New Again: Alexis Bledel
Netflix announced earlier this week that the company will be reviving one of our favorite television series from the 2000s: Gilmore Girls. When the entire series was put online earlier this year, it caused weekends of binge rewatching, but now we’re waiting in anticipation to hear which original cast members will be back, aside from the confirmed return of co-stars Alexis Bledel and Lauren Graham and the show’s creator Amy Sherman-Palladino. Until we know more, we decided to revisit a feature with Bledel from October 2002—after the show had amassed a cult-like following and just before the actress’s big-screen debut.
Alexis Bledel
By Nicole Vecchiarelli
TV’s latest breakaway finds adventure on the big screen.
Alexis Bledel, a sassy and sharp 21-year-old Houston native, has quickly made a name for herself as one of the stars of the WB hit Gilmore Girls. This month, she makes her film debut in Tuck Everlasting, a fantasy film inspired by Natalie Babbitt’s popular book, a story of an adventure-seeking teenage girl who discovers a family of immortals living in the woods near her home. “It was fun the play someone who’s a departure from my character on the show,” says the actress. “This girl is more rebellious—she does what she wants to do.” Not unlike Bledel herself, who as a freshman at New York University, having never acted before, on a whim went to an open audition and walked out with the Gilmore role.
In addition to exchanging small screen for big and the saccharine storylines of Gilmore Girls for one that involves weighty conflicts of mortality and sacrifice, Bledel faced the daunting task of working on Tuck with an Oscar-winning lineup of heavies that included Ben Kinglsey, Sissy Spacek, and William Hurt. “They’re all very accomplished and I’m…not,” she says modestly. “But making the movie made me feel like more of an actess, and I can’t wait to make another.” Eager to keep exploring the unknown, Bledel explains, “Next time I’m going for dark and intricate.”
THIS ARTICLE ORIGINALLY RAN IN THE OCTOBER 2002 ISSUE OF INTERVIEW.
New Again runs every Wednesday. For more, click here.
