"Gilmore Girls" Turns 25 This Year, So Here Are 25 Facts You Probably Didn't Know About The Show, Straight From The Cast

Yahoo

01-04-2025

This past weekend, Gilmore Girls creator and writer Amy Sherman-Palladino reunited with two of the show's stars — Lauren Graham (Lorelai Gilmore) and Kelly Bishop (Emily Gilmore) — at PaleyFest and shared all kinds of behind-the-scenes secrets and facts about the beloved show.
Not to make you feel ancient or anything, this fall, Gilmore Girls officially turns 25. 25! Can you believe it??? I certainly can't! So, in honor of nearly a quarter century of the show that shaped so many young millennials's lives, here's everything we learned (plus some extra fun facts from over the years):
1.When Amy first pitched Gilmore Girls, it wasn't the show she came in to talk about at all. In fact, she'd pitched a different show entirely that she'd put a ton of work into, but they weren't interested. When they asked if she had anything else, she said, "There's a thing about like a mother and daughter and they're more like friends than mother and daughter." Despite her having nothing more than that prepared about the show, they said, "OK, we'll buy that."
Amy said after getting out of the meeting, she turned to her manager and said, "I don't know what that show is. I don't have anything more than that, that's all I have." After that, Amy spent a weekend in Connecticut and came up with the details of the show. And thus, Gilmore Girls was born.
2.Lorelai Gilmore almost wasn't played by Lauren Graham. At the time of casting, she was attached to another show. Gilmore Girls's casting director really wanted Amy to see Lauren for the role, wholeheartedly believing she'd been the perfect fit, but she was staunchly against it, saying, "I don't care, because if I can't have her, I don't want to see her.... I didn't want to fall in love with her.… If I can't have her, I don't want to know that she exists."
Eventually, when Amy did see her audition, after the first line, she knew Lauren was her girl. "She walked in, and after her first line, I went, 'God damn it!' ...And that was it."
Lauren said that, years later, a studio executive went up to her and said, "We traded you," in reference to how she ended up being able to play the iconic Lorelai Gilmore. Essentially NBC (who was behind the first show she was attached to) wanted a different actor for the role, and so they "traded her," so she could be on Gilmore Girls.
3.While you probably remember Melissa McCarthy as the actor behind the role of Sookie, Alex Borstein was actually the original Sookie in the show's unaired pilot. While Gilmore Girls didn't work out for her, she went on to star in another of Amy's shows, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.
You can see the two of them perform the same scene here.
Alex's then-husband, Jackson Douglas, actually went on to play Sookie's love interest, Jackson. The role was written for him, though he wasn't intended to be a series regular at the time.
4.Liza Weil, who played Paris, had actually auditioned to play Rory, but wasn't the right fit. Amy remembered her from the audition, though, and told ET, "she's unbelievably brilliant – she's like a master comedienne, so I just wrote her in." And so, Paris Geller was born.
5.The character of Luke Danes wasn't in the original Gilmore Girls script. He evolved from the character Daisy, who was who Amy originally wrote to run the diner. The WB wanted a male character added to the show, though, and so Daisy became Luke.
6.Speaking of big character switch-ups, Amy originally wanted Sookie to be a lesbian, but being that it was the early 2000s, the studios were against it.
7.The last four words of the Gilmore Girls: A Year In The Life 2016 revival were initally intended to be the final four words of the original show. This was always the plan for Amy, but didn't get to make them happen before she exited the show.
Amy and her husband both exited the show after Season 6.
8.There was almost a Gilmore Girls spin-off show called Windward Circle. It was set to be in Venice, California and would have been about Jess Mariano's life. The spin-off was reportedly canceled due to the high price of filming on-location in Venice.
9.Lane Kim's character was inspired by a real-life person — Amy's close friend, Helen Pai. Helen was also involved in the show and is credited as a producer. Here's a fun fact: Lane's band name, Hep Alien, is actually an anagram of Helen Pai's name.
10.In her memoir, The Third Gilmore Girl, Kelly commented on how Emily Gilmore as a character is so different from her. What drew her to the role, though, was the script and Amy's writing. She described reading it as like she "came home," saying, "I was reading my grandmother. I was reading my mother. I was reading the relationship between me and my mother between Rory and Lorelai. It completely made sense, and it was funny!"
11.When Lauren first read the script, she fell in love with it, describing it as feeling like her perfect match — like a boyfriend — but as a role.
12.Chris Pine, Ryan Gosling, and Anna Kendrick all auditioned for supporting roles on the show, though none of them got the part.
Ryan auditioned to play a football player, Anna auditioned for a guest spot, and — in his first professional Hollywood audition — Chris Pine auditioned to play someone's boyfriend.
13.Playing Rory Gilmore was Alexis Bledel's first big, professional role (aside from being an uncredited extra in Wes Anderson's Rushmore). She was still a student at NYU at the time, and was auditioning and modeling. Being a bit of a novice in the industry, Alexis grew fairly impatient with the Gilmore casting process, telling Seth Meyers that she had a bit of attitude with them. She noted that she was sick at the time and had kept being called back for auditions over and over again.
"I think I went, like, six times. Oddly, I wasn't a very seasoned actor at all. I didn't know the process. I grew a tad bit impatient. I had a little attitude, and our boss really liked that a lot. She was like, 'That's our girl!' I was like, 'Are you guys going to bring me back again?' and she was like, 'I like that, that's perfect.'"
14.Scott Patterson was the only actor who auditioned to play Luke. "'Amy said, 'I don't need to see anyone else. He's 100 percent it,'" casting director Mara Casey told Vanity Fair. "That [had never happened] before. And I credit her for having the vision to know what she wants, and to know what works — and I credit Scott for coming in and just completely inhabiting the character the way we all saw it.'
15.Amy revealed that she got a lot of "weird pushback" from the studio on the show about things like why Rory wasn't having more sex or why Lorelai wasn't being "more of a mom," to which Amy teasingly replied, "Because she's in fucking high school and not everyone blows someone in the bathroom... Because that's not what the show is."
16.Amy is known for her long scripts and quick-witted, fast talking characters, and so, the cast had to make some adjustments to keep up with the pace of the show's dialogue. For Lauren and Scott, that meant quitting smoking.
For reference, the scripts were about 80 pages long on average — nearly twice the length of the industry standard. In addition to changes the actors made, the show also had its own dialogue coach — George Bell — who helped the cast with their talking speed and consistency.
Fun fact: George also made an on-screen appearance as one of Rory's professors at Yale!
17.Kirk Gleason (played by Sean Gunn) was inspired by Amy's father, who was an actor and writer who typically "would get a different hat and different name each week." So, Kirk did the same, taking on just about every odd job you could imagine in Stars Hollow.
Kirk also wasn't the first character Sean played on the show. Originally, he was Mick — Lorelai's DSL installer. They did casting for a swan-delivery guy for an upcoming episode, but Amy had really liked Sean, so she invited him back. And, it turns out, the reason he appears as Kirk — a totally different character — is simply because Amy forgot she'd already named him, according to Sean.
18.Alexis and Lauren weren't as big of coffee fanatics as Lorelai and Rory were. In fact, Alexis's cup was usually filled with soda, while Lauren's was typically filled with water.
19.According to Lauren, there was a quick turnaround time between when an episode's script was done and when they were to shoot. She teasingly noted that this was, in part, to avoid the studio giving their notes on it. Amy would finish the script the night before and it'd be in the cast's hands when they were getting their makeup done the next morning.
20.Rory and Lorelai are often seen eating on the show, from takeout to Friday night dinners to meals at Luke's. Lauren and Alexis actually started off really eating the food on camera, as Alexis told Today that "it really bothers [her] when actors don't eat the food that's in the scene." Though, due to the number of takes they'd have to do and the amount of food, they eventually began using spit buckets rather than swallowing the food to prevent repeat stomach issues.
21.Gilmore Girls was filmed on a lot in Burbank, California, which was obviously very different temperature-wise from snowy, wintery Connecticut at times. Melissa recounted that "sometimes [they] were, like, crammed into small things with coats on but it was actually like 112 degrees in Burbank," as the show was often set during the autumn or winter months. In fact, when they were doing their first poster for the show, someone passed out from being so bundled up in the heat.
22.The set of Stars Hollow has been repurposed and used for several other shows over the years, including Pretty Little Liars and Riverdale.
23.The show is, of course, praised for it's plethora of quick-witted pop culture references, but Amy's absolute favorite is a reference she made to pianist, actor, and radio personality Oscar Levant. She joked that the reference "pissed WB off to no end," saying, "I just remember them calling and saying, 'No one is going to know who he is.' And I said, 'There are six gay guys listening to him right now. And I'll have a Justin Timberlake reference on the next page.'"
24.Unlike her character, Lauren loved the Friday night dinners on the show — in fact, they were her favorite scenes to film. However, they also took a long time to shoot because of the multiple camera angles, and — unfortunately — she said, "the food was always terrible."
25.And finally, in a very Lorelai Gilmore move, Lauren was always there to offer Alexis a helping hand...literally. Being that Alexis was a newbie to filming a TV show, she struggled to hit her marks. So, Lauren is often seen in early episodes of the show wrapping an arm around Alexis or affectionately leading her around to make sure Alexis is standing in the right place to deliver her lines to the camera.
Lauren told Today, "I remember a lot of times just kind of grabbing her, just kind of leading her arm. So, in the beginning, people are like, 'You have such great chemistry.' And I'm like, 'I'm mauling her. That's why.'"
BRB...gonna go rewatch Gilmore Girls again.