Gilmore Girls

Lauren Graham is on the cover of the latest issue of Capitol File Magazine. She talks about growing up in DC, her father, life after Gilmore Girls and her upcoming movie Evan Almighty.

Many will recognize Lauren Graham as lorelai gilmore, the funny, witty, often insecure single mom from the popular TV drama Gilmore Girls. Or perhaps it was her appearance alongside Diane Keaton in this year’s romantic comedy Because I Said So. She’s starred in other memorable films, from One True Thing to Bad Santa. Seinfeld fans knew her as “Valerie.�?

Yet it wasn’t terribly long ago—before winning over Hollywood, and before being nominated for a Golden Globe, a Screen Actors Guild award, and two Television Critics Association awards—that this gifted actress with the dark hair and infectious smile was wearing braces and galloping horses around the grassy meadows of Great Falls, Virginia. Unless, of course, it was one of those otherwise ordinary days when she and her father were catching the latest performance at the Kennedy Center, oblivious to the fact that tomorrow would present well-deserved rewards to the devoted single dad and his daughter.

CAPITOL FILE: You recently celebrated a birthday. Did you have a cake with candles?
LAUREN GRAHAM: I didn’t have a cake, because to me the cake always signals the end of the party. So many friends from high school came—I had 10 Langley High people here, and my high school boyfriend, too. It was a blast. Here you had people on East Coast time—with kids at home—staying up until three in the morning. We just talked and hung out, and we did it again the next night.

CF: You’re best known as a Gilmore girl—playing the single mother of a teenager. But in real life, the roles were reversed—it was your father, Larry Graham, who raised you from the age of five. How special was your relationship? I mean, was your dad flipping pancakes in the morning and French-braiding your hair?
LG: [Laughs] I had to have knots regularly cut out of my hair, because I think he thought you only had to brush the top part! Haircare wasn’t his thing. I had a lot of slumber parties, and we only had one frying pan, because it was usually just the two of us. So whenever I had all these girls over, he would do one pancake at a time—breakfast would take like an hour to make. It just never occurred to me. And our silverware didn’t match. My father made a fine living, but he didn’t notice certain things. He married my stepmother when I was in high school, and between her, my mother’s sisters, and my grandmother, who lived in DC—my grandfather was the preacher at the First Baptist Church of Washington, DC; I was raised Catholic, but that side of the family is Baptist—we had family nearby and a fair amount of help. I had great babysitters.

CF: Your father, professionally speaking, is quintessential Washington: from a legislative aide and legal counsel on Capitol Hill, to the past president of numerous associations—among my favorites are the Chocolate Manufacturers Association and the National Confectioners Association—and even founder of the World Cocoa Foundation. How cool is that? Do you have a lifetime supply of Hershey’s Kisses?
LG: [Laughs] No. When I was growing up he had far less glamorous titles, like president of the Industrial Launderers’ Association, whose main concerns are hotel linens. The chocolate thing he didn’t have when I was growing up, which is good.

CF: Did your father plant the artistic seeds that would eventually sprout in his daughter—introduce you to all of the arts and museums that the nation’s capital has to offer?
LG: I think he didn’t really mean to formally introduce me to things artistic—he just didn’t know what to do with me on weekends. We went to every Smithsonian museum. We’d go to puppet shows in the woods, in Rock Creek Park or somewhere like that. We went to see The Member of the Wedding at the Kennedy Center, I saw Annie; we’d always go to the ballet. I just think, honestly, he didn’t know what to do. The only other thing I was interested in was riding. He’s allergic to horses, so he’d drop me off. We’d go to restaurants in DC—if anything, my father’s given me my ridiculous love of going out to dinner, because half of the week, although he’s a good cook, we would go out. Also, he just really loves to read, so we would read every night—he would read to me.

CF: You went to high school in the shadow of the Central Intelligence Agency. What was a typical day like in the life of Lauren Graham? I know you took some acting classes at the Catholic University and Arena Stage.
LG: Yes, in the summertime—I would use any local resource. Arena Stage had a program called Living Stage that reaches out to the community and reflects what the community is going through in DC. It was so out there, compared to what I had done at school. At the time I was one of the youngest people in that class, and I learned a lot. Now that I look back, I was really ambitious. After school I was usually rehearsing for a play or a musical, and I was on the student council. You mentioned the CIA—we would try to drive down there and see how far we could get before the guards came out. [Laughs] It was pre 9/11, of course—and it just seemed hilarious.

CF: Give us a sneak preview of this summer’s much-anticipated comedy Evan Almighty, in which you costar with Morgan Freeman, who plays God, and Steve Carell. I understand that Carell’s character, Evan, moves the family to northern Virginia, of all places, at which time God appears and tells him to build an ark. How crazy is that?
LG: [Laughs] It was so fun to be back in Virginia. I didn’t grow up in Charlottesville, but it’s close enough that family could come down, and half my high school went to UVA, so I knew that campus. This is a movie about a congressman who takes his job so seriously that he risks losing his family, a story any working family can connect to. The story also has this extreme element of God telling a man to do something, and of course everybody thinks he’s gone crazy. In the end, we decide to believe him, help out, and stick together as a family. So it’s got a really nice message, but in the meantime, Evan [Carell] has this huge ark and animals, and we watch him go through this transformation. He keeps telling God, “No, I won’t do what you tell me,�? and then he wakes up with a beard, a robe, a staff, and tools to build an ark. Morgan Freeman is such a presence, he is so cool, and he really is just as powerful as he seems. It was the experience of a lifetime, and it was special to be involved in something so huge.

CF: How closely do you follow Washington politics and current events?
LG: I follow them pretty closely. I read the newspaper; every day I get The New York Times. I watch the news—and by the news, of course, I mean Jon Stewart. [Laughs] No, I watch the news, but I really enjoy Stephen Colbert, Bill Maher and Jon Stewart. Even Bill O’Reilly is interesting. I almost beat Chris Matthews on Celebrity Jeopardy. He took me in the end, but I came close. He got me on opera; he knows everything about opera.

CF: Do you get back to Washington much?
LG: I’m looking forward to spending more time with my family in the next few years. One of the great things about all those friends from high school is that they still live in the DC area. I still have an incredible network here, and that’s so meaningful.

CF: Last question: Speaking as a gentleman, I have to ask how a beautiful Irish-Catholic lass like you has stayed single so long?
LG: [Laughs] I don’t know! I don’t know! I’m not even trying that hard to stay single! I was in a real serious relationship as Gilmore Girls was starting, and then I went to work in a really intense way. I don’t blame my job, I’m really thankful to have had it, but it has limited things. So I hope to have more balance soon. I would love to be part of a family. It’s something that’s important to me. But I also have a lot of the things that I wanted in my career, and I never thought I would get this far. So I feel like things come in good time. I’ve had some great boyfriends, I’ve learned a lot, and now I’m ready for my last boyfriend.

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Lauren Graham, Gilmore Girls, Evan Almighty