October 12, 2023 • 21 mins
Author Aaron Berman interviews over 40 cast members and crew for his book, The Gilmore Girl's Companion and he's telling Scott everything!
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
I Am all In.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Let's you.
Speaker 3 (00:16):
I Am all In with Scott Patterson, an iHeartRadio podcast.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
Hey Everybody, Scott Patterson, I Am all In podcast. iHeartRadio
one eleven Productions a one on one interview with Aaron Berman,
who's a former editor writer for USA Today. He's a
freelance writer and editor with background covering technology, publishing, and entertainment.
Gilmore Girl's Companion released July twenty fifteen. Since we first
(00:43):
peeked into Stars Hollow, Connecticut, October fifth, two thousand, Gilmore
Girls has delighted people worldwide. The Gilmore Girls Companion takes
you behind the scenes of the classic television series from
first glimmer with the idea of making this series finale.
Based on more than forty interviews with cast and crew, Aaron,
(01:06):
welcome to this show. Tell us a little bit about
your book, what inspired it, and what do you find
most intriguing about the show.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
Thank you so much for having me, Scott. That book
was a labor of love from the very beginning. Basically,
like most Gilmore fans, I fell in love with Stars
Hollow and everybody in it, and I at the time
I was actually working on a making of book about
(01:33):
the seventy sitcom soap, And this was like thirty years
after the fact, and I was talking to people who
could barely remember a lot of what happened during the
making of that series, and there was also a lot
had passed away by the time I was doing that book.
And the first thing that struck me was I'd waited
(01:57):
a few years to see a book on Gilmore Girl
come out, and nothing had come out. And I was like,
you know what, I really don't want this to happen
to Gilmore Girls.
Speaker 3 (02:05):
It's such a special show.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
And what inevitably happens is, you know, memories get fuzzy,
and people forget how things were put together, and especially
the way Gilmore seemed to have been brought together, the
writing and just you know, everything that came together. I
didn't want that story to be lost, and so I
(02:29):
went to my publisher and pitched it and said, nobody's
done a book about this.
Speaker 3 (02:34):
Let me just start making some phone calls.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
Right, So what what first brought you to the show?
When did you discover the show?
Speaker 3 (02:42):
My memories are hazy, but I think I saw that.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
Hazy memories.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, there's gonna be a lot of gee,
I don't remember.
Speaker 3 (02:50):
I'm afraid it was. It was a long time ago.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
My memory isn't what it should be, but I think
I saw it from the pilot, and I think it was.
It was just the promo for it, that that iconic
shot of Stars Hollow with the church and and and
everything else.
Speaker 3 (03:05):
It's it instantly puts you, gives you a.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
Sense of home that I think a lot of people
don't have but wish for. There's a there's a word
that I can't think of for, but the definition is
a nostalgia for something that you never actually experienced yourself.
And I think that is the key to that show.
I think we all want a place that we can
(03:29):
call home and no, but very few people actually come
from a place that feels that that special.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
Mm hmm. You know a lot of those places in
the Northeastern United States. I came from a place like that. Yeah,
I came from a place like Stars Hollow. Where'd you
come from?
Speaker 3 (03:50):
I came from the suburbs of Washington, d C.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
Nothing like that, Nothing like it, nothing.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
Nothing, nothing at all like that. And in fact, the
funny thing is that the reality of it is every
time you talk to somebody who said, so, oh, yeah,
I grew up in a small town. The first thing
I did was get the heck out of there.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
That's exactly what I did. That's exactly what I did.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
Yeah. See, it's the fantasy without the other part. You know,
everybody knows everybody's business in a fun, warm way in
Gilmore Girls. In the real world, it's why does she
know my business?
Speaker 1 (04:23):
Mmmmm, well, you know, yeah, they're pros and cons of
small towns. Right when you're growing up and you're not
having the best experience, or even if you are having
a great experience growing up in a small town, everybody
knows your business. You know, there's a big, wide world
out there. You want to you want to dive into it,
you know, if you have any kind of curiosity. And
(04:46):
but I found out that most people from the town
that I grew up and ended up staying there. If
they went away to college, they came back. They found
a way back. I think that stars hollowing it. You're right,
that's one of the main hours of this show. If
not for all the jokes, you'd still have a show.
(05:07):
What kind of a show do you think would be
without the humor, without the jokes, do you think it
would be pretty barren? Would it be empty? What do
you think?
Speaker 2 (05:14):
I think it's the idea of stars hollow that draws
you in, but it's the writing that keeps you there
and coming back week after week. And it was particularly
interesting to me putting this book together, right, Actually it
was during and a little bit after putting the soap
book together. Soap was was. The showrunner was Susan Harris,
(05:37):
who was a real trailblazer in the seventies for you
didn't have female showrunners in those days for the most part,
and she wrote half the series before she even took
on a writing partner. And going from talking to her
and her experiences, and then talking to people who worked
(05:59):
on Gill and were very familiar with Amy's Amy's ways
and her writing process, and then Amy and Dan, there's
there's just something about both of those. Those people had
a love of language that comes through in the scripts.
I mean Gilmour especially. You can spot certain references that
(06:22):
you know, people have spent the last twenty some years
tracking down the references, and it makes you feel like
you're part of a club when you do.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
Oh, without question, you know, I don't know really anything
about Dan's background. But I know a little bit about
Amy's background, and she had an interesting upbringing, didn't she.
If did you interview Amy.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
For this were there were people I reached out to
that that I spoke with about forty people for this book.
There were there were some people that, for lack of
a better phrase, I couldn't get past the gate keepers,
which I mean that they're there for a reason. You know,
if all you're doing is fielding interviews, you have very
little time to work.
Speaker 3 (07:08):
She was. She and Dan were two that didn't.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
Get to speak with, But I spoke with enough people
had worked with her and also just indeed her her background.
She was the daughter of Don Sherman, who was this
famous Cat Skills comic who also acted and wrote for
a number of big, big shows in the day.
Speaker 3 (07:31):
And you can tell.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
Very early on, actually you can see, especially in The
Marvelous Missus masl after Gilmore, you can see basically Amy's
life recreated in a lot of those episodes. There is
actually an episode or two that takes place in the
Cat Skills and it's like you can see you can
see the continuity between Gilmore and that show.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
Yeah, yeah, that was the show she was on Earth
the right that one you think, you think it's Gilmour,
but that was really her right.
Speaker 3 (08:05):
Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
If you were to choose a character in Gilmore that
you thought represented Amy and Dan, who would they be?
Speaker 3 (08:19):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (08:19):
My, I think that's always that's always a kind of
a trick question, because every writer will tell you that
there's a little bit of them in every single character.
I'd say, if a gun into my head, probably.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
Rory oh really yeah.
Speaker 3 (08:36):
First part of her life, and probably Laura Lai afterwards.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
Kay. So who did you interview from the cast?
Speaker 3 (08:44):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (08:44):
My?
Speaker 2 (08:46):
Uh, the late ed Herman, Kelly Bishop, Sean Gunn, Kiko
Kiko just quite quite a just went.
Speaker 3 (08:57):
Down the line.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
Michael Winners was I think was the first person I
spoke with for the book.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
He's yeah, he's fascinating. What was it like interviewing Kelly Bishop, to.
Speaker 2 (09:10):
Talk to both her and at Herman. It's it's not
even being in the presence of royalty, but just people
who are so professional and have seen so much and
have done so much. I felt very humbled just being
able to speak with them. But it's it's I don't
get starstruck very often, but I think Ed Herman, especially,
(09:33):
he spoke so well and was so warm that and
knew so much that you feel like, Okay, well, this
is my one chance to learn the secret of the universe.
What question do I need to be asking?
Speaker 1 (09:48):
Uh huh? And what did he reveal to you that.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
I think we bonded over, you know, speaking of iHeart
radio ed. Herman hearted radio big time, especially at old radio,
and I think we we bonded over that. His his
favorite was Bob and Ray back in the days. But
that love of radio is really a love of theater,
and I think that's something that comes across really quite
(10:14):
a bit in Gilmore Girls. There is a theatricality to
it in the love of language, which everything always comes
back to the love of language with Gilmore.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
Yeah, I just watched this episode. You know, you miss
a lot because you're laughing too much, So I didn't
have the time to rewind. But I think people stop
it if they're rewatching it and rewind and to get
what they didn't, you know, that passed them by. So
this happened three or four times while I was watching
this particular episode. It's just so chock full of jokes
(10:50):
and great ones and great situations. What did Ed reveal
or Kelly reveal any behind the scenes drama they give
you any juicy tidbits, I.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
Wouldn't call them juicy tidbits. That the one story I
came away with from from Ed really really hit home
for me was just the way that he kind of
took a Lexus Fladell under his wing during this time
she was she was so young and so inexperienced, and
so out of her element.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
She was.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
She'd I think she was living in an LA apartment
on her own, her away from Texas where she was from,
and just being thrown into not just a TV show
for the first time, but you know, carrying a TV
show as a co star with Lauren Graham, and that
(11:44):
is a lot to put on a kid who I
think she was like eighteen at the time. And the
way he spoke of her, it was very much like
a you know, a grandfather or a father would would
talk about somebody just saying, you know, I didn't want
I wanted to protect her from things I wanted to,
but at the same time, I wanted her to appreciate
(12:05):
what she was experiencing at the time, you know, walking
in the footsteps of these these great stars that came before.
Speaker 1 (12:13):
Interesting. Yeah, so he gave her that perspective. Did he
say that that changed her experience in a positive way.
Speaker 3 (12:22):
I don't.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
I don't think he ever really knew if it did,
but he felt that it was. It was kind of
his role in all of this to do that. And
I believe he said that the producers had also asked
him to just kind of keep an eye on her
just to make sure she's okay. And I appreciate you
asking me these things because I'm starting to remember little
(12:44):
little tidbits. I think Kelly Bishop had said she was
amazed at l Lauren Graham for the way she interacted
with Alexis physically like a mother would a daughter, and say,
I just think it's wonderful how you touch her all
the time, and you know, you really get the sense
of affection. And Lauren said, most of the time it
(13:04):
was I was just gently trying to guide her to
her mark because she was she was she was stepping
outside her mark and she was gonna be blurry. So
so but she they came up with this kind of
very this shorthand that was very much utilitarian, but it
was also getting across a very warm relationship between this
mother and daughter, and Kelly Bishop at one point says,
(13:28):
you know that there's a point in in the show
where she just brushes some hair away from Rory's face,
and it's it's something that pops up in the opener,
and she says, I don't know if that was to
do something to discuss you wanted to get the hair
out of her face, or if it was a loving,
nurturing gesture. But this is this is how you would
(13:50):
want your mother to be with you, Just constant reassurance.
Speaker 1 (13:55):
Yeah, she uh, yeah, that first year was something. You know,
she was at NYU and film school and she had
no prior acting experience from what I can gather, maybe
she was an acting class. She was living in New
York obviously and modeling on the side, right, and went
(14:17):
in for the audition and I believe she was sick,
she had the flu or something, and she was stuff stuff,
stuffy and sneezy and coldy and fluey. So I think
she appeared a bit dismissive towards Amy and just kind
of wanted to get out of there. They hired her
(14:38):
for it because of it. She flipped was like she
flipped and she was great in the park, right. Yeah.
I don't think there's anybody's so vulnerable, such a such
a vulnerable soul right there on your screen, right, no artifice,
no tricks now, I mean, what you see is what
(14:59):
you get. Yeah, But as she got through that first year,
so imagine going from that to the isolation of being
by yourself in a new situation and working that many
hours every single Monday through Friday and not getting any
rest and just this is all you do. So at eighteen,
(15:21):
that must have been very heady.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
Stuff, definitely, And it's one of the things I was
going to say about your work, Gilmour, was I thought
you were one of the few people that wasn't really
a character in terms of I felt like your performance
was so naturalistic that, you know, everybody had this kind
(15:46):
of a little bit over the top character except for Luke.
And Luke you could see as just being a person
that you would know. And I was always I was
always flummexed by that because I was like, you know, there, yes,
Luke can be grumpy, and Luke Luke has his secrets
and all, and you know, maybe he isn't as sure
(16:06):
as of himself as as he may come across. But
at the same time, you know, he wasn't Kirk, he
wasn't Taylor, he wasn't you know, he didn't have this
characteristic you could just pin down. And I thought that
was really cool that, you know, you feel like you
could go into this any town and you and Luke
would actually be somebody that you you would meet.
Speaker 1 (16:29):
Interesting. Interesting. How how has the book uh changed your
life or has it changed your life at all?
Speaker 2 (16:38):
I think it definitely definitely changed it at the time
that I was writing it and that it first came out.
And keep in mind, this was this was I was
working on it in the early twenty tens, so Facebook
was a thing, but it was still kind of growing.
It was still kind of stuck in Farmville and Mafia
Wars and didn't quite know what it wanted to be yet.
(16:59):
And so during the writing of this whole book, I
kept a blog and would just post what was going
on with the you know, I spoke with so and
so today, or this occurred to me, you know, maybe
this is something. And I heard from a lot of people,
and not just in the US. One of the most
fascinating things to me is I heard from fans around
(17:21):
the world regularly. I mean they became friends, and I
was like, how are you, How are you watching Gilmore
Girls in Croatia?
Speaker 3 (17:29):
How are you?
Speaker 2 (17:30):
And you know, I had one person in Germany who
they were broadcasting it in Germany in German.
Speaker 3 (17:40):
But it'd be late.
Speaker 2 (17:41):
And after a while she got so hung up on
the show that she didn't want to wait for the
dubbed German version, so she put together what English she could.
She would somebody would upload the show and this is
you know, two thousand and six, two thousand and five,
so it would upload show to the internet. She would
(18:01):
get up, set her alarm, get up at like two
or three in the morning, download it, go back to sleep,
and then watch it in the American version the next morning.
Speaker 1 (18:09):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (18:09):
Yeah, that's that's how dedicated she was.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
And when you think about how American Gilmore Girls is,
you know, the references are almost all you know, American
pop culture, you know, obscure bits of American history, and
you know, I would go on to the blog and
people would be like, oh, this is this is kind
of cool.
Speaker 1 (18:32):
So this this, this brings me to my next question, why,
Aaron do you think this show is not only as
popular as it's ever been, but it seems to be
getting more and more popular as the years go by.
Why why is that happening?
Speaker 3 (18:50):
I think it's because.
Speaker 2 (18:54):
The world is getting tougher rougher, a place that you
don't really want to be at least, and I think
it's become a star's hollow, is becoming this place that
you know, if we all just dropped our differences for
a minute, maybe we could This is what we could have.
Speaker 1 (19:11):
Final question, Sure, what do you hope fans take away
from your book?
Speaker 2 (19:16):
I hope that they get past just the actors and
the stories themselves and actually get an appreciation for all
everything that went into creating this show. There was a
lot of behind the scenes drama just to get it
going and to keep it going, and a lot of
people yourself in concluded, worked very hard to do this
(19:38):
day in, day out, eight day schedules for seven years,
and the creative process, to me, has always been so
much more interesting than just kind of the soap opera
aspect of what's going on on screen, as much as
satisfying as that is, because if you think about it,
(20:00):
to get that many people to cooperate for any length
of time to do anything is a momentous feat. And
to get them to do it so consistently well for
so long as you know, hats off to.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
Him, Aaron, thank you so much for coming on. The
book is called The Gilmore Girls Companion, A very thoughtful
trees stay on one of the iconic shows produced in
Hollywood in the last well forever. I guess huh it's
looking like anyway, Thanks so much for your time, Thank you.
Speaker 3 (20:34):
So much for having me so a pleasure talking to you.
Speaker 1 (20:36):
Pleasure talking to you too, And everybody, get out there
and by Aaron's book, I'm going to get it, and
it looks like a fascinating read. I want to see
what all these people have to say. Anyway, thanks for
your time, eron and good luck with everything.
Speaker 3 (20:51):
Okay, you too, Thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (20:54):
All right, take care, bye, all right, bye bye, da
(21:25):
hey everybody, and to forget Follow us on Instagram at
I Am All In podcast and email us at Gilmore
at iHeartRadio dot com
I Am all In.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Let's you.
Speaker 3 (00:16):
I Am all In with Scott Patterson, an iHeartRadio podcast.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
Hey Everybody, Scott Patterson, I Am all In podcast. iHeartRadio
one eleven Productions a one on one interview with Aaron Berman,
who's a former editor writer for USA Today. He's a
freelance writer and editor with background covering technology, publishing, and entertainment.
Gilmore Girl's Companion released July twenty fifteen. Since we first
(00:43):
peeked into Stars Hollow, Connecticut, October fifth, two thousand, Gilmore
Girls has delighted people worldwide. The Gilmore Girls Companion takes
you behind the scenes of the classic television series from
first glimmer with the idea of making this series finale.
Based on more than forty interviews with cast and crew, Aaron,
(01:06):
welcome to this show. Tell us a little bit about
your book, what inspired it, and what do you find
most intriguing about the show.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
Thank you so much for having me, Scott. That book
was a labor of love from the very beginning. Basically,
like most Gilmore fans, I fell in love with Stars
Hollow and everybody in it, and I at the time
I was actually working on a making of book about
(01:33):
the seventy sitcom soap, And this was like thirty years
after the fact, and I was talking to people who
could barely remember a lot of what happened during the
making of that series, and there was also a lot
had passed away by the time I was doing that book.
And the first thing that struck me was I'd waited
(01:57):
a few years to see a book on Gilmore Girl
come out, and nothing had come out. And I was like,
you know what, I really don't want this to happen
to Gilmore Girls.
Speaker 3 (02:05):
It's such a special show.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
And what inevitably happens is, you know, memories get fuzzy,
and people forget how things were put together, and especially
the way Gilmore seemed to have been brought together, the
writing and just you know, everything that came together. I
didn't want that story to be lost, and so I
(02:29):
went to my publisher and pitched it and said, nobody's
done a book about this.
Speaker 3 (02:34):
Let me just start making some phone calls.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
Right, So what what first brought you to the show?
When did you discover the show?
Speaker 3 (02:42):
My memories are hazy, but I think I saw that.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
Hazy memories.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, there's gonna be a lot of gee,
I don't remember.
Speaker 3 (02:50):
I'm afraid it was. It was a long time ago.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
My memory isn't what it should be, but I think
I saw it from the pilot, and I think it was.
It was just the promo for it, that that iconic
shot of Stars Hollow with the church and and and
everything else.
Speaker 3 (03:05):
It's it instantly puts you, gives you a.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
Sense of home that I think a lot of people
don't have but wish for. There's a there's a word
that I can't think of for, but the definition is
a nostalgia for something that you never actually experienced yourself.
And I think that is the key to that show.
I think we all want a place that we can
(03:29):
call home and no, but very few people actually come
from a place that feels that that special.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
Mm hmm. You know a lot of those places in
the Northeastern United States. I came from a place like that. Yeah,
I came from a place like Stars Hollow. Where'd you
come from?
Speaker 3 (03:50):
I came from the suburbs of Washington, d C.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
Nothing like that, Nothing like it, nothing.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
Nothing, nothing at all like that. And in fact, the
funny thing is that the reality of it is every
time you talk to somebody who said, so, oh, yeah,
I grew up in a small town. The first thing
I did was get the heck out of there.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
That's exactly what I did. That's exactly what I did.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
Yeah. See, it's the fantasy without the other part. You know,
everybody knows everybody's business in a fun, warm way in
Gilmore Girls. In the real world, it's why does she
know my business?
Speaker 1 (04:23):
Mmmmm, well, you know, yeah, they're pros and cons of
small towns. Right when you're growing up and you're not
having the best experience, or even if you are having
a great experience growing up in a small town, everybody
knows your business. You know, there's a big, wide world
out there. You want to you want to dive into it,
you know, if you have any kind of curiosity. And
(04:46):
but I found out that most people from the town
that I grew up and ended up staying there. If
they went away to college, they came back. They found
a way back. I think that stars hollowing it. You're right,
that's one of the main hours of this show. If
not for all the jokes, you'd still have a show.
(05:07):
What kind of a show do you think would be
without the humor, without the jokes, do you think it
would be pretty barren? Would it be empty? What do
you think?
Speaker 2 (05:14):
I think it's the idea of stars hollow that draws
you in, but it's the writing that keeps you there
and coming back week after week. And it was particularly
interesting to me putting this book together, right, Actually it
was during and a little bit after putting the soap
book together. Soap was was. The showrunner was Susan Harris,
(05:37):
who was a real trailblazer in the seventies for you
didn't have female showrunners in those days for the most part,
and she wrote half the series before she even took
on a writing partner. And going from talking to her
and her experiences, and then talking to people who worked
(05:59):
on Gill and were very familiar with Amy's Amy's ways
and her writing process, and then Amy and Dan, there's
there's just something about both of those. Those people had
a love of language that comes through in the scripts.
I mean Gilmour especially. You can spot certain references that
(06:22):
you know, people have spent the last twenty some years
tracking down the references, and it makes you feel like
you're part of a club when you do.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
Oh, without question, you know, I don't know really anything
about Dan's background. But I know a little bit about
Amy's background, and she had an interesting upbringing, didn't she.
If did you interview Amy.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
For this were there were people I reached out to
that that I spoke with about forty people for this book.
There were there were some people that, for lack of
a better phrase, I couldn't get past the gate keepers,
which I mean that they're there for a reason. You know,
if all you're doing is fielding interviews, you have very
little time to work.
Speaker 3 (07:08):
She was. She and Dan were two that didn't.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
Get to speak with, But I spoke with enough people
had worked with her and also just indeed her her background.
She was the daughter of Don Sherman, who was this
famous Cat Skills comic who also acted and wrote for
a number of big, big shows in the day.
Speaker 3 (07:31):
And you can tell.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
Very early on, actually you can see, especially in The
Marvelous Missus masl after Gilmore, you can see basically Amy's
life recreated in a lot of those episodes. There is
actually an episode or two that takes place in the
Cat Skills and it's like you can see you can
see the continuity between Gilmore and that show.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
Yeah, yeah, that was the show she was on Earth
the right that one you think, you think it's Gilmour,
but that was really her right.
Speaker 3 (08:05):
Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
If you were to choose a character in Gilmore that
you thought represented Amy and Dan, who would they be?
Speaker 3 (08:19):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (08:19):
My, I think that's always that's always a kind of
a trick question, because every writer will tell you that
there's a little bit of them in every single character.
I'd say, if a gun into my head, probably.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
Rory oh really yeah.
Speaker 3 (08:36):
First part of her life, and probably Laura Lai afterwards.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
Kay. So who did you interview from the cast?
Speaker 3 (08:44):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (08:44):
My?
Speaker 2 (08:46):
Uh, the late ed Herman, Kelly Bishop, Sean Gunn, Kiko
Kiko just quite quite a just went.
Speaker 3 (08:57):
Down the line.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
Michael Winners was I think was the first person I
spoke with for the book.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
He's yeah, he's fascinating. What was it like interviewing Kelly Bishop, to.
Speaker 2 (09:10):
Talk to both her and at Herman. It's it's not
even being in the presence of royalty, but just people
who are so professional and have seen so much and
have done so much. I felt very humbled just being
able to speak with them. But it's it's I don't
get starstruck very often, but I think Ed Herman, especially,
(09:33):
he spoke so well and was so warm that and
knew so much that you feel like, Okay, well, this
is my one chance to learn the secret of the universe.
What question do I need to be asking?
Speaker 1 (09:48):
Uh huh? And what did he reveal to you that.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
I think we bonded over, you know, speaking of iHeart
radio ed. Herman hearted radio big time, especially at old radio,
and I think we we bonded over that. His his
favorite was Bob and Ray back in the days. But
that love of radio is really a love of theater,
and I think that's something that comes across really quite
(10:14):
a bit in Gilmore Girls. There is a theatricality to
it in the love of language, which everything always comes
back to the love of language with Gilmore.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
Yeah, I just watched this episode. You know, you miss
a lot because you're laughing too much, So I didn't
have the time to rewind. But I think people stop
it if they're rewatching it and rewind and to get
what they didn't, you know, that passed them by. So
this happened three or four times while I was watching
this particular episode. It's just so chock full of jokes
(10:50):
and great ones and great situations. What did Ed reveal
or Kelly reveal any behind the scenes drama they give
you any juicy tidbits, I.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
Wouldn't call them juicy tidbits. That the one story I
came away with from from Ed really really hit home
for me was just the way that he kind of
took a Lexus Fladell under his wing during this time
she was she was so young and so inexperienced, and
so out of her element.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
She was.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
She'd I think she was living in an LA apartment
on her own, her away from Texas where she was from,
and just being thrown into not just a TV show
for the first time, but you know, carrying a TV
show as a co star with Lauren Graham, and that
(11:44):
is a lot to put on a kid who I
think she was like eighteen at the time. And the
way he spoke of her, it was very much like
a you know, a grandfather or a father would would
talk about somebody just saying, you know, I didn't want
I wanted to protect her from things I wanted to,
but at the same time, I wanted her to appreciate
(12:05):
what she was experiencing at the time, you know, walking
in the footsteps of these these great stars that came before.
Speaker 1 (12:13):
Interesting. Yeah, so he gave her that perspective. Did he
say that that changed her experience in a positive way.
Speaker 3 (12:22):
I don't.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
I don't think he ever really knew if it did,
but he felt that it was. It was kind of
his role in all of this to do that. And
I believe he said that the producers had also asked
him to just kind of keep an eye on her
just to make sure she's okay. And I appreciate you
asking me these things because I'm starting to remember little
(12:44):
little tidbits. I think Kelly Bishop had said she was
amazed at l Lauren Graham for the way she interacted
with Alexis physically like a mother would a daughter, and say,
I just think it's wonderful how you touch her all
the time, and you know, you really get the sense
of affection. And Lauren said, most of the time it
(13:04):
was I was just gently trying to guide her to
her mark because she was she was she was stepping
outside her mark and she was gonna be blurry. So
so but she they came up with this kind of
very this shorthand that was very much utilitarian, but it
was also getting across a very warm relationship between this
mother and daughter, and Kelly Bishop at one point says,
(13:28):
you know that there's a point in in the show
where she just brushes some hair away from Rory's face,
and it's it's something that pops up in the opener,
and she says, I don't know if that was to
do something to discuss you wanted to get the hair
out of her face, or if it was a loving,
nurturing gesture. But this is this is how you would
(13:50):
want your mother to be with you, Just constant reassurance.
Speaker 1 (13:55):
Yeah, she uh, yeah, that first year was something. You know,
she was at NYU and film school and she had
no prior acting experience from what I can gather, maybe
she was an acting class. She was living in New
York obviously and modeling on the side, right, and went
(14:17):
in for the audition and I believe she was sick,
she had the flu or something, and she was stuff stuff,
stuffy and sneezy and coldy and fluey. So I think
she appeared a bit dismissive towards Amy and just kind
of wanted to get out of there. They hired her
(14:38):
for it because of it. She flipped was like she
flipped and she was great in the park, right. Yeah.
I don't think there's anybody's so vulnerable, such a such
a vulnerable soul right there on your screen, right, no artifice,
no tricks now, I mean, what you see is what
(14:59):
you get. Yeah, But as she got through that first year,
so imagine going from that to the isolation of being
by yourself in a new situation and working that many
hours every single Monday through Friday and not getting any
rest and just this is all you do. So at eighteen,
(15:21):
that must have been very heady.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
Stuff, definitely, And it's one of the things I was
going to say about your work, Gilmour, was I thought
you were one of the few people that wasn't really
a character in terms of I felt like your performance
was so naturalistic that, you know, everybody had this kind
(15:46):
of a little bit over the top character except for Luke.
And Luke you could see as just being a person
that you would know. And I was always I was
always flummexed by that because I was like, you know, there, yes,
Luke can be grumpy, and Luke Luke has his secrets
and all, and you know, maybe he isn't as sure
(16:06):
as of himself as as he may come across. But
at the same time, you know, he wasn't Kirk, he
wasn't Taylor, he wasn't you know, he didn't have this
characteristic you could just pin down. And I thought that
was really cool that, you know, you feel like you
could go into this any town and you and Luke
would actually be somebody that you you would meet.
Speaker 1 (16:29):
Interesting. Interesting. How how has the book uh changed your
life or has it changed your life at all?
Speaker 2 (16:38):
I think it definitely definitely changed it at the time
that I was writing it and that it first came out.
And keep in mind, this was this was I was
working on it in the early twenty tens, so Facebook
was a thing, but it was still kind of growing.
It was still kind of stuck in Farmville and Mafia
Wars and didn't quite know what it wanted to be yet.
(16:59):
And so during the writing of this whole book, I
kept a blog and would just post what was going
on with the you know, I spoke with so and
so today, or this occurred to me, you know, maybe
this is something. And I heard from a lot of people,
and not just in the US. One of the most
fascinating things to me is I heard from fans around
(17:21):
the world regularly. I mean they became friends, and I
was like, how are you, How are you watching Gilmore
Girls in Croatia?
Speaker 3 (17:29):
How are you?
Speaker 2 (17:30):
And you know, I had one person in Germany who
they were broadcasting it in Germany in German.
Speaker 3 (17:40):
But it'd be late.
Speaker 2 (17:41):
And after a while she got so hung up on
the show that she didn't want to wait for the
dubbed German version, so she put together what English she could.
She would somebody would upload the show and this is
you know, two thousand and six, two thousand and five,
so it would upload show to the internet. She would
(18:01):
get up, set her alarm, get up at like two
or three in the morning, download it, go back to sleep,
and then watch it in the American version the next morning.
Speaker 1 (18:09):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (18:09):
Yeah, that's that's how dedicated she was.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
And when you think about how American Gilmore Girls is,
you know, the references are almost all you know, American
pop culture, you know, obscure bits of American history, and
you know, I would go on to the blog and
people would be like, oh, this is this is kind
of cool.
Speaker 1 (18:32):
So this this, this brings me to my next question, why,
Aaron do you think this show is not only as
popular as it's ever been, but it seems to be
getting more and more popular as the years go by.
Why why is that happening?
Speaker 3 (18:50):
I think it's because.
Speaker 2 (18:54):
The world is getting tougher rougher, a place that you
don't really want to be at least, and I think
it's become a star's hollow, is becoming this place that
you know, if we all just dropped our differences for
a minute, maybe we could This is what we could have.
Speaker 1 (19:11):
Final question, Sure, what do you hope fans take away
from your book?
Speaker 2 (19:16):
I hope that they get past just the actors and
the stories themselves and actually get an appreciation for all
everything that went into creating this show. There was a
lot of behind the scenes drama just to get it
going and to keep it going, and a lot of
people yourself in concluded, worked very hard to do this
(19:38):
day in, day out, eight day schedules for seven years,
and the creative process, to me, has always been so
much more interesting than just kind of the soap opera
aspect of what's going on on screen, as much as
satisfying as that is, because if you think about it,
(20:00):
to get that many people to cooperate for any length
of time to do anything is a momentous feat. And
to get them to do it so consistently well for
so long as you know, hats off to.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
Him, Aaron, thank you so much for coming on. The
book is called The Gilmore Girls Companion, A very thoughtful
trees stay on one of the iconic shows produced in
Hollywood in the last well forever. I guess huh it's
looking like anyway, Thanks so much for your time, Thank you.
Speaker 3 (20:34):
So much for having me so a pleasure talking to you.
Speaker 1 (20:36):
Pleasure talking to you too, And everybody, get out there
and by Aaron's book, I'm going to get it, and
it looks like a fascinating read. I want to see
what all these people have to say. Anyway, thanks for
your time, eron and good luck with everything.
Speaker 3 (20:51):
Okay, you too, Thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (20:54):
All right, take care, bye, all right, bye bye, da
(21:25):
hey everybody, and to forget Follow us on Instagram at
I Am All In podcast and email us at Gilmore
at iHeartRadio dot com
Hosts And Creators
Amy Sugarman
Danielle Romo
Scott Patterson
Tara Soudbaksh
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