Talking as Fast as I Can: From Gilmore Girls to Gilmore Girls (and Everything in Between)

by Lauren Graham

I wondered what it would be like to put someone I loved so much down for eight years and then pick her up again. I wondered if rebooting Gilmore Girls could be as gratifying as doing the series was the first time, if the show would feel as fresh and quirky and smart and speedy as it had been, if returning to Stars Hollow after all those years would be as wonderful as I’d dreamed it would be. Spoiler alert: it was.

I was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, which is awesome right there, but three weeks later, before I even had time to work on my tan, we moved to Japan.

ME: The engine didn’t…? We lived on a giant floating bathtub that went nowhere?

I’m not sure how my name got changed to Melba in this negative fantasy, but the way things were heading then, anything could happen!

I wasn’t ahead, but at least I was normal!

still find that, in general, having a plan is, well, a good plan. But when my carefully laid plan laughed at me, rather than clutch at it too tightly I just made a new one, even if it was one that didn’t immediately make sense. In blindly trying a different path, I accidentally found one that worked better. So don’t let your plan have the last laugh, but laugh last when your plan laughs, and when your plan has the last laugh, laugh back, laughing!

Because who wants to Fast Forward anyway? You might miss some of the good parts. I’d rather keep pushing the rewind button on my red Radio Shack tape recorder and be that geek who knows the lyrics to the songs from every Judy Garland musical ever.

But I’d never know, because I haven’t read a review of myself since that day. I’ve also never Googled myself. What good can come of it? I’ve learned over the years that when someone says something really nice about you, in print or otherwise, it has a way of reaching you. Friends and agents can’t wait to tell you when someone says something positive.

To me, Lorelai was equal parts Gal About Town and The Mom, plus a magical mix of smarts and humor that made her totally unique.

Yet when I told my mom about Gilmore Girls, I remember her saying, “I have a feeling about this one.” And she was right.

But I want to tell you what it was like for me to play Lorelai all of those years. So I’m going to at least scroll through all the episodes to see what I can come up with, to give you a sense of it as best I can. The Internet has already done its job in terms of ranking episodes and naming its favorites. My goal here is just to give you my take on what was going on personally.

In front of me, two women who looked to be pretty close in age were watching the screen. As our scenes played, they gasped and grabbed onto each other, their faces lighting up. “Mom, that’s us!” the daughter said, beaming at her young-looking mother. They seemed shocked and pleased to see themselves reflected in the characters. Something had clearly struck a chord with them in a big way.

Kelly Bishop and Ed Herrmann were perfectly cast as Emily and Richard. They both exude aristocratic elegance that tells you right away the kind of household Lorelai grew up in, and why she might have found it a bit stuffy at times. As actors, they both have emotional depth and impeccable comic timing. Plus, as people, they’re pure joy to be around.

Most other shows on the WB at the time were peopled with young hotties. I love that we were peopled with a lot of interesting people.

Also, that diet Michel talks about, where he’s reducing his calories by 30 percent because a study showed it helped rats live longer? It was based on the real-life diet of our producer and health buff Gavin Polone. He is to this day extremely thin, although probably also 30 percent hungrier than the rest of us are.

Season finale: Where “Oy with the poodles already” was born! I’ve said it on command for you in airports across the land, but honestly I forgot where exactly in the show it appeared. Now I remember!

Rory’s speech to Lorelai at graduation gets me every time. Oh, and the season began with Lorelai having a dream about being with Luke, and ends with Luke having one about Lorelai. I never noticed that parallel before!

Getting my makeup done for “The Festival of Living Art” episode every day for a week taught me that I would never want to be in an actual Festival of Living Art. Torture. However, our makeup artists won an Emmy for this episode, which was pretty darn cool.