Lauren Graham And Scott Patterson Had To Quit Smoking So They Could Keep Up With The Super Fast Dialogue On "Gilmore Girls"
"I needed my wind."
You've probably heard of a little show called Gilmore Girls.
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It ran from 2000 to 2007 and starred Lauren Graham and Alexis Bledel as Lorelai and Rory Gilmore — aka the infamous Gilmore girls.
And if you've seen an episode or two, you probably also know that the characters on this show speak really, really quickly.
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In a recent interview with the New York Times, the cast and crew talked about just how important that fast-paced script was for the show.
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Each episode's script was about 20 pages longer than a typical hourlong series script, and the show's creator, Amy Sherman-Palladino, required her actors to learn their lines word-for-word.
Yanic Truesdale, who played Michel, even said "This was a show where if you changed one word, they would cut."
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Keiko Agena, who played Lane, said “The feedback was, ‘That was great. Could we do it again, just a little bit faster?'" and went on to explain that the show's dialect coach would ask the cast to "Gilmore-ize" their performances — aka "speed it up."
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Additionally, the show's editor, Jamie Babbit, shared that the lines were too quick for traditional editing. “It would be like watching a Ping-Pong match,” she said.
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She explained that the Gilmore Girls preferred the style of two characters in frame at the same time, and letting them talk it out before cutting to a new shot.
Apparently, the dialogue was so quick that Lauren Graham and Scott Patterson, who played Luke, had to quit smoking just so they could keep up!
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Scott told the New York Times, "She needed her wind, and I needed my wind."
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And if that wasn't enough to stress them out, rewrites were just as speedy. Scott remembered one shooting day began with “a 10-page scene that came out of the writers room at 6:30 a.m."
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Keep in mind this was a new scene they hadn't even read yet.
He continued, "Lauren and I were sitting in the makeup chair. We looked at each other with this abject terror, and then we got to work.”
That's a wrap! Just hand @thelaurengraham the Emmy now! #GilmoreGirls #Netflix #WarnerBrosTV #whatagreatride!
And to think, if none of that had happened, we wouldn't have the Gilmore Girls we all know and love today.
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