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CINDY PEARLMAN
NYT Syndicate
Before she was television's favourite daughter, Alexis Bledel learned the cold realities of breaking into show business.
It was the 1990s, and by day she was a student at New York University's film school. Between classes she was modelling to pay for tuition and her living expenses.
Modelling may sound glamorous, but Bledel didn't find it so.
"It was the middle of winter," she recalled recently,"and there I was, outside in New York, where someone was throwing large, Home Depot-sized buckets of cold water on my body, so it would splash up into my face.
"It was a fashion editorial where the photographer was trying to capture water freezing in air," Bledel explained."I looked like this poor, miserable girl who was thinking, ?Why is this happening to me?'"
It was time for a career reboot.
"I knew it would be my last-ever modelling job," Bledel said."Plus I had put on my ?freshman 15' in terms of weight, so modelling really wasn't working out."
As fate would have it, a few days later she was invited to audition for an unheralded television pilot called ?Gilmore Girls'. It was a drama about Lorelai Gilmore (Lauren Graham), a 30-something single mother with a teenage daughter, Rory (Bledel), juggling complicated emotional lives in small-town Stars Hollow, Connecticut.
"Of course," Bledel recalled,"by the time I had to audition, I had this terrible cold, thanks to that modelling shoot."
A native of Houston, the young would-be actress had been modelling since high school, including high-profile shoots in Milan, New York and Tokyo. Her only acting experience, though, had been in community-theatre productions of such shows as Our Town and The Wizard of Oz in Texas ” in which she participated not because she was stagestruck, but because her parents thought it would help combat her natural shyness.
"The good thing was, through the NYU film school, I had an assignment to film acting students doing their thing, acting," Bledel said."I would watch them and think, ?It would be really cool if this actor did it like this or that.'
"So, when I got to my audition, I was already really interested in acting," she continued."There was no weirdness. I didn't know what I was doing and just went for it."
Moreover, she found an instant affinity for wise-beyond-her-years Rory Gilmore.
"I instantly knew who this person was and understood her voice," the 35-year-old Bledel recalled."There was almost an instant connect that has never left me. I knew Rory Gilmore."
She played Rory from 2000 to 2007, growing as an actress and as a person. Now, almost a decade after the show left the air, Lorelai and Rory are back ” and, of course, so are Graham and Bledel, who will reprise their roles in a hotly awaited Netflix miniseries, ?Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life.' It will be released on November 25.
?Gilmore Girls' fans are excited to have most of the original cast back, but are equally excited about the return of creator Amy Sherman-Palladino and her husband, executive producer Daniel Palladino. They left the show at the end of the sixth season, leaving the seventh and final season to other hands. Most fans felt that the show was never the same and, during the on-and-off talk about a big-screen or small-screen revival, a common social-media refrain was,"Let's pretend Season 7 never happened."
With the Palladinos back at the helm and Graham and Bledel back in their most famous roles, the fans' hopes largely have been realised.
"Everywhere I went," Bledel said,"people couldn't wait to ask me, ?When are you going to play Rory again?'"
The revival takes the form of four 90-minute films, each representing a season summer, winter, fall and then spring in the lives of Rory and Lorelai. Kelly Bishop returns as grandmother Emily, and Melissa McCarthy, who in recent years has ascended to big-screen stardom, is back as Sookie St James.
The reboot also involves many Gilmore love interests, with actors Jared Padalecki, Scott Patterson and Milo Ventimiglia returning.
"It's amazing to know how many people are eagerly awaiting these episodes," Bledel said."It's incredible and really gratifying."
As for the plot, it's no secret that the miniseries will address the death of Rory's grandfather, Richard. He was played by Edward Herrmann, who died in 2014.
However, Rory's romantic life is another major plot line. All of her major exes turn up in the new show, facing her with some big choices to be made.
"It was great to work with all of them," Bledel said."All of the people's questions will be answered, but I can't answer them today. You have to watch."
She is repeatedly asked which one of them, if any, Rory should or will ultimately choose.
"It's really unfair when they ask me to pick one," Bledel complained."They were all such amazing actors. As for their characters, I think they were different boyfriends for different times."
However, Bledel said, it's important to bear in mind that there's more to Rory than the men in her life.
"I think it's kind of interesting that's what people are excited about," the actress said,"and I understand it. But there is so much more to the character. She's this amazing young woman trying to navigate her life and choices.
"Personally, I think it's great when people focus on her ambition and her accomplishments."
What was it like to go back to Stars Hollow? Bledel reported that it felt natural to get back into that trademark Gilmore walk-and-talk, fast-paced dialogue.
"There is still this amazing chemistry between mother and daughter," she said."We have that banter that everyone loves. The big difference is, I'm not a little girl in high school. We're both women now. We face the struggles of women coping with life."
In a separate interview, Sherman-Palladino promised that this doesn't mean that Lorelai and Rory's epic arguments are a thing of the past.
"You've never going to run out of conflict," she said."Suddenly with age, however, these characters can have cocktails together. They can sit, eat, drink and talk about their (issues) as grown women."
Since ?Gilmore Girls' ended, Bledel has been seen in a series of big-screen films, mostly comedies. Her biggest hits have been The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (2005) and its 2008 sequel, but her credits also include The Good Guy (2009), Post Grad (2009) and Jenny's Wedding (2015). She returned to television to play Beth Dawes on ?Mad Men' (2012) and to star in the short-lived CBS series ?Us & Them' (2013-2014).
Coming back to ?Gilmore Girls' felt like coming home, though, and revived old memories. Bledel remembered meeting Graham for the first time on the set of the first episode, for instance, and how the two clicked at once.
"Our first scene as mother and daughter was at a school," she recalled."It was just a mom and daughter speaking to each other at this fast pace, like a shorthand."
Graham had only five years' worth of credits herself, but compared to Bledel she was a seasoned veteran.
"It's funny because, the first few weeks, I'd walk behind Lauren and she had to grab me and move me over just to make sure my face was on camera," Bledel said, laughing."Acting 101. I had to learn how to hit my mark, because I was never on my mark.
"Lauren was always scooting me over and always trying to help me."
?Gilmore Girls' fans are everywhere. They appear, quoting favourite lines, talking about what the show meant to them and sharing their ideas for what should be in the revival, even when Bledel is out for dinner with her husband, actor Vincent Kartheiser, and their 1-year-old son.
"They feel like they know me," she said."The funny thing is that some of them started out as teenagers, and now they're moms too.
"It's nice," Bledel concluded."They've grown up with the Gilmores."
