'Gilmore Girls' cast reminisce, spill secrets as show turns 25

It's "Gilmore Girls" season.

As the leaves change and gentle "la la la las" waft in the wind, fall beckons "Gilmore Girls" fans old and new. The mother-daughter dramedy – centered around fast-talking mom Lorelai (Lauren Graham) and her bookish teen daughter Rory (Alexis Bledel) in their small, fictional Connecticut town of Stars Hollow – has cemented itself as a cult classic in TV history.

But this fall is even more special for "Gilmore Girls": Its first episode premiered 25 years ago on the now-defunct WB network Oct. 5, 2000, introducing the coffee-loving, pop culture-obsessed duo to the world. And much like its Carole King-sung theme song, "Where You Lead," fans have followed anywhere it led.

The series was the brainchild of creator Amy Sherman-Palladino and husband Dan Palladino, who both cowrote, executive produced and directed on the show. The magic lies in its band of Stars Hollow misfits and lovable, quirky characters: diner owner Luke (Scott Patterson); inn chef Sookie (Melissa McCarthy); town oddball Kirk (Sean Gunn); bawdy dance teacher Ms. Patty (Liz Torres); chatty neighbor Babette (Sally Struthers); Rory's best friend Lane (Keiko Agena) and her strict, antique shop owner mother, Mrs. Kim (Emily Kuroda).

At its heart are the "Gilmore girls," ambitious and stubborn Lorelai and Rory, the daughter she had when she was 16. The show marked Bledel's first major role and made Graham one of TV's most notable leading ladies of the aughts. The pair did "did most of the heavy lifting," Scott Pattersonsays.

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"They were there every day, all day, and they had the lion's share of the dialogue and the scenes," he adds. "It's not something that I think very many actresses could have pulled off. I think a lot of actresses are hitting the eject button after the first or second season saying, 'I don't know that I can do this.'"

Seven seasons later and a 2014 move to Netflix and the show is still relevant as ever. TikTok audio from the show continues to trend, and a new documentary "Drink Coffee, Talk Fast" is in development.

The Palladinos' work went on to include Emmy-winning "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel" and Prime Video's "Etoile," but "Gilmore" remained their calling card for its fast-paced dialogue, complex scripts, and pop culture references that even the most dedicated fans are still unraveling.

Though the show may seem like a perfectly picturesque, saccharine snow globe at first glance, there's a bite woven in, at times acerbic, at times deeply dramatic in a real-life way. Sherman-Palladino's "very unique and very original writing" drew everyone to the show, Patterson says.

Keiko Agena recalls "a lot of people in that first initial audition" for her character, Lane Kim. "When I first got the chance to read the script, I was gobsmacked," she says.

Yanic Truesdale went through five auditions in Los Angeles before landing the role of snarky inn concierge Michel Gerard. "I decided that by my birthday, if I didn't have a job, a clear sign of the universe, that I would just move back" to Canada, where'd he'd had some success. "I got 'Gilmore' a week before my birthday."

The pilot episode filmed in Canada before moving to the Warner Bros. lot in California after the show was picked up. "There was definitely an electricity and excitement and a hopefulness, because … you never know if this pilot is going to get picked up," Agena says. "I was on the set of 'Felicity'" when the show was greenlit, "and I just embraced the first person that I saw."

"Gilmore Girls" went on to carve out its own quietly powerful niche, propelling its stars to be beloved, if not awarded.

"On the Warner Bros. lot, 'Friends' was over here, and 'ER' shot there, and right beside us was 'The West Wing,' a similar show in the sense that it's fast paced and has quick, snappy dialogue, and the scripts were long because of it. So Friday nights, it was always 'Gilmore Girls' and 'West Wing' (filming at) 11 o'clock, 12 o'clock, 2 in the morning, trying to complete the week's work," says David Sutcliffe, who starred as Lorelai's ex Christopher Hayden. "At the time, that show was huge, winning all the Emmys, everybody was talking about it. And I remember watching it and thinking, 'I think our show's better.'"

"Gilmore Girls" has become "a comfort show," Truesdale says. "I've heard a million times, 'oh, when I lost my mom, when I had cancer, when I had this or that' – when people are struggling, they need to be comforted. And the show does that for people."

The cast members reflect on the show's 25th anniversary to USA TODAY.

Lauren Graham was 'a force' on 'Gilmore Girls'

Graham struts onto the screen, "There She Goes" by The La's playing as she enters Luke's Diner, removing her striped beanie after "please, please, please"-ing her way into a sixth cup of coffee.

Patterson was hired in a guest role as the gruff diner owner with a heart of gold, Luke Danes. But he "blew the first take" of that opening scene "because I was so taken with (Graham) and what she was doing, and the way she pulled her hat off, and (said), 'You've got wings, baby.' And I'm just like, 'Oh, sorry, I forgot the line. Let's do it again.'"

Patterson was unsure whether he'd make it past the first episode. "The pilot script began and ended with the diner, so I figured, 'That's a bookend that's intentional. This is a chemistry check. I'm still auditioning,'" he says.

He was certain, however, of his chemistry with Graham.

"I felt the chemistry right away when I met her the night before (filming the pilot)," he says. "At the dinner; she was the one there greeting me. … The next day on set, I saw that we were going to have an easy time of it, because she's so skilled."

Sutcliffe, recurring as Rory's absent father Christopher, also instantly recognized his chemistry with Graham when he read the script with the cast – before quickly realizing he hadn't always felt that way.

"I'm looking across from Lauren as we're playing these scenes, and I realized that I had auditioned with her for (another) show … and it was a disaster," Sutcliffe says. "She had already been cast, but I just bombed. And I walked out of the room, called my manager, and he said, 'How did it go?' And I said, 'It wasn't great. We had no chemistry.'"

"Two years later in this read-through, it was the exact opposite experience, because I felt like Lauren and I had instant chemistry," he says.

Sutcliffe calls Graham "a force: very smart, very talented, very committed, very alive in the scenes," and argued that "she was, at the time, the best actress on television."

"She's the kind of person that you immediately like her because she's warm and funny, and has that kind of Lorelei thing that is fun," Truesdale says.

For Truesdale, whose scenes were often mostly with Graham and McCarthy, he found lifelong friends.

"The proof is in the pudding: 25 years later, and we're still super tight," he says. "I was just at Melissa's house all weekend at the beach house, so it clicks or it doesn't click. It was very lucky that I had two amazing actresses, two amazing people, and we just connected."

Comfort show with a fast pace – and behind-the-scenes drama

It was a fight to get "Gilmore Girls" made, and the battles continued on set as everyone was "creatively fighting to make it better," Sutcliffe says.

"It's such a sweet show on one level, but it's also pretty intense and a little dark at times. And all of that existed on the set, from my point of view. There was an emotional intensity," Sutcliffe says. "That's the one thing I also appreciate about the show and want the fans to know: It wasn't always honey and roses. There was contention and bickering and fighting."

The show's core revolved around loving and, at times, fraught mother-daughter relationships: Lorelai and Rory; Lorelai and her shrewd, WASP-y mother Emily (Kelly Bishop); Emily and her tough mother-in-law Lorelai "Trix" (Marion Ross); and Lane and her mom, Mrs. Kim.

"One of the things that I really love about Amy's writing – and the actors who got a chance to play these roles – is that as much as we disagree with that character or that other person, the love underneath is always apparent. That was so precious to me in getting to play Lane," Agena says.

Bledel was one of the only people who knew Agena's real age for almost three years (though Lane was 16, Agena was 27 when the show premiered). "I do have a regret: With the cast, Alexis was the only person that knew the age that I was," she says. "It was a little strange to connect with your coworkers when they don't know what decade you are. I wish … it didn't take me three years to say, 'I'm 10 years older than the character that I'm playing.'"

Sutfcliffe recalls "a lot of the scenes with Alexis were really powerful" because "I'm the absent father, and so there's a relationship that got created between the two characters and and between her and I as actors."

Rory's acceptance to private high school Chilton prompts Lorelai's parents Emily and Richard (Edward Herrmann) to reenter their lives as they help fund her schooling in exchange for weekly dinners with them. After Lorelai's teen pregnancy pushed her to build a life in Stars Hollow, the Gilmores' subsequently estranged and sometimes contentious relationships blossomed into complexity, love and sharp family humor.

Sutcliffe recalls working with "old pros" Bishop and Herrmann in the famed family dinner scenes. "I just remember relishing that time with Ed."

Truesdale remembers Herrmann, who died in 2014, and Bishop seeming "effortless" on set.

"There's a scene with Ed Herrmann at a dinner table. We actually didn't have dialogue, but we had to improvise small talk, and he would just tell me the most vulgar things to make me laugh," Truesdale says. "Such a treat, Kelly (Bishop). I wish I had more scenes with Kelly."

Days on set were long for most of the cast with the show's many pages of fast-moving dialogue. "A 12-hour day would be a very short work day, and we never worked a 12-hour day," Agena recalls.

Days were so long that Patterson, who's since launched his iHeart Radio podcast "I Am All In,"says he tried to limit his involvement in town meeting scenes.

"I'm glad I didn't win those discussions. I didn't have a chance anyway," Patterson says. "Now, on the podcast, I'm very glad that I was in that stuff, because it's hysterically funny."

The show's lexicon – from its references to its quotes – became part of the zeitgeist.

"People are particularly stupid today. I can't talk to any more of them," Michel says in the pilot. The quote has stuck with "Gilmore" fans 25 years later, Truesdale says.

The cultural battles around the stars' onscreen love interests also persist: Team Luke or Team Christopher for Lorelai; Teams Dean (Jared Padalecki), Jess (Milo Ventimiglia) or Logan (Matt Czuchry) for Rory; and Team Dave (Adam Brody) or Zach (Todd Lowe) for Lane.

Cast laments 'Gilmore Girls' Season 7

When the Palladinos exited the show following a contract dispute after Season 6, the show's final season on the then-newly formed CW marked a bittersweet ending.

"After Season 6, and Amy and Dan did not return to the show, I think the clock was ticking," Patterson says. "That was a little bit shocking, but not terribly surprising."

"The soul of the show was Amy," Truesdale says, "and so for her not to be there, even though the writers did a good job, but (it's) very hard to imitate someone's voice, because someone's voice is their essence. … It was a tricky situation."

Agena was "grateful" that rebellious Korean American Lane – who did "as much as she possibly could within the confines that she was given," from dyeing her hair to hiding contraband under her floorboards – provided representation for many viewers.

"During the show I was probably more of an anxious person, and so now that so much time has passed," Agena says, "I really appreciate what a gift it was to be able to play that character. And every single time someone comes up to me and mentions to me in person or online that this was an important character to them, it melts my heart."

But Lane "had a rough road" that didn't get easier come Season 7. "She has sex once, gets pregnant. It's terrible sex," she says, laughing.

In words that mirrored some of Lorelai's arc, Agena says she wishes Lane "had a chance to be fully herself before she had to step into a motherhood role, because I think she was dealing with her relationship to her mother for so long, and that sort of defined her. And then she became a mother so quickly, that I do wonder for her now, if we met Lane now with her children … maybe (it) would be interesting to see what is she dealing with."

The lack of a true goodbye still affects the cast.

"I was certainly naive at the time. Because we didn't have a definitive end – they didn't tell us for sure, 'This is the end, you will not be getting any more seasons' – I felt that I missed that closure with the cast," Agena says.

"We didn't have a proper sendoff," Truesdale says. "To not be able to hug them and say thank you and goodbye" was tough.

'Gilmore Girls' Netflix streaming boosted show to new stratosphere

Nearly a decade after its finale, the show's move to Netflix "reintroduced it to a whole new generation," Truesdale says. "And to this day, 14-year-old girls stop me all the time, as if it's a brand new show that they just discovered."

Sutcliffe says the show hit "maximum exposure" upon its Netflix debut. "That's when I couldn't go anywhere without being recognized. Like going to a bar at night, forget it. … As soon as you'd walk in, there'd just be a pack of girls swarming you. And it was surprising to me, because that had never happened to me when the show was on the air."

The fervor pushed some of the cast to rediscover the series: Patterson and Agena watched it in its entirety.

Rewatching the show has helped Patterson remember its humor, noting he's "laughing out loud, 20, 30 times per episode. I said to myself after a few episodes, 'Oh, now I get it. Now I get why people are so obsessed with this.'"

'Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life' revival gave show the ending it deserved

The series' Netflix success sparked its 2016 revival miniseries, "Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life." Much of the cast returned.

It was, says Truesdale, "like meeting an old friend that you haven't seen in a while."

Sherman-Palladino got to finally end the show her way. "Amy really had unfinished business, like there was a way that she wanted to end the show on her own terms," Sutcliffe says.

For years, fans speculated about the fated "last four words" with which Sherman-Palladino originally planned on ending the show. And – spoiler alert – the full-circle, mother-daughter moment came to fruition when Rory said to Lorelai, "Mom?" "Yeah?" "I'm pregnant."

Patterson calls it "this incredibly difficult and tortured universe that these these women come from, and how they're attempting to put it all back together, if that's even possible."

Legacy of 'Gilmore Girls': 25th anniversary shows lasting impact

Nearly three decades after its premiere, "Gilmore Girls" continues to resonate.

"The most difficult thing is to love someone that you disagree with. … It doesn't hurt if you don't care what someone thinks," Agena says. "I think that's why people keep coming back to the show."

Sutcliffe relishes being "part of something that was unique and special."

"I was really glad to see the show finally recognized and now become a classic. I don't know if there's another show that has stood the test of time quite like 'Gilmore Girls,'" he says.

"It's not a cynical show. And I think we live at a really harsh time. It's a show with a lot of heart," Truesdale says.

"In the history of television, there's really nothing quite like it and never will be again," Patterson says.