Lauren Graham Admits She Didn't Fully Appreciate Gilmore Girls In Its Prime

If any 21st-century television auteur managed to truly establish a distinctive voice of their own and turn it into a widely known brand, it was Amy Sherman-Palladino. The Angelene writer and director makes shows you can tell are her brainchildren just from any randomly selected 20-second clip. In recent years, Sherman-Palladino has applied her snappy, witty, wistfully melancholy sensibility to a multi-Emmy-winning smash hit in the form of Prime Video's "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel," which is set to air its 5th and final season in April 2023. But, many years before "Mrs. Maisel," the ASP house style had, of course, already been introduced to the world by way of "Gilmore Girls."

The iconic comedy-drama series, which aired its first six seasons on the now-defunct The WB network and the final one on The CW, was responsible for putting several stars on the map, including Melissa McCarthy, Jared Padalecki, Milo Ventimiglia, and Alex Borstein (the latter of whom became an ASP mainstay, later winning two Emmys for her work on "Mrs. Maisel"). The two actresses who benefited most from the show's massive worldwide success, however, were the titular Gilmores themselves, Lauren Graham as Lorelai and Alexis Bledel as her daughter Rory. Graham, in particular, became TV royalty with her performance as the sharp-witted, resilient, ambitious single mother at the center of the series — so it's somewhat surprising to learn that she didn't necessarily realize what a gift the role was as she was playing it.

In 2017, a few months after Netflix released the sequel miniseries "Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life," Lauren Graham sat down with IndieWire for an interview about her career and her relationship with the show. The actress acknowledged how much "Gilmore Girls" had grown beyond its makers' wildest dreams to become a dearly cherished part of millions of fans' lives — something that potentially meant more to people than any other project she might ever be a part of. Graham also noted that, when the opportunity came to revisit the Stars Hollow universe, she endeavored to make the most of it, in ways that she had not thought to do during the series' original run.

"I think if I made a mistake in the past, it was not appreciating what a rare opportunity 'Gilmore Girls' was and how much I got to be the voice of this incredibly inventive writer," Graham said, noting that her experience on "Parenthood," for instance, was different, in that she didn't get to be a muse. The second time around, therefore, her appreciation for the whole enterprise had grown exponentially — as had her sense of ease participating in it. "When we did the first show, with those 14-hour days where you'd have a 10-page walk-and-talk without any cuts and everyone had to be perfect... it was just about getting through the day. This time, it was easier to be in the moment," she continued.