‘Gilmore Girls’ was McCarthy’s first major role
Credit: Warner Bros.
NEED TO KNOW
- Melissa McCarthy reflected on working on Gilmore Girls, where she played Sookie St. James
- McCarthy said that it was “really hard” to memorize and perform the dialogue written for her by showrunner Amy Sherman-Palladino
- McCarthy said that fans still recognize her from the show to this day, despite how many other projects she’s done
Melissa McCarthy is reflecting on her time on Gilmore Girls.
McCarthy, 56, looked back at her career in a Sept. 21 interview with Variety. During the wide-ranging conversation, she was asked about Gilmore Girls. McCarthy played Sookie St. James, the best friend of Lauren Graham‘s Lorelai, who’s also the chef at the Independence Inn in the TV series.
Variety pointed out that Sookie was her “first big role” and noted it’s “not easy” to do dialogue written by Amy Sherman-Palladino. “It’s good training, I tell you that!” McCarthy said.
Asked about what the experience was like, she said, “It was hard! It was really hard.”
But the two-time Emmy winner said that because Gilmore Girls was her first show, it was “normal” to have such lengthy, reference-filled scenes from Sherman-Palladino’s pen. “So I was like, ‘Oh, our scripts are 93 pages, and you can’t change a contraction, even if you get them that morning and it’s a 10-page oner.’ And that’s just what it was.”
Credit: Warner Bros./Courtesy Everett
She continued, “I love that [Sherman-Palladino] had her own style, and I love that she built that world. I love that she fought for it, because a woman running that show at that time, I think you kind of had to be like, ‘It’s my way or the highway.’ I think she had to probably fight to keep it the way she wanted to. And I’m glad she did, because it stood the test of time. People really take ownership of that show.”
Sherman-Palladino, 60, created and was showrunner of the series, which premiered in 2000. The show followed Graham’s Lorelai and Alex Bledel‘s Rory as a mother-daughter pair living in the fictional Stars Hollow, Conn. The series’ other stars included Kelly Bishop, Keiko Agena, Yanic Truesdale, Scott Patterson, Edward Herrmann, Liza Weil, Jared Padalecki, Milo Ventimiglia, Sean Gunn, Chris Eigeman and Matt Czuchry.
In the show’s seventh and final season, Sherman-Palladino and her husband Daniel Palladino both left the show, with David S. Rosenthal replacing them. In 2016, the couple reunited with the show’s original cast for the Netflix special, Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life, which aired in four parts.
McCarthy also expressed her surprise that so many young people are still watching the show today, but joked that doesn’t include her two kids.
“It’s so funny, my kids have not watched it,” she said. “But Vivian and I were both home with the flu — this is years ago. And it came on and she was like, ‘That’s your show, right? That was your first show?’ ”
McCarthy, who stars in the upcoming TV series The Murder of JonBenét Ramsey, noted that she got pregnant with Vivian at the very end of the original series. On Gilmore Girls, Sookie and her eventual husband Jackson (played by Jackson Douglas) had four kids. When she got pregnant in real life, she told Sherman-Palladino, “You can have me have another kid again, and I’ll give you the prop for free.” But the creator decided not to write the pregnancy into the show again, and they had to hide her pregnancy.
McCarthy appeared briefly in Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life. “It was fun to see everybody again,” she said, adding that she still sees Graham and Truesdale. “We’ve gone on vacation with Yanic. We’re really close.”
“I just wanted to go and see everybody,” she said. “So it was really nice to do. I always wonder, will something else happen with that?” she added, before clarifying that she doesn’t have any intel.
Gilmore Girls‘ original run was from 2000 to 2007, with 153 episodes. McCarthy said she’s always “shocked” how many people still recognize her from the show. She joked, “I’m like, ‘I’ve worked since then!’ But it is nice.” She added that the show has the “coziest feeling” and that she felt lucky to do the show.
In August, HBO Max announced a Gilmore Girls documentary was in the works, which will include insights from Sherman-Palladino, her husband and Graham.
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