I Am all In.
That's you.
I Am all In with Scott Patterson, an iHeartRadio podcast.
Hey everybody, Scott Patterson, Welcome to round two of I Am all In. This is the I Am all In Again Podcast one eleven productions. iHeartRadio, iHeartMedia, iHeart Podcast, Episode one, Season one. The Beloved Pilot with special guest, the One the Only, Seawan Gun. Yes, he is here with us. We're gonna shake things up a little bit with Sean. We're gonna include spoilers. Sean welcome. I think you have the better You win the background photo contest on this one. I like your background photo.
Oh that's for Cayl Welch from one Million Years PC.
You can't go wrong with that. This is uh, this is Charro from the Early Years.
Yeah.
I don't even know what that means. It's is one of our panty So Sean's going to join us.
Uh.
Danielle Romo from My Intrepid Crew is joining us in here. Hello Danielle, and.
This is we're doing it again. We're doing it again.
You're super fans.
And Shanna have a question for you. Have you ever seen the pilot before? Because you're not in it. Okay, you have Okay, you know, oddly.
It's like it's probably the episode that I've seen the most number of times because over the years, like there have been you know, all right, let's just get into it, right, Like, let's just get into it. So over the years, over the last twenty years or so, whenever I would date somebody who had never seen the show, well, first of all, that was a prerequisite. I wouldn't I wouldn't date fans of the show. So I'd have to only date people who had never seen it. And and they would occasionally
be like, oh, I want to watch it. And so I've watched the pilot a few times over the last twenty five years, and then it and then it's like it didn't go much further than that, like.
The one you were in the show.
It's like, I like, you know, in other words, you didn't make it to episode two, right, right, dating parlance? Okay, Right, And I got to.
Shout out my wife, who's an amazing human and and just the greatest, but we didn't make it to episode two either, really, but yeah, yeah, she's she's watched a handful of the over the years, but like, I don't know, man, maybe maybe maybe you can get this scut if there's something weird about you know, you don't you don't want to totally share your TV persona with with with your actual human persona. You don't want those that ven diagram to overlap too.
Much overlaps because his wife was in the series, like actually on camera.
But you know, I know what you mean. It's uh, it's a lot of pressure. A can lead to a tremendous amount of disappointment B.
For fans, well for my character particularly, it's like, right, oh, hey, you know, this is a grown man who lives in his mother's basement. Like, let's fire it up. Anyway, I digress. It was great to watch the pilot again and had been a few years. But it's also I think the episode that I last actually watched start to finish was also the pilot a few years ago.
It is a terrifically watchable episode and what what what a fantastic opening sequence, just just beautiful.
Yeah. I actually I'm curious about it because you would know more about this than I would, because I was under the impression that the entire pilot was was filmed in Toronto. It was, but there are some scenes in there that look like they're pickups on the Warner Brothers lot.
Oh maybe they did do that. Which ones? Which one?
Well, you know there's one shot like there's one shot where worries like outside it chilt. Oh, yes, you get a larger sense of the Miss Patty and it looks I was like, wait a minute, that's saying that has to be the Warner Brothers a lot. So yeah, I was wondering if they when they picked the show up, if they did a couple of of exterior you know, shops.
Yeah, I don't know. I I think you're right, because it looked exactly. Miss Patty's looked exactly, and the backside of Stars in Front the other one too, right, and the front the front of Stars Hollow High School looked exactly like the back loot. And and also when when Rory and keko Or and Lane are walking up to the high school and they're having their conversation about the hay ride and the Korean doctor. Yes, that looked like the Warner Brothers. Yes, yeah, you're right, you're right.
You know it didn't different.
You know what else didn't was Luke himself. I just love That's my favorite thing. It's like it's like, like one of the big things different about about then, about twenty five years ago than it is now is you know, nowadays, at every show you have the whole season written before you even go into production, so there's no tinkering with these characters, which is fine. I mean, that's a fine
way to do things. But it's interesting going back and watching the show and like Scott watching Luke and seeing like, oh, they didn't like you and the creators the show itself, you hadn't quite pinpointed who this character was, right, Yes, he wasn't quite there. You were playing like you were. He was a super interesting character, super compelling. You wanted to see more of him, but he wasn't exist. He
was like off center or something. Then and then over the court and that was exactly what happened with my character in the next episode, but like it's not exactly what he isn't where he landed, you know, and then Oka or playing it it starts to take its shape and do its thing and come into view. You never see that on television anymore. It doesn't just doesn't happen anymore.
So you your deal not to get too personal, but your deal I mean, you weren't. Were you a series regular right away?
Oh?
Wasn't. I wasn't. I had to they booked me for the pilot. That's it. Yeah, that was an audition. That was just an audition. I flew up to Toronto to do an audition to see if I was going to be on the show and actually film the pilot, because they could have redone those scenes with somebody else very easily, you know what I mean.
Oh, yeah, well, obviously you nailed it because I think that you know, I don't know if they did the kind of uh uh you know, viewer testing, right, you know, who knows if they showed this in front of a test audience, but I'm sure if they did, they were like, oh, we love that guy who's yeah, and so we said, okay, yes, let's keep him.
Let's I don't quite understand that, Scott, though, because literally the show after you know, it starts on loare Li, but then it's Luke and lare Lie and the episode ends Luke and Lareli.
It's okay, so the way right exactly. So that's the way it was described to me by my managers, that this is a chemistry test. The pilot is a chemistry test with you and Lauren, and if it works, we'll see it on screen. If it doesn't, they'll probably you know, reshoot it with another actor.
Yeah, you know, honestly, it's to me, it's the most fascinating thing about the pilot as a whole, which I don't know, you know how how wonky uh you know, you're you're your listeners are, but like it's it's it's like a it's a study in show business a little bit from two thousand, from the year it was made, where they're they're trying to use this alchemy to get all of the little pieces right and get the right chemistry between the two leads and the right chemistry between
the you know, the the well between both Lauren and Alexis and then Lauren and you, and and then Lauren and Kelly. And they're trying to get everything right, and then they they shape a show out of it rather than doing all of that beforehand.
And and you know what I mean, right, yeah.
Yeah, And and and to to answer your question from before, I was I was not. I mean I was a it was a co star role, not even a guest star role.
So it was.
Which again to get like technical for for people who aren't actors, it's like, but the you know, guest star is higher on the totem pole than co star is. My agent at the time recommended that I pass on the audition films because yeah, it was a one day
it was a one day co star role. And they were like, hey, you've been out there for you know, I'd been in I had been auditioning and doing some work for a year or two and and was like booking pretty well and was like recurring on on a different show on the WB that didn't last long, but like you know, I was doing I was doing fine for a struggling actor, and it was a it was a one day co star role. And they were like, no, no, no, we're just pushing you for guest star only, which is
like a little more money. It means you get I means you get hired for the week instead of for the day, or that your daily rate is a little bit better. And they're like, and we're not taking these types of roles. But my my manager at the time, Gordon,
was friends with mar Casey from Chicago. Mara was one of the Marin and Jamie Rudowsky were the two great casting directors for our show, and they I think their work speaks for itself with all of the all of the great actors that ended up being on the show over the and uh in Gordon Knumara from Chicago, and so he so he said, yeah, your agents don't want you to do this, but I think you should do it because it's mar Is, my old friend and it's cool. And I was I was like I was with everything
and I just wanted to work all the time. Yeah, because what I'm still like, I'm like that now I want to just work all the time. And uh and so I said, well, let me just read the sides, you know, send me the scene. And I read the scene and I was like, this is funny. I can do it, and I can do it well, So of course I'll go in an auditions for it, not caring about the size of the role. And then and then the story goes on from there. But that's how I ended up on the show.
Fascinating, fascinating.
So literally we're talking where I am talking and our listeners are listening to two people that were supposed to be on for one or two episodes and became the whole series, Like, that's crazy to think about. You are a huge part, a havotal part of this series. And to just hear as a fan now now as a fan, how that almost you know in the beginning wasn't pinned out to be that way. It's crazy. I love it though, It's amazing.
I just you know, they had so many you know, Amy and Dan had had blueprinted so many great characters. Yeah, and they knew they they must have known, and that had something special. I mean they wrote, they wrote that script, they read that script, they had their friends read that script.
The feedback must have been, you know, glowing from all corners, and so they knew what they had and I think they probably felt they could afford to be a little more cautious with certain roles, right, and not have to
commit to certain people right away. I mean, they knew they had their core with you know, Lauren, Alexis, Kelly, and Ed right, so that's they have their Gilmours, but everybody else, I mean, you know Alex Borstein was originally Suki, right, Yeah, and then she couldn't get out of her and she would have been a great Suki because she's a she's
a terrific actress. And then when Suki came in, and when when Melissa came in, it was like, oh, that's such a different energy and different vision for the character, but it worked so beautifully.
Yeah, totally. I don't I don't know what. You may know the story behind it better than I do, but I know that, like Alex was gonna play Sukie, she couldn't because she couldn't get out of it. The family got contract probably.
The Fox series. What was that thing mad TV? Oh it was still mad TV back they wouldn't let her out.
And and even that I heard like, oh, well, you know, we may see more of her as the herd player. And obviously like Alex is God, she's good, right and.
Like so tell it, tell it to the tip Jar, Yeah right, and just kind of.
Kept doing her thing, and yeah, that was that was interesting. My second episode, I had a little interaction with Alex when I was delivering Swans. But it's a yeah, it's it's it's interesting. I was.
I was actually a little worried when she was replaced. I said, oh, God, here we go. They find the perfect actress to play Suki. This is just amazing. You've got this, this really terrific actress. It's really funny.
Whatever happened to Melissa McCarthy, by the way, did she go?
I don't know.
I don't hear of her. She's done any work after she was able to find work.
It's one of those stories, you know, It's one of those unrealized potential. It's just so sad.
I saw her, like like the first year or something like that. I went and saw her perform in a very small groumblings show.
Yeah, we were all there.
We went together, like and like, God, she was good.
Yeah.
Were you with us that night? No, I went, you went, okay, Yeah, I.
Went, Like by myself, I was.
I was kind of you know, I was.
It was another thing that came up watching the show is that, like I was so young in my career and I was always afraid of rocking the boat. You know. I thought that if I I thought that if I was more vocal, I might lose my job. So I just didn't say anything. I didn't ask questions. I tried to show up and do the thing like I.
Didn't know, you know.
Like my first three episodes, I played the DSL installer, the Swan delivery guy, right and then I think I show up in the third episode is as Kirk right, you can't remember if the Civil War of the Revolutionary War reenactment was before that, before or after my I don't know if that was third or fourth. But like, I didn't know if I was actually playing the same character. I didn't know if I was like being a different guy because they all had different names, and I didn't
I hadn't seen the show yet. It hadn't aired, so I didn't know exactly what was going on, and I just didn't ask. I was like, I'm just going to do my mines and try to make.
They'll figure out how it all makes sound.
They'll tell me if they want me to do something different. I was like, I was afraid to ask what was going on, which is funny.
That's smart. I mean, that's a smart way to go about it. You know, you know, you don't want to be that nail that sticks up right away, no hammer you All right, Well, let's get into it, Danielle. Why don't you give us a little synopsis on episode one season one?
All right? So, season one, episode one, the pilot air day October fifth, two thousand. The storybook Connecticut Town of Stars Hollow is home to thirty two year old Lorelai
Gilmore and her sixteen year old daughter Rory. Rory and her best friend Lane are straight A students at the local public high school, but when Rory is accepted into the prestigious Chiltern Prep in nearby Hartford, the Steve Tuition fee forss Lorelei to try to mend the long standing rift with her wealthy parents, Richard and Emily, and ask for financial help.
You know what's so fascinating about this show is you've got two legitimate leads. You've got two legitimate shows here in Lorelei and Rory. And then as it matures, I mean you could you could make separate shows just changing the POV a little bit from each of their storylines.
Right, absolutely, Yeah, it's a It is a beautiful pilot. It is like really yeah, you know, you look at it from a storytelling perspective and it's like, it's like, how easily can I describe it to a friend of mine? And it's very easy, you know, mother daughter? They look like sisters.
Oh my god, it was so in this episode. I literally was like, are they sisters? Or is Rory? Or is alexis Lauren's actual daughter. They are so similar it's crazy.
And if I'm if I'm correct, they were playing sixteen and thirty two, Yeah, and they were like eighteen and thirty two. They were like very close to actually.
Being that.
Yeah, right, being what they were, and yeah, you're right, Scott. It's like you can look at it from any perspective. It's like, oh, we have we have the mom's story, we have the daughter's story. It's very clear. If you put the money to go to school, you got to come here every Friday. You got to go back to this old life that you've run away from. It's all.
It's very very clean and almost very very dense, very very dense. It's almost like those two were one character. And yeah, you know you were following both of them, even though one was because you were always thinking of, Okay, how's Laurai going to react when Rory's doing this stuff over here? And how's Rory going to react when Laura is going to do that? It's like, yeah, there one character. Pretty much to.
Your point, it felt like the first half of the pilot was very much Lauraai point of view. She was, you know, leading it. She was the main but then it almost shifted when Rory decided she was feeling or having cold fee about Chiltern, and then it became her point of view. And in my opinion, I felt like a shift where in the beginning it was all Laurai and in the second half it started to feel all Rory. I don't know if you guys got that, but I felt a shift there.
So when we start off, it's shot in Canada most of it, as we have been discussing some obviously we're shot at the back lot on Warner Brothers. But and that was a vote taken by the cast, and and the very first shot of the pilot, Main Street is in Unionville, Ontario, which is just north of Toronto, which is really like, uh, start that that's the model for Stars Hollow, is that is that sort of fantasy town with cobblestone streets and and antique architecture and wonderful little shops.
And the hardware store on Main Street was turned into Luke's Diner. That was an actual hardware store in Unionville that they converted for the filming. And this is how the story of turning Luke turning his father's hardware store into a into a diner came to be.
Uh.
The pilot, I will say, has a slightly different cinemount of quality compared to the episode shot at Warner Brothers a lot. It really did feel like film. It felt, you know, Leslie linka gladder shot this almost like it felt like a movie almost did How did you feel about that?
Yeah, Well, it's noticeable. I think when you watch it, like, oh, this is this is a little bit different. This is like one step It's kind of what we were talking about. It's like one half a step outside of of what the show actually is. It looks cool, but it's also like, you know, it's finding its secure footing, you know, and
it's not it's not quite there yet. I was pretty startled by how the you know, by how the diner itself, even though it's clearly a different location because the door isn't a different spot right the doors right in the middle instead of on the corner. But all the other details are very very good, like the you know, the interior. There were a couple of times when I would see a shot from the interior that I was like, that's
not a pickup from Warner Brothers, is it? And it wasn't, but it's like all of the you know, the production design was like was pretty impeccable.
Yeah, And talking about the different looks, I think what we're dealing with here is East Coast natural lighting versus West Coast sunlight, which is always golden or yellowish, right, and they have to tamp that down to make it look like Connecticut because it's completely different light. That was the big I think Leslie used a lot of natural lighting or very minimal lighting in shooting the pilot. Obviously she'd do some lighting indoors.
But yeah, and it's also the like like it's there's a little bit of a different like I remember well that in the first season, I remember Lauren was nominated for a Golden Globe in the category of Best Actors on a Comedy show. And then between seasons one and two they changed our standings are standing from a comedy to a drama because they didn't know where to put it right right right, And I think that I think that that is also reflected you talk about like the
East Coast ladic versus West Coast lading. There's also a little bit of a comedy versus drama eension going on, which is like, what exactly is this center of this show? Like where is it? Where is it supposed to land? Which is great, it's what audiences want now. They don't want to see things that are that are you know, cookie Cutter are like we're going to tell you this is a comedy, or we're going to tell you it's
like kind of somewhere. It lives somewhere in the middle, And that was that was unique, Like there weren't a lot of shows that lived in the middle.
Right, right, Yeah, you're right, it probably Gilmour probably influenced a lot of shows to you know, walk that tightrope between trauma and comedy because this did it so well. Yeah, but at the end of the day, I'm always looking at this like it's a comedy with very effective because Sean, as you know, the best comedy comes from the most tension in the most dramatic situations. Yeah, and this provided that.
So I always saw it as a comedy and I think it works best as a light comedy with a touch of drama.
Yeah. I mean, look, I've said this like many times and I'll say it again. Like the reason I ended up on the show for as long as I was on. It was because when I read the first scene of the DSL installer the first time I was on the show and I read the scene, I was like, I get this. I'm a student of film in film history. I know, like old film comedies like prest and Sturge's and Howard Hawks, like I've seen his Girl Friday. I've seen like rapid fire forties comedy, and that's what this is.
And that's what I was playing, and I think that that's what Amy saw. She was like this guy gets it.
But right, but did you feel that the pilot because what I noticed in the pilot, it was more relaxed. It wasn't so speedy time. It unfolded like in a little more naturalistic way. Nothing was rushed. Especially I especially noticed it with Rory and Lane scene when they're walking up when first see them, very relaxed and then you sort of fast forward to what it became and it was just everything was just yeah, fast paced.
Yeah you know, yeah, and I don't you know, it's like works.
Either way, you know, I agree, yeah, works either way. All right, so we are uh right, then there you go.
We did kind of talk about how Luke isn't Luke in this episode. Yet, Yeah, so because we see I think they were trying to see what stuck, right, So they tried the flannel with the backwards hat, then they tried the button up shirt. He also was like very sweet and carrying and not caring, like very sweet and personal and like no disrespect to Luke. But we know that wasn't who he really was in the series, So I feel like even his personality was a little bit different in this as well.
Well.
I just think I just think I went with it's what I did in the audition that worked. It got me the role, that got me the offer, not the role, but got me the pilot. I didn't get the role, I got the pilot. I got the role in the pilot. You know, I didn't get the whole, the whole mcgilla.
You know.
It was like my manager said, listens, like, don't screw this up, because this could be really nice because, like Sean said, this begins with Luke and it ends with Luke Steiner. You know, it starts there, and so there's got to be there's a reason for that, and you know, obviously it's it's the potential sparks between Luke and Lorelei and you see.
That especially with the button up shirt scene, you know where you two you can just see it like, Okay, where is that going to go with the two of them?
Did they tell you Scott about like was it? Do you remember the description of the character when you audition for it? Was he supposed to be a hard ass basically like he was like no nonsense, you know, like I noticed a couple of things that are like red meat will kill you. Yeah, stuff like that. I don't know that he I don't know that Luke would have said that three seasons later, but it was it was funny, Like I liked it. It was like I I longed for that like sort of that that level of of acid.
Well, you get it from Luke, you get it from you get it from Michelle, and you get it from Drella. There's there's three characters there that embody that kind of DNA where it's just like this dead pan kind of throwaway and I don't care. Which I think was Amy and Dan's interpretation of East Coast.
You know, Emily, Emily carries out a little bit.
To right exactly, Yes, yeah, right, there's so that's East Coast, Northeastern snark and you know, even if you know Luke isn't a quote unquote educated person, it all, you know, it trickles down everywhere, especially in that area because that's you know, that's the IVY League, that's Ivy League turf up there, So it all trickles down. So it's all snarky, fast, funny kind of stuff.
And that's Amy, right, I mean that's yeah, Like, that's that's all those characters all a little bit speaking to her voice.
You know, yeah, they're all her.
Yeah.
We've often tried to pin down which characters are are most like Amy or if Amy, did Amy write herself into one of these characters, and we're trying to figure that out.
And what do you guys say is the answer to that?
I don't know.
I thought Paris maybe, oh yeah, wow, that's it.
That's actually pretty good.
But not Amy. But it's like Amy, it's like three quarter Amy, because Amy's very to me.
It's more like what percentage of Amy is every character?
Right?
That's that's the better question.
Maybe his high as like seventy five percent, right, it's like thirty Rory's fifteen percent, right, Emily sixty percent? Like there's right, right, you could probably go through, and I'm sure your fans will enjoy doing that. I'm not going to do it myself. But I know I don't think I actually don't think Kirk she's They always thought Kirk washilarious, but that's not I think k might actually be more damn than than he is.
Amy. That's right interesting, But I don't know that he's either interesting. But Amy, you know, Amy is so the real Amy in life is she's so up and positive and just infused with energy and motherly love for everyone, hugs and laughter. That's Amy. She's she's she's a you know, she's she's a quite a presence when she comes on set.
Oh my god, Yeah, she's She's the greatest. I it's always a funny thing to me to go back, like I did, to hear him and and and like watch early episodes of the show, and you know, watch the pilot episode and think that for me, Amy was like sort of scary, you know, like she was she was my ball, and she was you know, she was the person who could write me off the show at any time.
So even though I I didn't necessarily have any reason to fear her, I did, you know, I was always all you know, like, yeah, he was the boss, and it's it's crazy to me to now look back and be like wow, Amy was like she was like in her mid thirties show running this uh this this project
that was really her baby, you know. It was like it was like she she like did every part of that was was like from her creative mind and was was was constantly dealing with outside influences of people who thought like, oh, let me, let me tell you how to do this a little bit better. She show yes and like and like there were there were studio people, and there were other There was a lot of pressures on people who who want to tell young women that they are not as that they are not as smart
as capable as they think that they are. And there were a lot of people like that coming down on Amy and she was like no, no, no, no, no, no, you don't. This is my show. I'm doing it the way I want to do it. And I have so much respect for her that that I've learned over the years in the business that like, oh she just wasn't she just wasn't taking any notes. Yeah, yeah, she was like I don't I'm not interested in in your in your notes. I love it. I think it's great.
It's like, you know, very very bold step too, yeah to go, you know, toe to toe. But it is why the show is so unique. It is, it is why it's you know, it's become. I used to think it was just because of this seeming growth and resurgence of the show. It's it really has sustained all these years, but it just seems like generation after generation is discovering it. It's number eight on the Nielsen streaming ratings and it was been off the air since two thousand and seven.
I mean, there's six hundred and forty million minutes per week consumed on average the show. It's it's it's insanity how popular this show is. And I used to think it was purely a nostalgia play. It's not. It's relevant today because of the because it's so smart and it's so funny, and how does that ever get old? Nobody gets sick of that, So it's so now it's really not as a surprise that, you know, children as young as six and seven years old are watching the show
with their arents. Men are discovering it now and Sean, you do uh, you do more conventions than I do. But when I'm at them and we're at them together, what do they do. They they bring these their little little babies dressed to the characters and and and it's and the men are like, oh, I love the show more than my wife. And it's everybody. It's actually tell you how.
Many I can't tell you how many young like young women that I'm like, young girls that I've met who are named.
The Laurelai right, yes, or Rory. I just met a couple of I'm in Canada shooting another show and I just met a couple of people that they named them their daughters Rory.
It's crazy, yes, yeah, And and I do I always answer that question when people ask what is how do you attribute the longevity of the show? I'm like, well, great writing kind of rises to the top. And Amy's a great writer, and she knew what she was doing and she knew what she had and and that's really it. It's like, there's there's a lot of other little pieces that worked that helped it. There's a lot of alchemy that goes into the good luck of having it be successful.
But it always you can always whittle it down to that core of like yep, Amy's writing.
How solid is the writing? Yeah, you can have you can have the best crew, you can have the best actors. And you know, I'm watching a lot of things now because I have, you know, a day off here, so I'm trying to catch up on stuff, and there's always a point where it's like I shouldn't have done that. You don't watch it anymore. It just takes one kind of bone headed decision on the writer's side and it's over.
It just kills it. And all these sort of limited series and that you see now right, there's so much content and they inevitably fail at some point early on. They start out like a house on fire, but you know it's not going to last. This one lasts.
And I think.
My take is, yes, I one hundred percent agree with you. It's the quality of the writing. It always has been for me. Anything that I love, it's always great writing. You know, great writing attracts great directors, great producers, great actors. It attracts all the top tier talent. Because the thing in Hollywood is how good is a script? And this is a really hot script. It's not like, you know, there's any other element that needs to be attached to it.
Elements will attach themselves to great writing. And it's just the humor of the show. For me, after watching going through all these one hundred and fifty three shows in four episodes, it's the humor. It's I think people, we'll keep coming back for a lot of reasons. But it's so funny and it's so much humor. It's so dense. Every episode has fifty to one hundred laughs, you know, big kind of big laughs, and you don't get you don't get that kind of volume in quality anywhere else.
It's overwhelmingly good, you know. It's just it's just overwhelming, and people have to watch it because they don't hear they're too busy last and they laughing, they miss the next two jokes. Oh, so they're gonna see it again anyway. So let's talk a little bit about the music on the show.
There she goes opening up. The whole entire pilot.
Was so good, just iconic. It's thrilling to watch the pilot because you get to hear that song and see those pictures. It's just such a beautiful opening. It's sung by the Laws and help the Laws. Yeah, and there she goes It's been covered by sixpence, none the richer, and this song became iconic with the fans and with me and where the Colors Don't Go by Sam Phillips, the Great Sam Phillips, when Lorelei parks in front of
her parents mashing. This was a deeply emotional episode in every beat was so clearly deeply emotional, and the music had a lot to do with it. Oh yeah, you know.
That was the thing that was one of the things.
You know, I talked earlier about being a little bit of afraid of any and one of the things that that sort of broke that barrier was talking to Dan Palladino and understanding that he and I were both like deep dive music fans and where Dan comes from musically, and you know, I like Daniel Palladino for those who don't know, knows just about everything about in music, like go ahead and yeah and I and I hear that, I hear the laws and I'm like, oh, that's that's
probably Dan's influence there. Who knows, but but yeah, God that that music is so good. I was able to meet Sam Phillips at the one of the uh you know, a rap party for for something, and she also does all of the la la la la, that's all. That's all same?
Really is that true?
She she's she's amazing.
She like if you've never heard her, She's got a bunch of great albums. But she has an album called a Boot and is Shoe that's really just like phenomenal that if you know, for anyone who wants to go back and listen to her music, like that's that's my favorite album of hers. Yeah, the music's great.
I do want to talk about how we meet each character, though, Scott, because I think I'll let you you take it away, but I feel like I want to go through each character and how we meet them, and it truly does set up the rest of the series. There's just little nuggets in this pilot that play true through all seven seasons and the movies.
All right, Well, as you know, we first see Laura La that's the first person we see. Then we see Luke, we meet him, then we meet Rory in that order. Here's a little side note. Liza Wheel, who played Paris, originally auditioned for Rory. Can you imagine she probably would
have been pretty good at it too. After Alexis got depart, Amy told her if the pilot got picked up, told Liza that is, if the pilot got picked up, she'd write an arc specifically for her, which is very very generous of somebody to do, which meant, yes, she did have control of her universe and she was going to do anything that she wanted to do. Michelle we meet quickly at the end, and we established that he is
kind of a better dressed French version of Luke. Now and Lane and Rory walk up, they establish their best friends deans at school, and we learn a lot about their friendship and Lane's life in a very short scene. You know, all they had to do was talk about the hay Ride and my mother, my Korean mother, and Korean doctors, and we got to do this hay Ride as a pre date and see if it's gonna So we know a lot about Lane already.
We also find out that she loves rock music like in this very first scene, so that kind of sets up a lot for her character later on too.
And we see Dean revealed at the school he's been watching Rory, not in a creepy way, according to.
Dean, just in a creepy way seeing you every day after school. It's just this book last week, in this book this week.
Oh God, Dean, whenever you hear somebody say out loud, yeah, it wasn't in a creepy way.
I think it probably was.
I don't know, man, I don't know.
Can look can can sixteen year olds be creepy? I mean I don't think so. I mean they're just like, yeah, they're just discovering all this stuff. It's like they don't know what that does, and they scare, you know, they're scared of rejection. And by the way, that doesn't changes one ages. This is Rory's first love interest, and she doesn't even notice him until she drops, Uh what what book did she drop? It wasn't Moby Dick, but it was was it? The on the Road? Was its? I
think it was something like that. Anyway, it was right right because he said Melville. He said something about Melville. Deed it all right? So then we meet Melissa, we meet Suki and just boy and I thought this stuff for me, that was the most impressive chore choreography in the entire show, the most Suki's kitchen uh stuff was to me, the best orchestrated, best blocked, just the most entertaining stuff. Yeah, what a brilliant introduction to a character.
Well, if I if I jump in for just a second, it's like, go for it, and I want you to keep going. But but I like, I can't help when I'm watching it. I'm watching the people, right, so I can step outside of I'm not a you know, after all these years, I'm not a of you know, I'm not watching it the same way a fan is. I'm watching remembering what Melissa was like in the year two thousand and what Alexis was like, and what Jared Padleki was like, and as as people what they're actually doing
performing on the show, and it's just fascinating. It's it's very clear to me now you know how much Melissa is just like she's so on top of every single thing that she's doing. She's just like her her her game is really sharp, right, you know you know what I mean? Yeah, really to be really on top of every single note. And then you watch Jared and Alexis and their kids, you know, like they were like plucked out of whatever universe they lived in, was like here go be on this television show.
High School. Dean came out of High school. Oh my god, he graduated high school and came to LA and got a job.
Dude, he's the greatest. I see him. I feel like I see him like every five years, and he's just he's just crushing life. That kid. I know he's not a kid anymore, but he'll always be a kid to me. But he you know, it's like he yeah, he was like sort of plucked out of high school. I think he was handing out flyers a Universal city when somebody was like, hey, are you an actor? He's like, I'm trying to me an actor. Yeah, well let me send
you on some auditions. It's like here I am on a television sh right right right, Like he's just and he's so great. I love watching those scenes and being like, wow, this guy he really is just plucked out of yeah Texas and they threw him on the show.
Very talented young guy, Yeah, very talented.
He's a talented middle aged guy.
Now, yeah, you're more talented middle age.
He was forty, he probably is forty one. We're old, you and I are.
No, Well i'm old.
No, you're not, I know, but i am.
I'm pretty, I am all.
It doesn't matter. We're all age.
The one important to take it back to Suki. The one important thing that I remember in this scene is that they established that they're going to open an in one that that's their goal, that they're going to open up an inn one day, and that Davis planted very very early on.
Just just a beautiful scene and and a beautiful relationship between Laurel and Suki, and you just look forward to more, very loving, very supportive, very it's gonna it's gonna breed a ton of humor. You just know it, all right. So now we quickly we're quickly establishing who everyone else is. But now we go into missus Kim's Kim's antiques and where she utters the famous line to Rory, who tries to make a joke about her line about nobody got
pregnant and dropped out of school. Uh. Missus Kim looks at Rory and says, boys don't like funny girls. Made me fall off the couch. Just great. So now we understand that Lane's got a really strict mom. Ye, So more to come with that, all right. So Laura I and Rory banter, we see how they are best friends instead of it's your not your typical mother, right, it's
not your typical mother daughter relationship. She's concerned with They're concerned with each other's happiness, you know, and that's very touching. And she even says stuff to her mother after, you know, she finds out she gets into Chiltern and how did that happen? Did you sleep with you seem really happy? Did you do something slutty? I mean, what daughter talks to my mother like that? I mean, it's just it's just so great.
Yeah, they're definitely established best friends.
Wait, and you got to say.
The response is even better.
She's like, did you do something? She's like, you look happy? Did you do something slutty? And rights.
It's about as racy as it gets, right, Oh yeah, so you know you're safe, but you're it's still pushing the envelope a little bit outside. It doesn't break out of family friendly ever.
Really, you know, that joke is like a double off the wall. It's like a beautiful, straightforward, hilarious but it's kept it in the park. It's great anyway, kept it in.
The park, right, exactly, all right, and learn And one of the great moments of that pilot is learning that Rory got to Chilton, and I think and that provides such an upward movement of energy in this seriod and a just a very it's it's a very the power, the powerful, one of the powerful engines in this rocket ship, if you will.
All right, so all and we're excited that she gets to go to Chilton because it's hopefully the next step.
To Harvard, right right, aspirational Right, So now the jeep. Now we establish the jeep because now Laura I can't pay for it. It's fifty thousand dollars. She doesn't happen. Well, that's a lot of zeros after that five, you know, and it's just an hysteric a phone call showing the skill set that Lauren brings to bear on this character and you know, making us laugh, just her and a telephone on a set and not talking to anyone, No, just mad skills coming out of that woman. And you
know she's got to go. And that beautiful moment again with that beautiful music from Sam Phillips, looking at that old photograph of her as a small child in front of her parents' house and then zooming in on that and then transitioning that shot into reality and then we camera pans over Leslie Lincoln glad Or did a fabulous job.
We know exactly where we are. It's like it's not exactly there's nothing confusing about it. We get it right, you know, we know where they are. I mean, and also you just mentioned this, but like it's the kind of thing that you know over over the years, you forget to say it. But Damn, Lauren is good. Damn you know what I mean.
Like right, it's like she what.
She's doing as a young woman there playing someone who's wise beyond her years.
You know.
That is and you know and is clearly still young.
She's a young woman and she's got she can do all that and all the world, like I had.
To grow up fast, and like she just crushes it.
It's so good, right because there's that edge to her, right, there's that there's that and you and you sense it and you hear it in her voice and that skill. That's something that that's a choice she made as an actress. You know, all of those nuances and layers that she put onto that character. You know, we're the beneficiaries of it.
Just just a brilliant portrayal, absolute brilliance. And we meet Richard and Emily and what what a what a scene that was at the door and we kind of and you know, as we got into this scene and I was watching a Richard come into and this attitude they
had with her. But I just thought, you know, how crushing it was for them thirty well sixteen years ago when their only child who was destined for what they were grooming her for, which was you know, private school at Harvard and a big life out there with you know, and a lifestyle is akin to theirs. And boy were they must have I mean, how crushing it must have been for them that this thing happened, This that life
happened to their only child. Life happened, and you know, you can feel any way you want about it, but just think about what it did to them. They obviously did not react, well, they alienated their own daughter, but anyway, I felt real. That's that's the thing that hit me the second time around watching this pilot is the pain coming out of of Richard and Emily, the two of their pain. Yeah, how they just know too.
And I always like Edward Hermann is always just he's always completing the assignment, you know, And it's like and you see it his his character is both. You know, he's a likable guy, but you see the like you see how he also is dominating. You see how he's a pain in the ass. You see how like he's he's a lot of things and and I get it. I understand their pain, and I also understand why Laura I was like, I don't really want to be a part of this while I'm while I'm doing that's whether
the pilot works so well. You visualize her being sixteen and saying like, I'm going to do this, but I'm going to do it on my own. Yeah, it adds up.
And you can say the same thing about Emily two. She's a lot of things, a lot and we know that, but at the end of the day, she just wants to somehow get Laura Lai back in her life. And there's all too your motives with the you know, the money and all that kind of stuff, But at the end of the day, she just wants Friday night dinner. And and that's set up in this episode Friday night dinners.
Right, Yeah, And that's that's another thing. How flowery and intricate and funny the writing is with so much verbiage, right, yet yet Amy and Dan manage to very clearly allow an audience to read the sign posts and know exactly where we are, not necessarily exactly where we're going, but yeah, their beats are really clear. So you feel the same
way you feel when you're watching a great movie. You know you're in the hands of a master, and you just get comfortable and enjoy the ride because you trust so much the writing. You trust that they're going to get you to a place that's going to surprise and delight you and fascinate you and engage you. And that's it's a very rare quality that you can be so intricate and detailed and funny and dramatic and yet still be clear and still be really great at storytelling, you
know what I mean. There's a lot of great writers that don't know anything about structure. They don't know where the beach should come. And you know, I read a lot of scripts and it's like, wow, you know, you're a really good writer, but where's the story. Where's this going? You know, it's dragging here? And like if you're going to say, you know, if you established in the first act that you're gonna go kill a shark, then you better start killing a shark at the second act. You
better go after you know what I mean. So so it's it's it's it's really the versatility of the writing is it's phenomenal, and it's rare. It's rare. So we learn here also that the iconic Gilmore House was actually in Toronto. The layout of their house changes a little or actually a lot in this episode due to the pilot being picked up by Warner Brothers. Laura I takes a business class twice twice a week. We learned that, we learn Rory as a reader. Obviously, she's doing very
well in school. She's very shy studious, and now we see that the Chilton, a private school, is going to play a role in her character's development. We learned the character and Chilton becomes a character, and that she has aspirations to go to Harvard and that's what everybody wants for even though her we don't find this out yet, but her dad's a Yale man and she's holding herself to a higher standard then her mother maybe even got
a chance to write. So so we're learning there's a lot of information coming at us in a very entertaining and very dramatic and a very funny. This pilot introduces to its audience these trademark pop culture references a.
Ton in this episode, just a ton tons and yeah.
Sometimes and there are actually fewer in the pilot that compared to later episodes. So some episodes were just so full of them that oh and we would notice too, because we would do it. We we did a pop culture episode wrapped and some were just.
Just hours long.
They were really they had to be cut.
Down to I noticed that in the pilot the foot is like off the gas a little bit on the pop culture references.
On the pop culture references, and we said this already, but also on how fast the dialogue is. The gas was just a little bit off.
And it's right, and it's like it was intentional that they needed to establish the characters and they you know, pilots are usually not terribly exciting. It's pilots are hard to do because they have to be entertaining, but you've got to introduce the characters and you've got to establish where the story's going. You've got to do that right away in the pilot. So they're they're difficult, and this was handled with such a deaf touch. Okay, So there's
there's Anna the unaired stuff. There was stuff that was filmed that was reshot. Suki and Dean are played by different characters Talk Sports. Dean, as we have said, it is cast to play Suki before Melissa McCarthy or contract with mad TV prohibited her from accepting the role. Nathan Worthington was cast to play Dean before Jared Perlichi.
Uh can imagine a Gilmore Girls without Jared Padilaki?
Can you imagine.
Or Melissa McCarthy.
Or Sean Gunn Has anyone thought about how the title of Gilmour Girls includes Emily as well, not just Laura and Ry. But it's about the three generations of women. I mean that is where and especially how. The thing that impresses me most about Lauren is that is the heavy load that she had to carry every single episode
because she's occupying every single world of that show. The parents world, Rory's world, It's a diner world, stars hollow world, Miss Patty's world, whoever taylored She's in every single world, establishing that she is the center of this show, which she is. Yet the show itself has no problem and no difficulty and it doesn't hurt. It enhances the show of placing Rory at the center of the show when that needs to happen. It's just it's so unique in
that respect. Ah. And so what I'll say is my last comment on the the pilot episode, and I said this before I even saw this, uh, is that it is perfect. It is a perfect It is a perfect pilot. It's rare that you see something that's perfect. And I saw something last night that was perfect a film that I won't mention, but Sean, you know that feeling you get when you see something that is absolutely perfect. Yeah, it doesn't.
I thought you were going to say it needed more Kirk, but but yeah, we'll go with perfect.
Fun all right, so good, it's perfect. Nothing else needed to be added to this episode.
But don't you don't you don't you think that was just a ploy by aiming that maybe they she wanted to give the pilot a feeling of that something's a little bit as missing here.
Yeah, and then bring you in for the went down from there then and then so great. I actually agree with you, Scott. I do think that it was like, you know, just watching it again, I was like, what a what a beautiful pilot. It really just has all of it. It lays it all out. It's there's no question why the network wanted to pick the show up and to see what do we have here?
You know?
Right? You know what I mean, like this is we we've got something. Let's let's uh, let's take this and and and run with it. And yeah, and it really is you know it, you beat it into the ground. But it's a whole lot of talented people working together.
And the one thing, now, having seen the whole series and the movies and all that stuff, everything was planted here and you didn't even know it yet. Everything was planted. And I love now that I've seen the whole series to see how this pilot is such a foundation for the rest of the series. Everything's here, everything.
Right, Because you could go back and say, well, yeah, that wasn't you know, previewed, or that wasn't teased in the pilot, Yeah.
It was, Yeah, it was exactly exactly.
Anyway, What a great show, What a great way to start a series that lasted seven years, that probably could have still been going today given the loyalty of this fan base, which is just extraordinary. It's really you know, the fan base has always been an uncredited character of this show because you can feel their presence at every turn.
Oh yeah, I can tell you then from being a you know, I've been some of the biggest movies ever made, and people are like, what what do you get recognized for the most probably.
Know, Sean, tell us what you're doing now?
Well, I'm promoting Creature Commandos, which is this animated show I did with my brother James. And you know, as you know, I work with my brother when I can. He's he's awesome and and I love working with him in the same way that I love working with Amy. It's like you got a great writer. It's you know, follow the words right, and uh yeah, Creature Commandos is
like super super cool. I have some other projects also that I'm I'm working on with him that I can't you know, I gotta be careful about how much.
I yeah, but it's there's more big stuff. It's PC.
Yeah, I'm writing a graphic novel which is crazy and uh and I'm really enjoying It's it's scary and as as you know, as an artist, it's like when you're doing something that scares you, it's probably good or at least a good idea to do it, you know, like, yeah, exactly, see where it goes to challenge yourself. That's cool. I did some indie movies that are coming out next year, and I'm like, I'm like plugging forward. Man, I'm still
living the you know, still living the life. I still living and dying by my auditions and and working as much as possible. It's uh, it's cool.
Well, we wish you the best. Thank you for your time. You know how busy you are. You've always been a great friend of the show. Absolute Uh, honored to know you, Bud.
Oh, thank you, Scott. I know anytime, like like, uh, I'll be back before you before you finish this, Like what we'll do this again?
Which one do you want to come back for? Which episodes we'll run it back?
Yeah, I don't know, but ask your listeners which one they will.
Okay, Yeah, that's that's a good idea. We will love to have you back multiple times. Be well, best to your bride and uh, well we'll talk soon. Thanks shown gun, everybody, everybody, don't forget Follow us on Instagram at I Am all In podcast and email us at Gilmore at iHeartRadio dot com