The Palladino's are hat people....part I
The Museum of Telvision and Radio Presents: Gilmore Girls : A 100th Episode Celebration
Moderator: Cynthia Littleton, The Hollywood Reporter
Panel: (in order of introduction)
Amy Sherman-Palladino, Creator/Executive Producer
Kelly Bishop, "Emily Gilmore"
Alexis Bledel, "Rory Gilmore"
Lauren Graham, "Lorelai Gilmore"
Edward Herrmann, "Richard Gilmore"
Melissa McCarthy, "Sookie St. James-Melville"
Daniel Palladino, Executive Producer/Writer
Scott Patterson, "Luke Danes"
Amy Sherman-Palladino then requested that the rest of the cast members who were there be seated on the edge of the stage.
Matt Czuchry, "Logan Huntzberger"
Keiko Agena, "Lane Kim"
Yanic Truesdale, "Michel Gerard"
The evening was kicked off by the Museum president who introduced a highlight reel of the first 99 episodes of Gilmore Girls showcasing character's and relationships:
Rory/Lorelai: story of Rory's birth
Richard/Emily/Lorelai/Rory: pudding and post-it's
Sookie/Michel/Lorelai/Jackson: Jackson's hybrid fruit, Season 1
Lorelai/Christopher: Lorelai asking him to come to Rory's Debutante Ball
Townspeople: Babette's missing gnome, The town discusses Luke/Lorelai's relationship
Rory/Dean: learning how to dance at Miss Patty's
Lane: Lane's attempt to have a date with Henry
Luke/Rory/Lorelai: last scene from the Pilot,
First off, let me just say...the Palladino's...are hat people. ASP reminds me of the missing Bangle. She was dressed head to toe in black, fishnet stockings, black skirt, sweater and beret. DP was wearing a fedora. Not just any guy can get away with that. Whether DP can, remains to be seen, but I suppose that's not the point.
Cynthia Littleton spoke a little about how proud she was to have been a champion of this show from the get-go. She commented that in preparation for the evening, she pulled out the pilot to rewatch it and that it still held up after five years.
Where did this show come from?
ASP: Unemployment.
She had just finished working on Veronica's Closet and was doing nothing. She claims to have no skills except for writing. She and Daniel had bought a house and they wanted to decorate it like Mark Twain's house...this is where things broke down first. They started arguing back and forth over why they went to Connecticut in the first place, but the official word was to see Mark Twain's house ("Because he was a wonderful writer") Something else was going on there, I'm not sure what. It was cute, nonetheless. So, if you've watched the extras on the S1 DVDs, you know that they ended up staying in an Inn in a very small town and visiting the town and being completely charmed by it. The idea for Gilmore Girls started happening there and ASP still has the notepad from the Mayflower Inn where she wrote the original Sookie/Peach sauce kitchen scene. From there, they went into Hartford...major business in Hartford? Insurance. Thus, Richard Gilmore's profession was settled as well as the location for Emily and Richard's lives. The rest of the story began to fall together and it was the last thing she pitched to Warner Brothers and they decided that was the idea they wanted.
"The Curse of ABC Family"
Lauren Graham recently saw the pilot again as well. Why? How? She can't program her Tivo...or in her own words:
LG: "Tivo doesn't know the difference between the ABC ones and the regular ones."
AB: "Oh, you have to tell it just Tuesdays."
LG: "OOHHH."
It was cute, trust me.
Cynthia Littleton commented that from the start LG seemed to be "channelling Rosalind Russell". She laughed and said that after seeing the pilot again, the show has gotten MUCH faster. Something the entire panel agreed with. She was attracted to the role of Lorelai because she felt like a real person. She'd been on something like seven series that had failed already.
"Our birthday's are exactly six months apart...and in the same year, too." -Lauren Graham
Alexis and Lauren seemed to have a natural rapport with each other immediately. This was basically AB's first big thing whereas LG was more seasoned. Lauren asked Alexis if she could tell the story she always tells and Alexis said it was okay. Apparently, Alexis had a little trouble understanding what "hitting your mark" meant, so she became so paranoid and zombie like about hitting her mark that it was really starting to affect things. Lauren began linking arms with her to nudge her onto her mark and everyone would say, "Oh, what amazing chemistry they have!" LG linked arms with AB while telling this story and it was very sweet. Big smiles from both of them.
"We were in Canada, which makes everything weird"- Lauren Graham
Shooting the pilot, editing the pilot and ASP figuring out that this was not Roseanne. Coming off of writing for Roseanne, who had a very distinctive voice and speech pattern, ASP was thrilled to find out she could write things at her speed, or, you know...fast. She does a killer Roseanne, btw. Something everyone should hear. While editing the pilot she was very opposed to long, drawn out scenes and wanted to keep things moving. Again, everyone commented on how much faster the show has gotten since then, but that the frenetic pace is really part of the charm. Also, that their editor is like a heroin freak. "Oh kids...Heroin's bad, editing good."
"I don't care where they're doing it." - Kelly Bishop
The questions then moved onto Edward and Kelly who both have extensive background as New York actors. They both won Tony awards in 1976. Kelly for A Chorus Line and Edward for Mrs. Warren's Profession. There was a brief moment of fun when Edward and Kelly began to argue over what year it was, and Edward maintained that it wasn't 1976. I looked it up on Internet Broadway Database, and of course Kelly was right.
The year that GG was casting was a year when The Sopranos was really hitting it big and Kelly said that she read a dozen differnt pilots all about Italian families. When she got to the GG script she was reading it, she was liking it, and she couldn't believe it was an hour show. She wanted in. Her agent was all "It's for the WB". She didn't care. She had been wanting to do a series for a long time and had decided that she really wanted an hour. Little did she know how demanding hour shows are, she still commutes in from Jersey (as does EH from Connecticut) She worked VERY hard on her audience, but ASP assured everyone that once KB walked in, it was all over. She had it right there.
"He's going to come in? And...talk to us?"
Edward Herrmann felt like his audience was "getting old" and went looking for a pilot that year as well. He was happy to find something with such cross-generational appeal as Gilmore Girls. He told his agent that he wanted to go in and meet. Overjoyed at the prospect of EH, it was pretty much a no-brainer when he walked in that it would be him.
"I like that she's sometimes psychotic and lovely." - Melissa McCarthy on Sookie
Don't believe the fug girls! Her outfit wasn't that bad!
"The other audition was with Carmen Electra" - Scott Patterson
Scott thought it was the best thing he'd ever read. He'd been going on auditions and getting feedback that he was a little too edgy. The Luke character was perfect because he was grumpy. I'm fairly sure most people know that Luke was, a. originally a woman, but the network wanted more testosterone and b. only supposed to be in the pilot. Of course, the rest is history since it all clicked so well, but let's all be really glad he never made it to the Carmen Electra audition.
The Evolution of Things
Daniel Palladino spoke at length about how the entire show has evolved slowly over five years to expand from what ASP considers the "Core" with the Gilmore Family into the wacky world of Stars Hollow. They've more than happy to be compared to Northern Exposure. By expanding their stories to other characters, it also gives LG and AB some downtime to rest. They hadn't anticipated expanding Lane's character into her own love life and story and band. They utilized the character of Jess to expand the character of Luke. Sookie and Michel helped create a second home/family at the Inn without it being hokey and contrived.
"When is Hep Alien gonna go on tour?"
Okay, they LOVE Sebastian Bach. Lauren Graham says that he is the nicest.guy.ever. Only, he's having trouble separating the fact that Hep Alien isn't a real band. He took "the band" and Daniel out one night to the Rainbow and talked them all up like they were a real band. Keiko did learn the drums, btw. They love having him around.
Did you know where it was going?
Luke and Lorelai can be dated back to Kiss and Tell. Watching the scene with Luke and Lorelai spying on Dean in Doose's Market prompted DP to proclaim that Luke was the "go-to guy". That he would be the one to play against Lorelai and that they should feel free to go there now. At this point, Scott Patterson whips out his (dirty!) billfold and hands DP some money.
ASP always knew that she wanted to edge Richard out of his business. She knew she wanted to mess with the Richard/Emily dynamic and used the Jason character as a byproduct of that. Also, Lauren Graham and Chris Eigeman are good friends. She sees the Emily/Richard/Lorelai relationship as a constant battle that is "2 steps forward and 35 steps back."
They also adhered to the discipline of giving things time to develop. They played out very carefully the shifting of Richard and Emily's expectations from Lorelai onto Rory. EH commented that it was a wonderful story to watch this grandfather fall in love with his granddaughter. Emily has been less successful in letting go of Lorelai (obviously), but is just as enamored with Rory as Richard is.
"Characters who do that can only succeed when there's a deep loving humanity under them." - ASP on Emily Gilmore.
As an Emily apologist, the next bit of discussion was of great interest to me as Kelly Bishop and ASP talked about the character of Emily and what makes her do the things she does. KB fully admits that the nastier Emily is, the more fun she is to play. She particularly loved the recent scene where she visited Christopher to draw him back into Lorelai's sphere. KB (and ASP) agree that Emily's nastiness and behavior comes from being extremely insecure and very focused on 'what's right' and 'what's proper'. She cited the episode where Lorelai and Emily go to the spa for the weekend and how she tells Lorelai that she was not raised to be friends with her mother, she was raised to be a daughter.
The panel was then opened up for a Q&A, but I'll have to write that up tomorrow. It's not much, but I'm BEAT.