Bledel are currently appearing on the big screen in the hit films 'The Pacifier' and 'Sin City' respectively. What you may not recognize is that these ladies are among television’s most talented actresses, and their vehicle ranks among the most entertaining, and certainly the most overlooked show on the air.

Gilmore Girls, which airs on the WB on Tuesday nights at 8 PM has some pretty heavy competition in the form of the FOX powerhouse and cultural phenomenon 'American Idol.' Despite a recent surge in ratings in its fifth season, and increasingly drawing in fans thanks to daily reruns on the ABC Family Channel, it will undoubtedly be tough to convince 'Idol' viewers to change the channel.

‘Idol’ shows no signs of aging and boasts ratings that are among the show’s highest, but I personally cannot muster up enthusiasm for yet another rendition of 'Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch.' For some of us, the show has just lost its luster – Diana Degarmo as last season’s runner up? Call me a purist, but I strongly believe that Kelly Clarkson’s charisma, talent, and powerhouse performances on Idol’s premiere season have remained unmatched by any contestant on subsequent seasons. I also have a long-running theory that reality shows are never as good as they are in season one, but I digress…Bottom line, I still appreciate the entertainment value of watching Paula Abdul’s unpredictably absurd quirks and quips…and increasing display of affection for everyone to Simon Cowell to Nikko Smith, who was eliminated despite (or perhaps because of) Paula’s declaration of love for 'the comeback kid.' However, I will be thrilled to have a reason to change the channel when fresh episodes of Gilmore Girls resume on April 19. For any frustrated former fans, or Anti –Idolists, consider this more than worthy alternative.

I ask you in advance to please excuse any overdone adjectives and unapologetic gushing that I incorporate into my opus on the Gilmore Girls. Anyone who has paid a visit to the show’s fictional Star’s Hollow setting can appreciate that the show really is THAT GOOD. The premise is simple enough – Graham and Bledel play the Gilmore girls, Lorelai and Rory, a young mother and her teenage daughter whose relationship is also that of two best friends. Despite the syrupy theme song, the sap factor on the show is minimal. Rather, it is characterized by the rapid-fire dialogue and pop culture references, which work remarkably well to create an agreeable blend of comedy and drama with a sprinkle of nostalgia mixed in. Gilmore Girls is a rare show that gives its audience something to chew on, yet is easy to digest.

After a two-month break, Gilmore Girls is set to return and promises plot twists that will shake up the lives of the main characters and change their lives forever. Despite the fact that a statement like this is usually as reliable as the phrase 'most dramatic rose ceremony ever,' the show has been subtly constructing this opportunity. Lorelai and Rory have been building their lives, accomplishing their goals of owning an inn and going to a prestigious college. Both are in developing relationships. Lorelai, at last is together with diner owner and longtime admirer Luke, and Rory is involved with fellow Yalie, Logan. The characters dreams have become realities, making it the perfect time to turn their world upside down. This fact and the consistently compelling storytelling has caused the cynic in me to step aside, and allowed me to believe that in this case, the drama will actually live up to the hype.

Gilmore Girls is a show that more than exceeds expectations. Tonight the show’s 100th episode, arguably one of the series’ best episodes will re-air. It’s a perfect opportunity for new viewers to tune in. As for those reluctant channel surfers, take one more week to laugh at Paula, hiss at Simon, or cheer for the remaining idols, each a clone from seasons past. New episodes of Gilmore Girls begin airing on April 19.

E. Werth

http://www.elitestv.com/pub/2005/Apr/EEN425c012a966d5.html

- Submitted by Trisha

(2005) How to Succeed at Vampire Slaying and Keep Your Soul

2005-03-28T21:29:00.000-05:00

By Jane Espenson

I've been a television writer for a dozen years, and I've been fortunate to put words in the mouths of some great female characters. They've been working women, mostly, and I like to think they've become role models for a generation of girls trying to figure out their futures.

But let's be honest: TV isn't going to change anyone's perceptions of working women in the real world just by promoting fictional females to ever-higher positions of authority. And I'm not doing my job if I put a woman's career before her character.

Deciding what a character does for a living on a TV show is often a matter of convenience. "What if we had a set where Ellen could meet her friends other than in her house?" a writer might ask. "How about, um, a bookstore? A coffee shop? A bookstore with a coffee shop in it?"

Other times, the career is so tied to the character that they are really one and the same. It's hard to say where Buffy Summers ends and "The Vampire Slayer" begins, for example. Television's early working women were gender-cast as maids — Hazel, Alice from "The Brady Bunch" — secretaries, nurses and teachers. The women who had settled into long-term careers — Jane Hathaway on "The Beverly Hillbillies," Sally Rogers on "The Dick Van Dyke Show" — regretted not having found themselves a good man instead. The exceptions, even small ones, stood out. I remember watching an episode of "Leave It to Beaver," already in reruns and looking ancient in its plucky black-and-white. I had never, in all my 11 years, seen a female principal. I actually remember the exhilarating "Oh, girls can do that" feeling.

Children are the world's most ardent traditionalists. They like things stable and categorized. They want to know what girls can do and what girls can't do. Television, like it or not, teaches them a lot of these rules. Diahann Carroll's nurse on "Julia" and communications officer Uhura on "Star Trek" weren't just important for African American girls. They were important for the rest of us too. And even though I understood that simpering, Jethro-grabbing Miss Hathaway was supposed to be a pathetic figure, the tightly crimped power she seemed to have at the bank was certainly impressive.

In the '70s, things changed. Mary Richards' job as a TV news producer was more than something to do until she married. And then single working mom Ann Romano of "One Day at a Time" and waitress Alice Hyatt of "Alice" came along. These were the "woman but" shows — as in "She's a woman, but she works!"

Heavy-handed? Oh dang, Skippy, they could be heavy-handed. When societal shifts dictate storytelling, you end up with your star pouring coffee in her lecherous boss' lap as the audience hoots in solidarity. But these shows made their point, and we came out the other side with a more balanced television landscape. Finally a woman could work without writers having to point a big neon sign at her (now we just point those at gay characters).

Today the percentage of female judges, college professors and detectives seen on television is a pretty good reflection of the actual world. (In the case of judges, I wouldn't be shocked to find out the number on television exceeds the number in real life — what is it about those black robes that makes us think ovaries?)

But merely thrusting more women into more prestigious on-screen jobs doesn't necessarily make the working world a better place for women. If you were to show people images of two real-life professionals, one a man, one a woman, and ask them to rate their competence knowing nothing but job and gender — I bet people still give the guys the edge.

It's not television's fault, exactly. But television can help fix the problem. Not by writing women into better professions, but by more accurately showing them as complex people contending with the sort of snide, generous, ambitious, incompetent, sad and hilarious co-workers who populate real workplaces.

Lorelai Gilmore of "Gilmore Girls" manages her own business, an inn, despite a lack of formal education. That's not what makes her feel real, though. Viewers love Lorelai because of her human foibles — and the way she loves her daughter. That's why they can imagine her as someone with a life — and lifework — that continues even when the camera doesn't happen to be pointed at her.

Back in my sitcom days on "Ellen," we writers had a puzzle. Star Ellen DeGeneres' character, who had just come out as a lesbian, was unemployed as we began the show's final season. We made a few halfhearted attempts to put her into a career. (Remember her stint as a radio host? No? Just as well.)

The thing was, we knew that giving her a job was not what we were there to do. She lived that last year with freedom and humor and grace. She dated, she found a girlfriend, she struggled with her self-identity. Viewers judged her not by her job, or lack of one, but by the content of her character.

It's true you don't worry about the mortgage quite as much when you're fictional. But anybody who conjured Ellen's resolve and basic decency would be well on the way to success as a nurse, teacher, bookstore-coffee shop manager/radio host, judge or sitcom writer.

Then there's Buffy, the teenage "vampire slayer." A woman warrior, she refused to answer to her profession's stuffy, male-dominated Counsel of Watchers. She had the power, she reasoned, and that gave her the authority to decide how to use it. She didn't figure it out overnight or without a struggle, but after seven TV years, she had learned how to make it in the graveyard.

I can't make real-life workplaces safer and more fair for women just by showing them with briefcases or crossbows. But I can try to grant my characters the quirky gift of humanity — whether they're adjudicating torts or dishing tortes or saving the world. And hope the little girls watching do the rest.

Jane Espenson, a TV writer and producer, has worked on "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," "Gilmore Girls" and many other shows. She is co-executive producer of "The Inside," a Fox TV show scheduled for the fall.

http://www.latimes.com

- Submitted by Trisha

(2005) Ask Ausiello about Gilmore Girls

2005-03-28T21:21:00.000-05:00

So... how did your trip to Stars Hollow (aka Gilmore Girls) go!?!?!?!?! — Jennifer

Ausiello: I was wondering when someone was going to get around to asking me about that. As you can tell by the photo to your right, they all loved me. They really, really tolerated, er, loved me. There's so much I have to tell you guys that I honestly don't know where to begin, so let's start with my much-hyped cameo as Dragonfly Inn Guest No. 6. Turns out, my character's name changed to Dragonfly Inn Guest No. 1 when producers discovered that, well, I was the only person in the scene with Lauren Graham and Scott Patterson! I'm standing by the bookcase in the back of the main living room flipping through Great Men of Literature by Will Durant when Luke throws one of his trademark tantrums in front of Lorelai. Startled by all the commotion, I take my book and make a hasty exit. The cameras had barely stopped rolling when the raves started pouring in. "I felt like you really needed the book," observed Graham. "You were nothing without the book." Added series creator Amy Sherman-Palladino: "I just couldn't take my eyes off of you. I don't understand why you're wasting your time at TV Guide." Director Michael Zinberg, meanwhile, assured me that unlike that big Felicity catastrophe circa 2002, all of my body parts (well, almost all) will be on display when the episode airs April 26. "The only way you'll get dropped from the episode," he said, "is if they cut the scene all together." And unless they want to jeopardize the upcoming Gilmore Girls cover story (!!!!) I'm working on for TV Guide magazine, I'm fairly certain that my scene will not be cut.

You oughtta ask the Gilmore Girls producers to let you bend the fourth wall in "an homage to Cameo Guest Stars Everywhere!" You could just kind of look into the camera over somebody's shoulder and wink. Think of all your fans out there who would tune in just to see that moment! — Tim

Ausiello: Are you sitting down, Timothy? Because not only did yours truly bend said fourth wall, he kicked it down completely — and all without anyone noticing. As a treat to all of my loyal Ask Ausiello readers around the globe, I smuggled a very special friend into the Dragonfly and placed him smack on the bookshelf behind me. I suggest you record the episode and play it back frame by frame, because he's just small enough to miss.

So, what dirt did you get while on the Gilmore Girls set? — Lauren

Ausiello: Although I kinda have to save most of the juicy stuff for my upcoming cover story (!!!!!), rest assured, I'll be sprinkling little scoops and anecdotes in Ask Ausiello in the weeks leading up to said cover story (!!!!). And of course, I'll be providing you with answers to some of those GG queries you bombarded me with last week. But I have to spread this stuff out a little. Because, as some readers have pointed out, this column is called Ask Ausiello, not Ask Ausiello about Gilmore Girls and Keri Russell.

So, if Melanie Griffith is out of Gilmore Girls, who's the actress they're talking to now? Surely you found something out while on set. — Melanie Autin

Ausiello: Actually, I jumped the gun when I said Ms. Griffith had turned down the gig. According to Amy Sherman-Palladino, if the scheduling can be worked out, Antonio's paler half — who was recently sidelined with a broken foot — is game to appear on the show either this season or next. "We logistically haven't found the time when she's in town, out of a cast, and available for an episode," Amy told me. "She's interested and all parties are go. It's a story line we won't do unless we have Melanie Griffith. It's for her." I thought about telling Ms. Sherman-Palladino about all the anti-Melanie sentiment pouring into Ask Ausiello in recent weeks, but I just didn't have the heart. She's a big Melanie fan.

Where is Lane's dad on Gilmore Girls? Is he around and not seen, or did I miss an episode in which they discussed his present whereabouts? — Lyra

Ausiello: From Amy Sherman-Palladino: "We referred to Lane's dad in the first and second seasons, and then we treated Lane like she had no dad. And every now and then we ask ourselves, 'Are we ever going to see Lane's dad?' We talk about having a scene where there's this room in the back of the house and [Mrs. Kim] walks in and there's a little man with a cup of tea — and that's Lane's dad."

I'd like to know if Alexis Bledel and Milo Ventimiglia are still dating. — Mary Jane

Ausiello: Yes, but it was like pulling teeth to get Alexis to talk about him. I did manage to get her to tell me that "everything's great."

What can you tell me about Rory's big crisis (Ask Ausiello 3/2)? — Sophie

Ausiello: I have to save the details for the upcoming cover story (!!!!), but let me once again assure everyone that Rory is not going to get pregnant.Do you think Matt Czuchry (Logan) will be back on Gilmore Girls next year? — SarahAusiello: Yes. "I don't know what the formal wording of the deal is," Amy says, "but he's on the show for the entire season."

So, will Lorelai and Emily ever speak to each other again before the season ends? — Janette

Ausiello: They sure will, although their exchanges will be far from pleasant. Lorelai will even return for a special Friday-night dinner attended by Logan. How do I know this, you ask? Because after I wrapped my guest stint, Amy personally invited me to sit in on a table read for this episode — only the second time she has allowed a journalist this far inside the process. To say the experience ranked among the most exciting 45 minutes of my life is an understatement. I get goose bumps just thinking about it. The biggest laughs were generated by Kelly Bishop (Emily) and Edward Hermann (Richard), who, being the pros that they are, nailed every single one of their line readings as if they had had the script for a month. And they weren't even there in the flesh. Both were teleconferenced in — Kelly from her home in New Jersey and a vacationing Edward from his hotel in Florida. Other interesting tidbits: The episode (No. 20, the one after my cameo) begins with Paris belting out a cover of "I'm Walking on Sunshine," but an embarrassed Liza Weil chose to recite the lyrics instead of sing them in front of her cast mates; Amy's husband, fellow exec producer Dan Palladino, read the role of Logan's father Mitchum in actor Gregg Henry's stead; when Bishop discovered she was missing page 32, Alexis Bledel jumped in and read Emily's lines; and afterward, someone in the room gorged on two cupcakes, three chocolate-chip biscottis and one brownie at the dessert table. (Here's a clue: It was me!)

I have a question for Lauren Graham. There are tons of pop-culture references on this show (not all of them favorable), and I was wondering if she ever had to dis something or someone she was actually a fan of? — Ashley

Ausiello: From Ms. Graham: "Yes, and I've stood up against things. There was something about Winona Ryder [that I wouldn't say]. I don't like making fun of other actors. And then there was a SARS joke that I didn't want to do, because people were dying at the time." OK, enough Gilmore Girls questions. Doesn't anyone want to talk about Lost?

http://www.tvguide.com/news/askausiello/050316.asp

- Submitted by Trisha

(2005) Interview with Lauren Graham (+ "The Pacifier")

2005-03-28T20:57:00.000-05:00

Lauren Graham Stars With Vin Diesel in "The Pacifier"

From Rebecca Murray,Your Guide to Hollywood Movies.

Lauren Graham on Working with Vin Diesel and Choosing Movie Roles

"Gilmore Girls" star Lauren Graham takes on the role of school principal in the comedy movie, "The Pacifier," starring Vin Diesel, Faith Ford, Brittany Snow, and Brad Garrett.

Lauren Graham was last seen on the big screen opposite Billy Bob Thornton in "Bad Santa" where she played a bartender who was sexually attracted to men in Santa suits. In "The Pacifier," Graham's character is much more controlled about her urges, but she still manages to end up with the guy. As Vin Diesel's onscreen love interest, Graham not only gets to bat her eyelashes and play the romantic lead, she also gets in on a little of the action by showing off some smooth hand-to-hand combat skills.

INTERVIEW WITH LAUREN GRAHAM ('Claire'):

Did you have to do any physical preparation?
For my big stunt? (Laughing) Yeah. You choreograph it and stuff but initially it was fun to me. I wanted to do more of that. They had gotten me a stunt person, and they were like, “Noooo! You're not going to be doing that.” And then my stunt person got injured because that's how difficult the stunt is. Really tough. So I ended up getting to do it myself. There's a lot of preparation because they want you to be safe and know what you're doing. It was fun.

How are you with kids in real life?
I'm good. I was a camp counselor for many years… I really like kids because when you do the hours I do on that show, you never see anybody. You never see your own family, let alone other people's families, so it's very soothing to hold a baby.

Can you be a disciplinarian if you have to?
Yeah. I don't know. I'm not a parent, I just play one on TV. Until you do it yourself, you don't know how you'd be. I grew up in a family where there was no yelling and screaming as discipline. It was like, the rules were clear and the worst my dad could say is I'm really disappointed in you. That kind of thing. I don't think I'd be so tough. I can tell them what to do a little bit.

Was it more fun doing "Bad Santa" or this?
I have this character I do every day, so anything is sort of a refreshing change. Anything is such a slower pace. We cram [on “Gilmore Girls”]. We do 12 pages regularly on the TV show [each day]. You never have enough time. I talk so much, my brain is working overtime. I'm memorizing. So any new experience, I get a lot out of. The Billy Bob movie was more of a character to build. Here [in "The Pacifier"], I'm serving the hero and trying to be real and natural and smooch him at the end. It wasn't so much about creating a character. I really love to work so it was fun.

Was Vin a good kisser?
He was a good kisser. He has a beautiful mouth. He's very sexy.

Do you normally go for tough guys like that?
No. I normally go for bookish, skinny Irish guys. (Laughing) But those muscles are so fascinating to me. I went out with somebody once who rowed heavyweight crew, and his legs were like hams. It's not nice to poke your co-star and squeeze them, so I tried to keep it together.

How did Vin do as a parental figure?
I think he did great. The kids came to him. You'd think that he's such an imposing figure, they'd be slightly afraid of him. But maybe because he's fun to climb on, they really clung to him and hung out with him and looked up to him. He had an easy time with that. He has an even-tempered, quiet sort of way about him. He was nice with them.

Will there be a “Pacifier 2?”
I don’t know. I've been at work and haven't seen the movie. Does it leave you wondering where does the duck go from here? Is there an unanswered question? If it takes off, it could be a franchise for (Vin). You can see that guy in another comedic situation and he's the guy to do it. He's our Arnold, after all.

Do you have any more movie projects lined up?
I did this movie with Jeff Bridges called "The Moguls.” It's just another little part. I'm a huge fan of his. It's just a little indie movie. I'm also looking at some stuff now for the summer. It's a little early to know yet.

Who do you play?
I'm a love interest-y person. It's Jeff's movie. He plays a down-on-his luck loser who tries to make a porno film because it's the only way he can make money. But there's no nudity. It's not even as dark as “Bad Santa.” He and his friends think it will be a great business opportunity. It's all these interesting actors like Bill Fichtner and Joe Pantiliano and Ted Danson. It's a sweet loser movie. And I play an ex-Playboy Bunny that says no to the porno movie but yes to Jeff Bridges.

Is the selection of movie roles better during your hiatus?
It's always tricky to plan that because it's such a specific period of time. There are always things that, had I been available, would have been amazing opportunities. That's frustrating. As long as I keep building a film career… You know, I've been the lead in a TV show but never the lead in a movie. That's a different process and I'm not there yet. As long as I can keep working with different people and working my way up, then it's really satisfying for me.

Sometimes, I think from "Bad Santa," all the stuff I'm reading, I'm on top of some guy. It's gratifying because I didn't used to get seen that way before. But once they see you play a 'ho, then, man, you're in the like, “Let's get her to play that sleazy role.” But it's fun.

The parts for women, you're either like the quietly suffering wife or you're the wild girl. As long as I can do a bit of both, I guess.

Do you do a feature every break?
Yeah.

How do you choose projects?
I'd been trying to work with Adam Shankman and he offered this to me. I knew I'd have a great time and it fit… Sometimes you lose something, there was something I really wanted to do last year, it started a month before the show ended. They tried to work it out. Yeah, it's a crazy schedule.

So you didn't shift your schedule for this movie?
You don't shift [a schedule] around me. God no. We were in Canada, which was fun. It was where we shot the pilot for “The Gilmore Girls” too. Toronto's like my second home.

How many seasons have you been on and are you signed for a certain number?
Five, and we're signed for seven. It looks like we're coming back for next year. We're having a nice ratings year, which is mainly what they care about. The show is in a fun place. There's some good conflict and good stuff to play. I could see it one more year and I don't know the year after that.

It's changed my life - that schedule. It's not a complaint, the reality of that work is that I miss a balanced life. I don't know that it would go beyond seven [years]. You want the story to end when it's supposed to and not be squeezed for somebody's financial gain, neither mine nor the studio. Seven could be the perfect time. [Rory] could graduate from college and I'm sure there will be some double wedding, or something like that.

Do young mothers come up to you asking for advice?
Not so much advice, but I do get a lot of single parents who say it's been a bonding experience for them to be able to watch the show, which is a wish-fulfillment of the best possible scenario, being a single parent. It was just me and my dad for a long time. It was much harder. That's TV, so it makes life a little better. The nicest compliment is when people say we watch it over the phone or we get together [to watch it]. It's been a generational kind of bonding experience. So that's nice.

Would you ever do another series?
I wouldn't do these hours again. I wouldn't do a one-hour series again unless it was an ensemble or something. When you've had a part like this and been the lead in a show, what do you want to do? I'd maybe do a half-hour. I started doing half-hour comedy. Immediately, I'd take a year and try to make it a film year and pay my mortgage. I love television. What are the chances of having two long-running shows in your life? I don't know. But I'll try and find out.

http://romanticmovies.about.com/od/thepacifier/a/pacfierlg022505.htm

- Submitted by Trisha (pippi virgin)

(2005) "Girl" Power: Lauren Graham & "The Pacifier"

2005-03-28T20:53:00.000-05:00

'Gilmore's' literate Lauren Graham gets a taste of the action in 'The Pacifier'
By Bob StraussFilm Writer

Lauren Graham figures she should be a superhero by now.

Yet the most heroic thing that the actress does - spinning out tongue-twisting reams of smart dialogue on broadcast TV's most literate series, the WB's "Gilmore Girls" - could be the very thing standing in the way of her dream.

"You can't really put something like that out there," Graham, who celebrates her 38th birthday this week, says with the uniquely sweetened sarcasm that has carried her through more than 100 episodes as cool young mom Lorelei Gilmore. " 'You know that girl who talks a lot? She really wants to kick somebody's ass.' They'll be like, 'What?' People really kind of picture you for what you've already done."

Maybe the unexpected success of her new movie, "The Pacifier," will help Graham's cause.

In the family comedy, she plays an armed forces veteran-turned-school principal who takes a shine to Vin Diesel's Navy SEAL-turned-baby sitter/bodyguard. When bad guys threaten him and his charges, it was supposed to be Graham's character to the rescue.

"I love when actors say, 'I do all my own stunts.' I really wanted to walk around saying, 'I do all my own stunt!' " Graham says with a laugh. (Her stunt basically involved running over a small hill and tackling a villain). "But they hired a stunt person. But then she got injured, because my stunt was so difficult and dangerous! So then I got to do my own stunt, and it was really fun.

"I don't understand why I'm not an action hero," she reiterates. "I think this will definitely get me some phone calls."

If Graham seems to have difficulty taking things seriously, that may be because she works so hard at her regular job and can't view movie work as much more than a lark.

The hourlong comic drama "Gilmore," which co-stars Alexis Bledel as free-spirited Lorelei's serious-minded daughter, Rory, is precision work and lots of it.

"I always try to do something during the hiatus," Graham explains. "It makes me come back to work fresher somehow. The show is such a specific discipline. You have to say every word as written, it's 12 pages a day we do. It's these insane hours. Anything else feels like a vacation, even if you're working."

"Pacifier" co-stars confirm that Graham's hiatus demeanor is so relaxed, it's infectious.

"The second I started working with her, sooo comfortable," says Diesel, the "Fast and the Furious" tough guy who needed a supportive atmosphere for his first foray into comedy. "That's important because we had to get into it really quickly. That's a testament to her and her talent."
"She's a lovely gal and very, very sweet," adds Brad Garrett, himself a hard-working TV actor from another long-running show, "Everybody Loves Raymond." "And she really wouldn't talk to me much. She kept saying that if I had something to say to her, it had to go through a guy named Ronnie. And then the restraining order really put a damper on everything.
"No, she's really cool. We really had a fun time."

This despite such classic fun-crushing traits as workaholism (albeit reluctant) and bookishness (she went to New York University, Southern Methodist and Barnard, and still considers reading the best time a gal can have).

Perhaps genetics have something to do with it. Graham's dad is a Washington lobbyist, a job that requires good personality skills. Or maybe doesn't, when your client is the U.S. candy industry.
"He was, like, the launderers industrial organization when I was growing up," Graham recalls, no residual sense of the universe's cruel irony registering in her voice. "But now, yes, it's this crazy expectation that he brings candy everywhere he goes. But now he's full of boring chocolate facts."

Actually, Graham adores her father, candyman or not. He essentially raised her in suburban Virginia after her English mother returned home to pursue a singing career when Lauren was 5.
"I always identified as an only child," Graham explains. "Elementary and junior high, it was just me and my dad; that's why I didn't learn how to wear makeup.

"I got a lot of information out of books. I had aunts, and my stepmother was great, and I'd see my mother about once a year. But there are so many great things about that. I was so independent. And my dad would take me to every play that came to the Kennedy Center, and ballet and the museums. It was just what he was interested in, and he had to bring me along. We had some great experiences."

Never married herself, Graham admits that, great personality notwithstanding, romance isn't easy when you're playing TV's hippest single mom.

"It's difficult," she confirms. "The only time I ever meet anybody is at an awards show or something, and that's not really a realistic place to start a relationship. It's challenging because there just isn't a lot of opportunity. But I'm also thankful, in some ways, that I don't have kids I'm leaving at home right now. Because there's nothing I can do about this schedule, and I feel bad enough for my dog."

Demanding as it is, Graham would not give up "Gilmore Girls" for anything. This season, the show emerged from a dry ratings patch to become one of the WB's few reliable audience-getters.

"The show's evolved," she observes. "It's gotten more comedic, I think. They thought the strength of the show was its voice, and it doesn't sound like any other show in that way.
"It's challenging sometimes. We shoot so many pages, and it's all that language, and you just want it to be rooted in something so it's not just chitchat. We're encouraged to do it faster, faster, faster - so we just do the best we can to have it come from somewhere."

As for cracking the century episode mark, Graham - whose previous television work included sitcom guest shots and recurring minor roles on "Caroline in the City," "NewsRadio" and "Law & Order" - is at a loss for explanation.

"I'm surprised by anything," she says. "You know, I only made it through 13 episodes of anything before this. When this started, I literally thought someone was joking when they said, 'You're gonna be on Thursday night opposite "Friends." ' I figured we'd be done by December, forget it.

"What I've learned is, in everything that has to do with, probably, life, but definitely show business, all you can do is the best work that you can do, and you have no idea how it's gonna hit people or what the shelf life of it will be. I mean, some of my favorite shows never hit 100 episodes. So it is surprising."

Even more surprising: the popular reaction to "Bad Santa," the wickedly funny travesty of Christmas movies in which Graham played a bartender with a Kris Kringle fetish. That unexpected 2003 hit may not have made her a superhero, but at least it gave her a new stereotype to explore.

"Since 'Bad Santa,' I get sent a lot of floozie-floo scripts," she reveals. "That's certainly not been my life, but I read, I have a good imagination, I can guess."

Later this year, we'll see Graham in "The Mogul," a film about a small-town loser (Jeff Bridges) who thinks making a porn film will improve his life. Graham plays an ex-Playboy bunny who serves as a kind of technical adviser.

"There's no sex or nudity in the thing," she assures us. "But see? You play one floozie, then you'll play more."

---Bob Strauss, (818) 713-3670 bob.strauss@dailynews.com

http://u.dailybulletin.com/Stories/0,1413,212~23501~2761865,00.html

- Submitted by Trisha (pippi virgin)

(2005) "Gilmore Girls" recipe for success

2005-03-04T19:40:00.000-05:00

By Joanne Ostrow
Denver Post TV Critic

"Gilmore Girls" remains a funny and wise exercise in cross-generational dysfunction and forgiveness. True, the snappy dialogue is sometimes too cute for its own good. And the undiminished immaturity of a mom 16 years older than her daughter begins to wear thin. Still, the characters are so well drawn and their interactions so emotionally laden, we buy it.

This week, as a reconciled Emily and Richard (the marvelous Kelly Bishop and Edward Herrmann) renew their wedding vows in upper-crust fashion, the celebration doesn't go so smoothly for daughter Lorelai (Lauren Graham) and granddaughter Rory (Alexis Bledel).

The essentially sweet nature of this series means it gets neither the media play nor the ratings of flashier dramas or edgier reality fare. It will never compete with "CSI" or "American Idol." But "Gilmore Girls" has found a comfortable niche.

If only the same moderate success could be attained by a couple of other delicate dramas, "Jack & Bobby" and "Veronica Mars," the best hours of TV you're not watching. Both are well-written and terrifically cast dramas that should appeal across the age spectrum. Both are worthy of wider acceptance, but they're ratings-challenged. And both are probably cursed by being labeled endearing rather than edgy, gruesome or terrifying.

"Jack & Bobby," 8 p.m. Wednesday on the WB, cleverly plays with time and imagines future presidential history, in the context of studying family dynamics and character building. The framing device doesn't overwhelm the essentially personal stories of adolescence and, yes, family values. Creator Greg Berlanti ("Everwood") has set an ambitious agenda, nothing less than an exploration of ethics and morality.

So far, we know that geeky chess player Bobby (Logan Lerman) will grow up to be the president and that track star Jack (Matt Long) will die young. We know that their mom (Christine Lahti) is an opinionated proto-feminist college history professor whose husband deserted the family. And we are accustomed to hearing from future presidential aides how episodes in Jack and Bobby's boyhoods shaped their values and, effectively, the country's future. We also know that the ratings are anemic - and that "Jack & Bobby" inherited the time slot from hell. Opposite "Alias" on ABC, "The West Wing" on NBC and the gargantuan "American Idol" on Fox, it can't get arrested, let alone elected. Here's hoping there are enough supporters taping "Jack & Bobby" to encourage the WB to move it to a protected slot.

"Veronica Mars," 8 p.m. Tuesday on UPN (KTVD-Channel 20), starring the luminous Kristin Bell as the smart, sassy teen detective in the seaside town of Neptune, dares to discover dark corners in the young woman's personality. Veronica is a high school student blessed with smarts and cursed with a messy family history, including a mother who deserted for unknown reasons. Enrico Colatoni is superb as her gumshoe dad Keith Mars, the former sheriff. This week, in "Lord of the Bling," they're on the missing-persons beat, searching for the daughter of a hip-hop musician played by Anthony Anderson ("Barbershop"). Percy Daggs II is winning as Veronica's hip cohort Wallace. Jason Dohring (familiar from guest roles on "Cold Case," "The Division," "Boston Public") is under-appreciated as sly wise-guy Logan Echolls, Veronica's foe. Starting Feb. 22, the series should get a boost from guest star Alyson Hannigan ("Buffy the Vampire Slayer") who could become a permanent cast member. Hannigan plays Trina Echolls, the struggling-actress daughter of Neptune resident movie star Aaron Echolls (Harry Hamlin), and stepdaughter of his wife, Lynn (Lisa Rinna, Hamlin's real-life wife). That means Trina is the half-sister of Veronica's nemesis Logan. Whether that boost brings ratings health to this overlooked gem remains to be seen.

- Submitted by pippi virgin (Trisha)

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

2005-02-25T10:06:00.000-05:00

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

- Submitted by Trishia (pippi virgin) - Regular Collector

(2005) TV Gal Gives it Up for the 'Gilmore Girls'

2005-02-10T17:18:00.000-05:00

(Monday, February 07 08:02 AM)
By Amy Amatangelo

HOLLYWOOD (Zap2it.com) - - Now, I don't want to over-hype it, but this week's 100th episode of "Gilmore Girls" may be the best episode the series has ever had. At the end, there is a moment so chilling, delivered with such pitch-perfect aplomb that it left me staring at my TV in silent shock. So this column isn't about the missteps the show has taken along the way or concerns that the show may be repeating itself (is Logan the new Tristan)? Today's column is about celebrating one of television's best and most overlooked series.

Since its premiere in 2000, the heart, strength and soul of the series has always rested on the show's inter-generational strife. The series has given us some indelible characters. Scott Patterson's Luke Danes has done for coffee shops what John Corbett did for radio stations on "Northern Exposure." Kelly Bishop and Edward Hermann's Emily and Richard are such real, vibrant characters. Yes, they are wealthy snobs but they are also devoted parents and grandparents and, as this week's episode proves, loyal and devoted spouses. And we all know I still want to be Lorelai when I grow up.

From the characters who only get sporadic screen time (I love Lane's boyfriend) to the town residents who've been there since day one (Ms. Patty and Babette), Stars Hollow embraces its members and by extension its viewers. It's the type of town that only exists on television but is so believable that it has become a major character. The last time I felt this connected to made-up location was 1984. That was the year I told my mom I wanted to go to Pine Valley for our family vacation.

As we prepare for the milestone episode, let's look back on some of my favorite episodes:

Rory's Birthday Parties (Nov. 9, 2000): A befuddled Emily and Richard attend the birthday party Lorelai throws for her in Stars Hollow. It establishes the "we're fish out of water in each other's worlds" subtext that sustains the series.

The Road Trip to Harvard (Oct. 21, 2001): This episode featured Lorelai's poignant trip to Harvard where, with no dialogue, we see her reflect on the life she might have had if she had not become pregnant at 16. Luke builds a chuppah for Lorelai and Max's wedding. And it still takes Lorelai almost three years to realize Luke loves her.

I Can't Get Started (May 21, 2002): In the second season finale, Lorelai and Christopher briefly reunite only to find out that Sherry is pregnant and Jess and Rory kiss for the first time.

Haunted Leg (Oct. 1, 2002): When Christopher shows up unannounced for Friday night dinner, Emily defends Lorelai and asks him to leave. These are the moments that make us love Emily.

Raincoats and Recipes (May 18, 2004): In the fourth season finale, Rory sleeps with Dean, a married man. I stand by my earlier statement that the show is stronger because Rory did something we didn't approve of. Also Luke and Lorelai finally kiss. What more could we ask for?

http://tv.zap2it.com/tveditorial/tve_main/1,1002,276934311,00.html

- Submitted by Trishia (pippi virgin) - Regular Collector

(2005) Graham is blessed, but there remains one void

2005-02-10T17:08:00.000-05:00

By LUAINE LEE
KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS

UNIVERSAL CITY, Calif. - Actress Lauren Graham learned early on that you can't have everything you want.

The star of the WB's "Gilmore Girls" was a senior in high school who'd sparkled as the star of most of the school plays. But when they were casting "Once Upon a Mattress," she didn't get the lead. "I kind of took it a little bit for granted that I would get the next lead," she says, seated at a small, round table in an empty room of a hotel here.

"I didn't do a bad job. I just had senior-itis. I remember my teacher saying, 'You need to tell me now if I give you a smaller part, will you not do it?' And I did it."

That taught her a valuable lesson, she thinks. "That became the way I disciplined myself. If something didn't happen the way I wanted it to, I really did learn how to stick with it and try harder and to challenge myself in a bigger way," she says.

After six years of struggling, Graham landed "Gilmore Girls," which aired its 100th episode on Feb. 8, a status that most television shows never reach.

But starring in a popular and consistent show is not everything.

She would like to have an equally enduring relationship, she says. "I was with somebody for a long time, off and on, but we broke up not too long ago," she smiles, a half-shy shake of her head.

"I want to have a family. I really love being in a relationship, and my dad is such a great man, and my relationships have been very positive. I really think I grew up with a good experience of what a good man is and have a lot of respect for that. It's been tough, this job, because it's all-involving," she says.

Graham's mother left the family when Lauren was 5. Her father raised her alone until he remarried when she was in high school. A lawyer who became proficient in Vietnamese, her father worked for a year in Vietnam with a government agency connected to the CIA.

"What he would do is fly around to these small towns that had been devastated and help them rebuild. So that's what he did for about a year.... Understandably he found it really distressing work," she says.

"I think there are hundreds of people that perceive part of that group could've been spy cover, but my dad can't keep secrets," she laughs.

Being reared by her father made her different, she confesses. "I think that changed how I viewed myself in the world of my peers. And I knew that in order to learn to be a girl I was going to have to do it myself...There were people who guided me. But I learned how to put on makeup from books and magazines, nobody helped me do that. So I thought that's one of the things that's different about my life."

Her mother settled in London and eventually had a child, her father had two more. She's still on cordial terms with her mother, though they only met annually when she was growing up.

Being a latchkey kid with a string of baby-sitters made her independent, Graham thinks. After high school she enrolled in a performing-conservatory school. But, coming from an academic background, she felt out of place there.

"I thought, 'You know, I should read more. I should study more before I roll around on the floor pretending I'm a lion.' So I transferred to Barnard and I was an English major and was still thinking about being an actor and took classes outside of school."

Things were difficult there. Graham, 37, endured a series of jobs. She waitressed, worked at Barney's, toiled in a library. "I remember counting pennies in the subway because I lived off-campus and had to get to school that day. I didn't have enough money to get in the subway. I remember standing at the turnstile. And I would eat out of the vending machine and would eat cheese and crackers.... I just had no money all through college, and it just adds to your frustration and depression, and it was really tough."

Things weren't much better in L.A. She slept on her aunt's couch in Long Beach (20 miles south of Los Angeles) while she looked for work. A commercial for Cascade dishwashing powder had sustained her for nearly two years, but that was running out.

When she graduated from her aunt's couch she moved in with a newly divorced friend whose house contained no furniture except two beds and a chair. "And we just ate Rice Krispy treats. That's when I started working in 'Caroline in the City' and that's when it kind of started."

Except for missing someone to share her life, she's content, she says. "I have a sense of faith, look at all the blessings I have. I don't have everything I want right now, but there are plenty of people out there in a great relationship, but they're not in the job they want. You just don't get everything you want when you want it."

http://www.sunherald.com/mld/thesunherald/entertainment/10860811.htm

- Submitted by (Trishia) pippi virgin - Regular Collector

(2005) Gilmore Girls Is Going Strong

2005-02-06T14:39:00.000-05:00

by Kristin Veitch Feb. 5, 2005

Gilmore Goodness: The best news from the Froggie bash was that all Gilmore Girls stars in attendance told me the show, currently in season five and about to celebrate that magical 100th episode this Tuesday, is all systems go for another season. "I'd say there's a damn good chance six is happening," Edward Herrmann (grandpa Gilmore) told me. "That is the plan we've heard. As for whether it goes to the full seven--Lauren and Alexis have seven-year contracts--I suspect it will, if the ratings are anything like they are this season."

Now, you fans caught that, right? Lauren Graham (Lorelai) and Alexis Bledel (Rory) are committed to the series for two more seasons, so Alexis wanted to make something perfectly clear: "They always make it seem like the actors have something to do with that, with how long the show goes on, but they don't," she explained. "We have no control, ever. My So-Called Life did not end because Claire Danes didn't want to do it anymore. It ended for some other reason." Lauren also chimed in, thanking Alexis for that reference from "the late '80s" just before fessing up to the fact that she borrowed Alexis' So-Called DVD and still hasn't returned it! Check back for their adorable real-life interaction in an upcoming video clip.

So it seems, faithful tubers, we have little need to worry about the fate of Gilmore Girls for the time being. The actors are on board, the ratings are strong, and the consensus at the Television Critics Association Press Tour is that the show is better than ever. "We're having a great time, and I'm glad people are enjoying this season," Lauren said. "But can I ask why? Is it because so many people are making out?"

Um, er, nooo...But I will say there is a steamy, and shocking, such session in the upcoming 100th episode, which is well worth your time this Tuesday (the episode, not the canoodling). It focuses on the renewed vows of Richard and Emily, something that, according to Herrmann, should put a few fans' minds at ease. "I had no idea people would be so upset that we were separated. Little 12-year-olds in the grocery store, back where I live in Connecticut, were crying, 'Are you guys gonna get back together?' "

There also will be plenty o' drama with Luke, Lorelai and Christopher (Rory's dad) in the big 100th ep. "Yes, and a lot of it was caused by me," Kelly Bishop (grandma Gilmore) admitted, "which makes her really angry with me, and now I'm not in two episodes after that, so I said, 'She was really mad!' I don't know how we're going to make up."

Same goes for Luke and Lorelai. "It's tough for me with Christopher back," Scott Patterson said. "No matter how schmucky he behaves, you wanna give him that second chance, because he's Rory's biological father. I'm just a guy slinging coffee. I had a horoscope that she gave me in my wallet for a year, so what? I didn't aid her in spawning a child. But whatever happens, even if I don't win her in the end, I'm sure it'll still be a happy ending."

http://www.eonline.com/Gossip/Kristin/Archive2005/050205.html

(2005) 'Gilmore Girls' is looking good

2005-01-31T14:22:00.000-05:00

By Gail Pennington
Of the Post-Dispatch
01/25/2005

LOS ANGELES

``Gilmore Girls'' are good. ``Jack & Bobby'' –not so much.

Riding on the Luke-Lorelai romance and Rory's ``girl gone wild'' college career, the WB's best series has rebounded from last season's creative slump to become the network's top-rated show with its core audience, women 18-34.

Tonight's 100th episode (7 p.m. on Channel 11) is the first after a long string of repeats intended to stretch the season as long as possible. Meanwhile, Lauren Graham and Scott Patterson have been answering a lot of questions about their on-screen love affair, four years in the making.

People ask Patterson ``if we're dating in real life, and I tell them we are.'' (They aren't.) Graham comforts fans worried that creator Amy Sherman-Palladino will put obstacles in the couple's path. (``They can't just be `you're pretty' –`you're prettier' all the time,'' Graham says.) Sherman-Palladino's take on the romance: ``As long as we find interesting ways for them to be who they are, I think we can keep it going for as long as we want.''

As for Rory (Alexis Bledel), expect more college escapades. ``A kid like Rory, when she (messes) up, it should be huge,'' Sherman-Palladino says.

As for Rory (Alexis Bledel), expect more college escapades. ``A kid like Rory, when she (messes) up, it should be huge,'' Sherman-Palladino says.

Despite flourishing movie careers for Graham and Bledel, ``Gilmore Girls'' will almost certainly return next season, WB bosses strongly suggest.

But the jury is very much out on ``Jack & Bobby,'' a favorite of viewers in St. Louis. ``We're determined to make the show work,'' WB Entertainment president David Janollari said in a Q&A session with the Television Critics Association. ``It's a giant favorite of the network's.''

Still, there's great concern that ``the audience that should be coming to it'' hasn't shown up, and a run of new episodes beginning this week will determine the drama's fate. ``It's going to run this entire season,'' Janollari said. ``I can't say that it's definitely coming back'' for fall.

When last seen, at a WB network 10th anniversary party populated largely by look-alike stars of ``One Tree Hill,'' ``Summerland'' and other teen dramas, Janollari was being quietly lobbied by ``Jack & Bobby'' headliner Christine Lahti. Couldn't hurt.

Critic Gail Pennington E-mail: gpennington@post-dispatch.com
http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/entertainment/columnists.nsf/
0/9E12DA0B0C320F3586256F94000B82B5?OpenDocument&Headline=DATELINE+HOLLYWOOD%3A+

(2005) Interview with Amy Sherman-Palladino

2005-01-26T17:41:00.000-05:00

TELEVISION
Job Title: The 'Gilmore' Noodge
By VIRGINIA HEFFERNAN
Published: January 23, 2005 (New York Times)
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/23/arts/television/23heff.html?oref=login

AFTER being in reruns since November, the warm, witty"Gilmore Girls" returns with a new episode on Tuesday- overseen, as always, by Amy Sherman-Palladino, the show's creator and executive producer. Though Rory (Alexis Bledel) is now away at Yale, her extremely young mother Lorelei (Lauren Graham) is still keeping tabs on her. And Rory's the rare kind of girl who likes having tabs kept on her. Not Ms. Sherman-Palladino, who, as she told Virginia Heffernan over lunch at the Warner Brothers commissary, doesn'tlike to answer to anybody.

VIRGINIA HEFFERNAN: The central characters on "GilmoreGirls" are Connecticut WASP's from an old American Revolution family. But that's not your background. You're a Jewish woman from Los Angeles. How did you end up in this terrain?

AMY SHERMAN-PALLADINO: Well, my writing, my banter comes from my upbringing, my Catskills/Borscht Belt influence. My father's a comic, now in his 70's. He's the king of the cruise lines. He works on the cruise lines 90 percent of the year.

I didn't set out to write a WASP story. I pitched the WB an hourlong about a mother and daughter who are more friends than mother and daughter. And they loved that idea. But I didn't know where they lived. Do I put them in New York? Do I put them in Chicago? I thought a small Connecticut town would be great. I grew up in the Valley, and I didn't know any of our neighbors. I think when you grow up like that, there's always sort of a fantasy of a place where everybody knew each other, and you had that safe sort of feeling.

I wanted the parents in the nearest moneyed area. Hartford seemed right. It kind of dictated WASP. And I also wanted to do a social structure: a daughter who has socially elevated parents and lets them down -it's just more pain. And it's more comedy. So that dictated WASP, too.

But we've introduced everything we can. Paris is a Jew. We had Ramadan the other day. Anything we canthrow into the mix. Lane is a Seventh-Day Adventist.

Q. Last season, some people thought the show was off its game. What happened?

A. Rory wasn't in high school anymore. So she wasn't in the little plaid skirt. She wasn't living at home. We didn't have our boys; we didn't have a love interest. There were things that were different. But I stand by last season. If you stay true to what you're doing, that's all you can do.

Q. "Gilmore Girls" is a speedy show. Why does everyone talk so fast?

A. I think in a talk-off, Lauren [Graham] could tie me or maybe best me. These television shows that have 14 shots of somebody looking at each other with the wind blowing through their hair drive me insane. Who's got that kind of time? We got that the girl was pretty when she walked in the door. Come on, somebody say something; let's go. People react immediately when other people talk. They don't go, "Let me think for five seconds," before going, "I would like coffee."

Q. Would you like coffee? You're drinking a lot of it.

A. I'm so tired. The 100th episode has been such a grind. I feel like, everything I wanted to do, I got to do. But it was a lot of fighting.

Q. What kind of things do you have to fight for? Does the studio challenge your ideas?

A. In the beginning, there was a lot of "On 'Dawson's Creek' we do things this way." On the relationship between Rory and Lorelei, I got a lot of notes early on about motherness. "A mother wouldn't do this." And I said: "This mother would. Because the relationship I'm doing here is not mother and daughter, it's best friends." They're used to mothers saying, "That's right and that's wrong," and Lorelei doesn't do that, because she's still trying to figure out what's right and what's wrong herself. That was one thing that was constant.

I don't have those battles anymore. The only battles I have are about money. And this was a much more expensive show than we've ever done. In the old days the studio would go and fight with the network for a little extra money. But now the studio and the network are the same person, splitting the same money. It was a lot of like conversations and nervous phone calls.

Q. You seem to thrive in those conversations.

A. I'm not a shrinking violet. The thing about being show-runner is it's a big, big, big job. I believe it is my job, at every step of the road, to see that things are correct. That this bar is very high. From the story breaking, to the writing, to the rewriting, to the stage, to costumes, to set dressing, to the editing, to the music, it has to be as good as it can possibly be in our time frame. To be really good, you have to be willing to have everybody in the world hate you. That's hard to do, because this is a small town, and everybody plays golf together. And if you flip off the guy at CBS, he's going to be having lunch with FOX, NBC and ABC. And that is your reputation. And that's my reputation - I know it.

Q. Really?

A. People say, "Oh, Amy - great. Comes with a lot of baggage." But my job is not to come to you and say,"How would you like me to do this?" I can't fix your refrigerator. I have no skills - I can't inject you with medication. All I can say is, "O.K., you're paying me to create this world, craft this show, run this show, and if that means sometimes I have to say no to you to give you a better product, that's what you're paying me for."

Q. Do you have a lot of battles with the actors on theshow?

A. No. I have great respect for my actors. And I take care of them. I invest a lot of time and energy into every single one of these characters, no matter how small. Our newest kid, at Yale, was one of the fluke stories. We were having breakfast at the Mercer Hotel, and he was our waiter. And my husband looked up and said:"That guy looks like an actor. He's got that young Tom Hanksy sort of look. Someone like him would be good at Yale." So we said, "Are you an actor?" And he said,"Yeah, I am." So now he's a recurring role. One of those Lana Turner things. He's a very sweet kid.

Q. Speaking of Yale, the show seems to express great admiration for college life. Why?

A. One of my great regrets is that I didn't go to college. I had very little patience for school, and it was never stressed in my household. We were a showbiz family. You don't go to college when you're going to be in showbiz. Those are your good years. You're young and strong and your butt looks great. Why spend four years drinking away at a keg party? My joke about my parents, which is not a joke, is that a year after I graduated from high school, my dad just suddenly turned to me and said: "Did you want to go to college? Cause we would have sent you." I've always felt that college is a wonderful privilege. To have four years where your only responsibility is to learn things! I'd give anything.

Q. So you decided between acting and writing?

A. I was supposed to be a dancer, according to my mother. When I got my job on "Roseanne," I actually had a callback for the touring company of "Cats." My partner - my first year of writing I had a writing partner - called, and she said, "We got the job on Roseanne." And I said, "But what if I get 'Cats'?" She said, "Well, then, you don't go." That's such a weird thought. I can't stay and be a writer! I really didn't want to go to an office every day. I was a night gal. It was a pretty hard adjustment.

Q. "Roseanne" had a reputation for being a very drug-influenced show. Was it?

A. I'm very naïve. My dad worked on "The Bobby Darin Show," and he was like, "We'd come in, and we'd go get high, and we'd leave and go have lunch, and we'd comeback, and we'd go get high again, and then we'd write for a couple of hours. And then we'd go out." It was a totally different way of working. Now Hollywood is so, kind of, with the egg whites and no one eats pasta, and no one does drugs even though everybody does. They just go in a backroom.

Q. On "Gilmore Girls," are the characters smarter than the actors? It must be hard to get people to simulate more intelligence than they have.

A. Alexis didn't go to college. She's much more of a free-spirited kind of kid than Rory is. But she's not dumber. She's not as book smart, and as educated, but she's not dumber.

Q. But she can't be as witty as Rory, who, like Lorelei, always has a line.

A. No, but you can't be a moron and have anyone believe that you're smart. I tried to get Christiane Amanpour on the show. And I refuse to give up. And I tried to get Angela Davis on the show. And I tried to get Noam Chomsky on the show. The man is booked up for the next two years, by the way. Noam Chomsky is very busy. But we got Norman Mailer on the show.

Q. As you now enter the golden realm of syndication, are you surprised at the show's success?

A. We were kind of the little show that they put on, thinking, "If 'Friends' kills it, who cares?" And I'm me, so by the time we did O.K., it was a little too late to get in my face. The music was set; the tempo was set. There wasn't much more to discuss. Probably a lot of sighing, "She's insane." But I'm not insane. I'm not.

- Submitted by April (GGfan4l1fe), Regular Collector.

(2004) Lauren Graham Enjoys Phantom Chirstmas Holidays

2005-01-02T23:22:00.000-05:00

GILMORE GIRLS star LAUREN GRAHAM enjoys an unusual after-meal activity on Christmas Day - she and her fellow diners race to clear the table to the PHANTOM OF THE OPERA soundtrack.

The actress, who was once romantically linked to former FRIENDS star MATTHEW PERRY, admits the long-running activity is the brainchild of her aunt.

She says, "In my family there's something called the 'Running of the Phantom', which was started a long time ago by my aunt.

"You put on the Phantom of the Opera CD and run around the table. The winner is the person who gets the most stuff cleared.

"It is really, we realised, just an elaborate way to get the kids to do the dishes. Duh. But it still kind of works."

10/12/2004 19:18

http://www.contactmusic.com/new/xmlfeed.nsf/mndwebpages/lauren%20graham%20enjoys%20phantom%20christmas%20holidays

(2004) TV Gal Chooses Her 10 Best Characters

2005-01-02T23:13:00.000-05:00

(Monday, December 06 08:02 AM)
By Amy Amatangelo

LOS ANGELES (Zap2it.com) - Right now there are some colossally bad characters on television. A click across the dial and you can run into the ever-annoying Lucy Camden Kinkirk (I'm convinced that "7th Heaven" has some sort of subliminal hypnosis going on and that's why I continue to tune in each week), the perpetually randy gang on "One Tree Hill" and, as mentioned last week, practically every single female character they've added to "The West Wing" since season one.

But 'tis is the season of giving and presents and candy. "Summerland" is back in February and there will soon be a second season of the Ashlee Simpson show, how can we not be joyful? So let's not fret about the worst characters. Won't you join me in my reindeer game of celebrating the ten best characters currently on television.

Sometimes great writing fuses with a brilliant performance to form a perfect television character. The character pops off the screen and commands our attention. They can make a mediocre show good (witness Topher Grace on "That '70s Show"), a good show great (where would "The Shield" be without Vic Mackey?), and a great show exceptional ("24" would be nothing without Jack Bauer).

All characters on my list are from network television shows that are at least in their second season and I stuck to the rule of only one character per show (if I didn't, the residents of Stars Hollow would make up half the list). This season has offered up some terrific characters (a very special shout-out to Bree on "Desperate Housewives" and Sawyer on "Lost." We'll probably see you guys next year) but great characters evolve over time. To make room for some NKOTT (new kids on the TV), I've entered Dennis Franz's fabulous Andy Sipowicz on "NYPD Blue into the TV Gal Hall of Fame. He has set the standard.

Here are my picks for ten best characters currently on prime-time network television:

1. GOB on "Arrested Development": With his deadpan voice and ever-solemn expression, Michael's older brother GOB is the funniest member of the Bluth family (and that's some tough competition). Whether he's magically spilling pennies or ripping off his "stripper" pants, Will Arnett's brilliant portrayal is hilarious because GOB takes everything so very seriously. I honestly don't know how he plays the character without completely cracking up.

2. Dr. Cox on "Scrubs": He's the proverbial character with a heart of gold taken to a whole new level. John C. McGinley easily whips out his rapid-fire, positively hilarious dialogue with a sneaky charm and a sly smile. But every snarky diatribe belies a man who cares about his patients and his students. An intense character like this could have easily gone the wrong way (think Phil on "Ed"), but McGinley's innate appeal and obvious understanding of his character has made Dr. Cox one of the more complex characters in a TV comedy.

3. Emily Gilmore on "Gilmore Girls": You already know one of my favorite things about "Gilmore Girls" is ability to have multiple story lines that cross generational lines. And yes it is hard to pick just one character out of this great show. But Kelly Bishop has the unique ability to be both humorous (witness her scheming to set Rory up) and heartbreaking(witness her sobbing after her date). As the impeccably controlled and society oriented Emily Gilmore, Bishop is a woman who knows she's made mistakes and is still desperately trying to connect with a daughter she'll never fully understand. Of all the relationships on "Gilmore Girls," it's Lorelai and her mother's that I consistently find the most gripping.

4. Sydney Bristow on "Alias": It's been a tough fall without television's butt-kicking heroine. Seriously, could this woman do anything that we wouldn't believe? Skip ahead two years in time. No problem. Speak every language we've ever heard of and some we haven't -- sure, we believe it. Fly all over the world and never look jet-lagged. Why not? Create a costume out of duck-tape and felt-tip marker? Of course she can. In this fantasy world of spy mommies and daddies, spies who love Sydney and spies who don't, Jennifer Garner has succeeded in making Sydney as ordinary as the proverbial girl next door (you know if the girl next door had to consistently go undercover in a rubber dress) Even last season when the show lost its mojo (you know how I felt about the face masks), our Syd was still riveting.

5. Donna on "The West Wing": Donna is the grounding force in the fictional Oval Office. In between hilarious banter with her boss and consistent concern for him, Donna has blossomed into great modern female character -- a his girl Friday for the new millennium. But if they don't put Josh and Donna together soon, I'm going to be in a fight with "The West Wing."

6. Ephram on "Everwood": As the series' protagonist, Ephram is still dealing with his mother's death, forging a relationship with his previously distant father, and navigating the thrill of first love. And I simply adore this kid. Confident in his awkwardness, unsure of his life-long goals, devoted to his sister, self-deprecatingly funny, Gregory Smith has shaped one of the best teenagers ever to hit prime time.

7. Maxine on "Judging Amy": Often exasperated, always overworked, and never knowing when to quit, Tyne Daly's Maxine Gray is the consistent thread to the series. And Daly is an obvious pro. Like I feel about Dennis Franz, Maxine could go an entire episode without saying a word and we would still know exactly what she was thinking.

8. Jack on "Without a Trace": It's not easy to stand out on a show that is a procedural drama. And an actor not as experienced as Anthony LaPaglia may not have been able to balance the missing person of the week with Jack's personal trials (his divorce, his now shaky friendship with Vivian). LaPaglia gives a world-weary depth to Agent Jack Malone.

9. Joan on "Joan of Arcadia": Joan Girardi is moody, irrational, self-centered and unpredictable. She's prone to whining, stomping of the feet, and slamming doors. Sound like any teen you might know? Even though she talks to God and has a divine mission of the week, Joan may be the most realistic teen on TV. This season Amber Tamblyn has deftly handle the death of a friend and the trials of first love. She's perfect in her imperfection.

10. Seth on "The O.C.": The gangly Adam Brody effortlessly delivers his hilarious and sweetly sarcastic lines. He's positively delightful and brings a level of humor not often seen on prime time soaps. Heck, even his wardrobe is a hoot. Although I'm getting a little concerned this season because clearly Brody and the rest of "The O.C." gang are aware of how everyone just loves Seth. And Seth is much cuter when he isn't cognizant of how cute he is.
Agree with me? Disagree with me? Who do you think are the best characters on prime time network television? Talk about it on the TV Gal message board.

http://tv.zap2it.com/tveditorial/tve_main/1,1002,276%7C92204%7C1%7C,00.html

(2000) Review in Entertainment Weekly

2005-01-02T23:10:00.000-05:00

On the L.A. set of the WB's ''Gilmore Girls,'' the titular twosome -- Rory and Lorelai -- are having a good old fashioned mother daughter spat. Rory's swamped with work, but Lorelai keeps bugging her to take an ice cream break. Finally, Rory erupts: ''Lorelai, go to your room!''
It sounds like your average family dramedy scene, except for one thing: Rory (Alexis Bledel) is a serious minded 16 year old prep schooler, and Lorelai (Lauren Graham) is her free spirited 32 year old single mother. Do the math, and you'll figure out this is not your stereotypical American TV clan. ''['Gilmore''s] strength is that it's a family show that does not pander or condescend to families,'' says Graham (''M.Y.O.B.''). ''It's not so soft that your grandmother could watch it with her dentures out.''

In other words, ''it's not going to be '7th Heaven,''' declares ''Gilmore'' creator Amy Sherman-Palladino (''Roseanne''). What sets the show apart are its sardonic one liners (''On the way home, you can pull a Menendez,'' Lorelai tells Rory before dragging her to dinner at her stuffy grandparents' house), its multicultural cast (Lorelai manages a hotel in the diverse fictional hamlet of Stars Hollow, Conn.), and unusually close familial bonding (Rory and Lorelai share the same taste in lip gloss and Macy Gray CDs).

Yet Sherman-Palladino can thank shows like ''Heaven'' for helping get her series on the air. As that 99 44/100 percent pure drama started cleaning up in the ratings, a group of advertisers (including Procter & Gamble and Johnson & Johnson) formed the Family Friendly Programming Forum to fund the development of similar series. When Graham learned ''Gilmore'' was supported by the FFPF, however, she admits that it ''made me so nervous.... I would be more comfortable if it were called the Dysfunctional Family Friendly Forum.'' Not to worry: Despite its ominous moniker, the FFPF has no political agenda. ''It's not a right wing thing,'' says Graham. ''It's mainly supporting shows with a multigenerational element that you could watch as a family.''

Sounds good, but up against NBC's ''Friends,'' will there be any families left to watch ''Gilmore''? ''People really like those six kids,'' Sherman-Palladino says, adding tartly ''Well, they're not kids anymore -- they're all, like, 80.'' Still, ''there probably isn't a tougher time slot,'' WB Entertainment president Susanne Daniels concedes. ''But in a strange way, that's a vote of confidence from us.'' If the show can overcome this potentially crippling ''vote of confidence'' and attract a small, loyal cult the way ''Popular'' did in the same spot last season, Daniels promises ''Gilmore'' won't be a goner. -- Bruce Fretts

http://www.ew.com/ew/features/000929/falltv/gilmore.html

(2000) 'Gilmore Girls' lives up to its billing

2005-01-02T23:09:00.000-05:00

"GILMORE GIRLS" (7 Thursday, Channel 18)

The WB describes "Gilmore Girls" as "a humorous, heartfelt, multigenerational drama about friendship, family and the ties that bind."

Well, get this: It actually is.

Hotel manager Lorelai Gilmore (Lauren Graham) is the 32-year-old single mother of a precocious 16-year-old-daughter, Rory (Alexis Bledel), who prefers H.L. Mencken to Eminem. Lorelai has been estranged from her patrician parents (Kelly Bishop and America's Official WASP Father, Edward Herrmann), which has suited her just fine - until she realizes that, in order to borrow money from the elder Gilmores for Rory's private-school tuition, she'll have to cozy up to them.

But Mater and Pater, who at first come on like cartoon villains, turn out to have more than two dimensions. By the third episode, the intergenerational dynamic has gotten almost as maddening - and as fascinating - as real life.

More farcical are Lorelai's days at the inn with the sniffy French concierge (Yanic Truesdale), the accident-prone cook (Melissa McCarthy) and other appealingly off-center folks. Most of the time, sophisticated writing and skilled acting keep the eccentricity from getting too cute.

Graham, who has sparkled through the gloom of "Conrad Bloom," "Townies" and other flops, and newcomer Bledel are wonderful as the bickering, kvetching, teasing, loving mother and daughter. Creator Amy Sherman-Palladino won a Peabody Award for her writing on "Roseanne," and "Gilmore Girls" has some of the zest of that family classic.

The most surprising thing about the show is that it was fostered by a consortium of more than 40 advertisers - including Coca-Cola, General Motors and Procter & Gamble - which has put up $1 million to fund the development of family-friendly scripts. This initiative, of which "Gilmore Girls" is the first product, sounds both too good to be true and too awkward to work - but, on the evidence of this series, it looks like the real deal.

http://www.jsonline.com/enter/tvradio/wein/oct00/weincol05100400.asp

(2000) Get to know 'Gilmore Girls'

2005-01-02T23:05:00.000-05:00

By Rick Bird, Post staff reporter

It's being touted as family friendly programming. And indeed it is. But not in the sense you might think.

''Gilmore Girls'' premieres tonight (at 8 on WB, Channel 64) as we are introduced to one of the most witty and sassy mother-daughter buddy shows seen on TV in some time. This free-spirited dramedy is one of the more endearing, engaging shows of the new season.

''I thought it would be fun to write about a mom and daughter who were pals instead of just a mother-daughter relationship,'' said the show's creator and producer, Amy Sherman-Palladino, who won an Emmy for her writing on ''Roseanne.''

''I also wanted to put this style teen on TV. Sexually innocent teens are not represented. I thought that would be interesting, especially with a mother who was more sexually aware than she was at that age.''

The premise of the show is that Lorelai Gilmore had her daughter, Rory, when she was 16 and chose to raise the baby on her own. That caused a rift with her old-money parents. In the premiere, the studious Rory has been admitted to an exclusive New England prep school, and Lorelai must reconnect with her parents to ask them to pay for her daughter's education.
The storyline opens up various cross-generational conflicts ranging from grandparent relationships to the clash of cultures at prep schools, and the plight of single parents.
''Grandparents can be closer to their grandchildren than they are to their children, and we want to explore that dynamic,'' Ms. Sherman-Palladino said.

The show is touted as the first to come out of the initiative from the Family Friendly Programming Forum, a group of TV's biggest advertisers, spearheaded by Procter & Gamble executive Bob Wehling. The Forum, in a partnership with WB, put up $1 million to develop scripts for shows suitable for the 8 p.m. family hour, which has slowly become as much a sex and violence hour as the rest of the evening.

While ''Gilmore Girls'' fits the bill, the truth is it didn't come directly from the Family Friendly effort.

''They handed the network the money and said develop scripts that we can advertise on,'' Ms. Sherman-Palladino said. ''When I pitched this to the WB they had already used the development money on other scripts. Then they said, "Maybe this can fit into what we were given the money for.' ''

In fact, Ms. Sherman-Palladino had no idea the Family Friendly Forum existed when she developed ''Gilmore Girls.''

''I didn't even hear the word (family friendly) until we were filming in Canada,'' Ms. Sherman-Palladino said. ''And I saw a Wall Street Journal article about this and it mentioned my show and I said, "Oh ... really.' ''

At first she had to overcome the Hollywood writer's knee-jerk reaction to supposed morality groups dictating what to put on TV. ''"Everyone is afraid of the term ''family friendly'' - including me, when I first heard it. I thought, "What does this mean?'... I thought somewhere there's a room of people eating white bread and mayonnaise and cranking out family-friendly scripts,'' she said with a laugh. ''But I think their agenda was just that we need variety on TV, and I'm all for that.''

She said she has never talked to anyone with the Forum, or received script notes from the group.

Indeed, ''Gilmore Girls'' may not fit some people's definition of what's suitable for the entire family with its edgy, flippant dialogue, the premise of an unwed mother and a scene where the mother and daughter joke about their breast size. But P&G's Wehling says the Forum has no political or moral agenda. He said the group loosely defines ''family friendly'' as quality programming that can draw the whole family together, and he thinks ''Gilmore Girls'' does just that.

''Being in a family is tough these days. There are issues between the mother and the daughter and the mother's parents. The way they handle the situations is very positive. It sends a good message out there to other people who are struggling with these relationship issues,'' Wehling said.

''Gilmore Girls'' is marvelously cast with Lorelai Gilmore played by Lauren Graham. who had a recurring role as the consultant in ''NewsRadio.'' Eighteen-year-old newcomer Alexis Bledel plays the daughter and Sally Struthers plays the Gilmores' next-door neighbor.

Publication date: 10-05-00

http://www.cincypost.com/living/girls100500.html

(2000) Gilmore Girls

2005-01-02T23:00:00.000-05:00

Ever wish the great TV mothers and fathers of the '80s--the Huxtables, the Keatons, the Seavers--were your real-life parents and any problem you had could be solved with 30 minutes and a hug?

It's been a while since a family drama topped the TV must-see list--the 7th Heaven Camdens are way too square--but this season, there's finally a woman we're dying to call Mom. Meet Lorelai Gilmore, single mother and one half of the Gilmore Girls.

Lorelai (Lauren Graham) got pregnant at the tender age of 16, decided to keep her baby, refused to take part in a shotgun marriage and got a job. All this pissed off her upper-crust parents to no end. Now, Lorelai successfully manages the Independence Inn, and daughter Rory has reached sweet 16.

Why It Works: The show isn't just a teen dream about the sweetest family setup since Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead. Sure, Lorelai is one hip mama--she carries mood-enhancing lip gloss and listens to Macy Gray. But she also pries into Rory's love life and is way too obsessed with getting her daughter into a good college.

The show's location and supporting cast remind us of another successful series. Gilmore Girls is set in a quaint Connecticut town, but pop a moose into the opening sequence, and you've got the New England version of Northern Exposure. There're lovable small-town gathering spots (Luke's coffee shop) and a similar mix of quirky regulars, like dance instructor and social commentator Miss Patty (Liz Torres).

Why You'll Love It: Graham's career at one time seemed cursed. She's popped up in almost every pilot season for the last four years in such duds as Townies, Good Company, Conrad Bloom and this summer's short-lived M.Y.O.B. (where, ironically, she played guardian to her 16-year-old niece). Finally, the ultratalented actress gets a chance to shine in a show that looks like it just might stick around.--Lia Haberman

http://www.eonline.com/Features/Features/Tube2000/Shows/index2.html

(2000) Single White Females

2005-01-02T22:58:00.000-05:00

Gilmore Girls is a series about an attractive, youthful, vibrant single mother and her more sober but equally fabulous daughter. It comes on the heels of some 1999 movies with the same premise, for instance, Tumbleweeds (directed by Gavin O'Connor) and Anywhere But Here (Wayne Wang). Both of these films illustrated how a girl's already confusing pre-teen and teenage years are further complicated by relationships with mothers who do not fit the mold, and who often place their own desires above the presumed needs of their children. For these girls, having a wacky mother is something of a curse.

In the case of Gilmore Girls, however, the world is generally quite good. People in Stars Hollow, Connecticut (population 9,973), where the Gilmore Girls live, confront problems directly, through communication and after thoughtful consideration. The two Girls of the title are 32-year-old Lorelai Gilmore (Lauren Graham) and her daughter 16-year-old Lorelai "Rory" Gilmore (newcomer Alexis Bledel). Graham is fresh off the short-lived NBC summer series M.Y.O.B., also about a single woman raising a teenage girl. As Opal Brown on M.Y.O.B., Graham had to play the heavy. In her new incarnation, she gets to be free-spirited and fun. The twist of Gilmore Girls is supposed to be that mom has the heart of a teenager, while teenaged Rory is serious, like an adult.

The series was created by Amy Sherman-Palladino, who also wrote the series premiere and whose production credits include Veronica's Closet. The director of this first episode is Leslie Linka Glatter, who has previously directed episodes of Ally McBeal and The West Wing. Gilmore Girls resembles The West Wing in its witty idealism, lack of sarcasm, and portrayal of people as either good or just misguided. Lorelai's parents fit the latter category: Emily and Richard Gilmore (Kelly Bishop and The Practice's Edward Herrmann) are cold and status-conscious. Richard seems oblivious to all but his golf game, and Emily, while she means well, is starchy and interfering, and seems to want to remake Rory into the daughter Lorelai never became as a result of her teen pregnancy and decision to raise her child on her own.

Despite Lorelai's short skirts, the script has her continually concerned that her daughter not follow in her footsteps. She is an ideal parent in that she is heavily involved in her daughter's life, and also presumably better able to understand her daughter because of their age proximity. Mom looks so young that the two are often mistaken for sisters. And both are quite adorable. Lorelai has a successful career managing an inn and lives in a charming old house with plenty of room. She wears chic suits and high heels to work, but she's so cool that she also looks great in cutoffs, a tight T-shirt, and cowboy boots. Plus, she squeals with delight when she hears the latest XTC cd. Daughter is a straight-A student who actually likes her private school uniform (despite the fact that this is the WB, the plaid kilts on the girls at Chilton fall to the knee and their sweaters are rather bulky -- Britney Spears need not apply). Rory is smart and hard-working, even reading Madame Bovary just for fun.

While this inversion of parent-child cliches may seem to run counter to recent calls for more "family values" on television, the series has a stamp of approval from the Family Friendly Forum's Script Development Fund, described on the WB Website as follows: "An initiative between some of the nation's top advertisers and the WB, the program is intended to offer a greater array of compelling family programming on network television. The strong, loving mother-daughter relationship portrayed in Gilmore Girls reflects the growing reality of this new type of American family -- approximately fifty percent of families today consist of one-parent households" (www.familyprogramawards.com/). Almost immediately, you learn that the decision for Lorelai not to marry Rory's father was mutual, and the two remain on good terms (the yet-unseen Christopher is a successful entrepreneur who lives in California).

In fact, Lorelai appears to be a happy single parent -- something rarely seen on television drama and quite a switch from the days of Murphy Brown, who was vilified by politicians (most loudly, Dan Quayle) for her decision to rear her child on her own. I think the difference here is in the amount of apology offered. Murphy Brown offered no excuses and was unrepentant. While Lorelai Gilmore is plainly pleased to have Rory in her life, she does talk of having "thrown [her] life away" and things not going as she had "planned." Not that insisting that one's child be educated and aware of the consequences of sex is surely a bad thing, but in the case of Gilmore Girls, never-wed single parenting falls into the "mistakes were made" category, while Murphy Brown made an active choice.

In addition, in both cases, the mothers are privileged, white, and have financial support on which to fall in case of emergency -- Murphy through her career and Lorelai through her wealthy parents. I am still waiting for a show focusing on a non-white, content parent who is single by choice. The idealized New England setting also helps counter the non-traditional family in Gilmore Girls. This isn't a mother and child in anonymous suburbs — or worse, the city. What better place raise a child than in a quaint, clean, Connecticut village in which everyone knows everyone else. Without a dad, I guess it does take a village to raise a child. Go ahead girls, don't have an abortion — have that baby at age 16. It will all work out just fine, right? If you are pretty and charming and live in Utopia, everything will be great.

And this version of Utopia is indeed unbelievably healthy and endearing, full of quirky New Englanders. They take care of one another: the coffee shop owner is concerned about Lorelai's caffeine intake; town busybody Miss Patty (Liz Torres) knows of a part-time job for a kid who needs money. Drella (Alex Borstein), the cranky harp player in the Independence Inn where Lorelai works, is an amusing curmudgeon who ignores the inn's clients but plays her instrument beautifully. There are some less endearing folks on the show, but they're clearly plot contrivances. The students and faculty at the Chilton school — which is in Hartford, not Stars Hollow —for instance, make Rory's first day there miserable. One girl, unprovoked, tells her to "stay out of the way" and not work on the school paper; one boy continually refers to Rory as "Mary" (as in Virgin) and creepily comes on to her in the hallway; the headmaster, a friend of Richard and Emily's, warns her she is likely to fail out of Chilton. What I get from this is that rich country club people are much more likely than others to be uptight and mean than anyone else; they are by definition critical and insecure. In my experience, this is not entirely false, but in Gilmore Girls it sets up a very neat and not terribly original "us against them" situation, reminiscent of John Hughes films, among many, many others. Still, it is an attractive premise — Americans love the underdog, right? And the bad people really are not evil, just a product of their circumstances: they don't know any better.

I get the same feeling watching Gilmore Girls as when I watch My So-Called Life. The situation and the characters seem too sweet and idealized; when people are less than kind, they have reasons — psychological problems, trouble at home, unrequited love, too much WASPiness. Nothing that happens is too dire or pressing. There are no vampires in Stars Hollow. The Gilmores' world is a relentlessly comforting and inviting one. So even if I'm not fascinated or much surprised, when the show is over, not only do I want to know how Rory deals with the mean girl at school, I want to help her out. Does the cute boy from Episode 1 come back? I want to go for drinks with Lorelai and discuss whether she should go out with the rich Chilton dad or with the cute, cranky coffee house owner. These questions and others equally insignificant may keep me coming back to the show, at least for a little while.

http://www.popmatters.com/tv/reviews/g/gilmore-girls.shtml

(2000) 'Gilmore Girls' is family and advertiser friendly

2005-01-02T22:54:00.000-05:00

LOS ANGELES -- Here are key facts about the new TV series Gilmore Girls:

1) The hourlong comedy-drama about a single mom and her teen-age daughter is airing as part of an effort by major advertisers to create more family friendly shows.

2) It's on the youth-obsessed WB network, where people born before 1966 are as rare as denture adhesive ads.

Now here's the truth: Gilmore Girls is more than the sum of its parts. It's a fresh and disarming show that is (1) wholesome but not sanitized to the point of blandness; (2) a combination of youthful energy and mature smarts; and (3) funny without sitcom hokum.

While star-driven shows on the bigger networks grab the spotlight, this little gem (airing at 8 p.m. Thursdays on Channel 20) is worth a close look.

Still wary? Consider that Amy Sherman-Palladino, who dreamed up the series, named her company Dorothy Parker Drank Here Productions. Parker, the wickedly sophisticated writer, might well have gotten a kick out of Gilmore Girls.

Lauren Graham stars as Lorelai Gilmore, a 32-year-old managing a country inn and raising 16-year-old Rory (Alexis Bledel) in a picture-perfect Connecticut town. The pilot for Gilmore Girls was developed with a pool of funds contributed by major advertisers including Procter & Gamble, General Motors and Sears, who pronounced themselves tired of hawking products on sexy and violent network shows.

The advertisers approached all the broadcast networks with their concerns, striking a deal with WB after it offered the most specific plan. WB supervises script development and decides which, if any, go into production; the advertisers agreed to bankroll at least eight scripts, which generally cost between $60,000 and $90,000.

In other words, the sponsors pay but don't have a say in a show's content.

"One thing we told them early on is this has to remain totally network-controlled creatively," says Jamie Kellner, WB chief executive officer.

Gilmore Girls fits the advertisers' intent because it's about "families that work, about a love-filled household with a successful woman and a successful child," Kellner says.

http://www.detnews.com/2000/entertainment/0010/19/f05-136374.htm