Talking as Fast as I Can: From Gilmore Girls to Gilmore Girls (and Everything in Between) (2016)

Some Thoughts on Being Single

In 2002, I was paired up with Peter Krause to present at the SAG Awards. We’d met before in the late nineties, on an episode of Caroline and the City where we were both guest stars, but back then there was never a hint of anything romantic. I’d followed his career on television as a fan of the too short-lived Aaron Sorkin series Sports Night, and been wowed by his work on the incredible HBO show Six Feet Under. Our paths crossed occasionally at an event or party, but I avoided handsome actor-types as a rule. Over the years I’d learn that my concerns were unfounded and there was nothing to fear: attractive, straight, successful actors actually don’t get as much attention as you might think, because women find them so intimidating that they—AHAHAHAHA, I can’t even finish that sentence with a straight face. Those dudes get all the attention you think they do, and then some. So I was generally wary of what I deemed his “type.” But we were always friendly. Backstage that night, we made small talk, and just as our names were being announced he turned to me and said calmly: “Want to hold hands?”

It was such an odd, old-fashioned, unexpected question. Did he mean anything by it? If we did walk out holding hands, would people think we were together? Would holding hands make it easier to walk in my very high heels? I hadn’t held hands with anyone in what felt like a million years, so I decided it didn’t matter. “Yes,” I said, and we did, and then we presented the award, and I went back into the audience to sit back down next to my date for the evening, a gainfully employed lawyer who was also my dad. I didn’t see Peter again for years.

After I first moved to L.A., I was in a long relationship with a wonderful guy, but I wasn’t yet ready to settle down. After that ended, I contracted a case of man-repellent-itis so severe that it is still being studied by the Mayo Clinic. Or at least that’s how it felt.

For a very long time I worked and worked and worked, and then I looked up one day and all my friends were married with children. These married-with-children people were still my friends, but they’d become part of a community I wasn’t in, a club I didn’t belong to. Socially, their lives had completely changed, and they were busy. Their attention had turned to carpools and birthday parties and school tuition, and I was playing catch-up: “Wait, so we don’t have game night anymore? You guys, who’s free for dinner Saturday? Oh, absolutely no one?”

I looked at these friends and realized: Well, duh, work is gratifying, but it isn’t everything, and it’s no fun to sleep with at night. It just took me longer to see that, and I didn’t have the same urgency they had to get to it, but then one day, just like that, I thought, I get it now. I’d be interested in this other stuff. But I’d missed the time when most people around my age had paired off. It was as if I’d misread the schedule at Penn Station and the trains to Happy Couplehood had all left already, and there I was with nothing to do but sit with the drunk businessmen at the bar and nurse a warm beer and wait for the trains to start up again. I waited and waited and waited for those trains.

I attended weddings by myself, went to parties I didn’t feel like going to, “just in case,” and was escorted to events by my dad, my cousin Tim, and my dear friend Sam. “Who’s with you tonight? Aww, your dad again?” journalists would say, with a sympathetic frowny face. The only bright spot, dude-wise, was at an event where I met Matthew Perry. He became my longtime Friend Who I Almost But Never Exactly Dated, or FWIABNED. We probably all have at least one FWIABNED in our lives. My FWIABNED is very special to me.

At one point during this time my father was on a plane and noticed a woman reading a magazine I was in. “That’s my daughter,” he said proudly. The woman turned to him with a look of pity. “Please tell her I didn’t meet my husband until late in life—there’s still time,” she said. Strangers were worried about me; that’s how long I was single!

There’s nothing wrong with being single, unless, it seems, you’re an actor getting interviewed a lot. Gilmore Girls was at its peak then, and I was getting interviewed a lot. During these years, when the press asked me if I was seeing someone, I’d just say, “I’m dating.” Sometimes that was true and sometimes not. Either way, I wasn’t in anything secure enough to talk about or expose publicly. But over time, I felt increasingly vulnerable when I had to face these questions. Magazines don’t like it when you say too little about your personal life—it makes the pages very hard to fill. If they had their way, every article would be full of sex and gossip, and I couldn’t contribute stories about either. Interviewers seemed increasingly frustrated, and interviews became less about what project I was doing and more a thinly veiled reiteration of “Join us today as we try once again to figure out what is wrong with this poor girl who just can’t seem to get a date!”

I knew I didn’t want to stand on a red carpet and reveal too much, but I was at a loss as to what or how much to say. You may think there’s a sort of School of Fame where actors learn how to handle tricky situations, but there isn’t. (Someone call Shark Tank!) Not for the first time, I wished there was someone to ask, or a Peanuts-style Lucy booth with a sign that said THE DOCTOR IS IN. I wasn’t looking for a three-month seminar, just a place I could stop into when I needed a quick answer on how to handle problems I hadn’t even known existed back when all I dreamed of doing as an actor was performing in the chorus of a regional theater production of Oklahoma. How to walk in heels! Don’t Google yourself, and other helpful tips! How to talk to Us Weekly about your new or nonexistent relationships! Take a pamphlet! Five cents only!

I learned a few things fairly easily. If you plan to be an actor who is regularly interviewed, you need to start thinking now about your favorite drugstore cheap-and-cheerful beauty products (Chapstick, Neutrogena sunblock, any brand of coconut oil), your go-to workout routine (spinning, yoga, walking across the Brooklyn Bridge), your favorite leave-in conditioner (Davines, Oribe, coconut oil), your latest girl crush (I never have an answer for this—let’s just say coconut oil), and, if you’re presenting at an awards show, which other presenter you’re most excited to meet. Be sure to think of someone beforehand, otherwise, even though you’re surrounded by dozens of your idols, you will draw a complete blank: “I’m excited to meet, uh, that guy, from that movie, with the people in it…”

At a minimum, you’ll be asked each of these questions approximately ten thousand times in every interview for the rest of your life. In addition to being asked to reveal intimate details about your love life, you’ll also constantly be encouraged to dish about your co-stars, to which there’s only one acceptable answer: that you’re obviously one big happy family (which you, savvy reader, already knew). Then, after you successfully dodge this question, they’ll ask you who’s the best kisser you’ve ever worked with. DON’T ANSWER THIS. It will result in an article stating you’ve “broken your silence” about how awful it was to kiss everyone else. Finally, you’ll be asked about all the pranks everyone supposedly pulls on each other on set all the time. Most films and television shows have very long hours, and no one I know pulls pranks on set, except maybe George Clooney, though I’m pretty sure I read that in a magazine, so who can say for sure? Incidentally, when I was first doing Gilmore Girls, I’d run into George on the lot sometimes, and he was always very nice to me and acted like he knew who I was and treated me like I was behaving normally, which was very kind in the face of my babbling and drooling.

However, it wasn’t enough to make George say “Amal, schlamal!” or anything like that, and the weird dating years—and my difficulty explaining them—continued. I was once set up with an actor by my assistant, who was friends with the other actor’s assistant. The actor wanted to meet me because he saw my (sort-of real) face on a giant billboard on Sunset Boulevard. You know, the way everybody gets asked out! While on location, I had a fun relationship with someone who revealed at the end of the movie that he had a girlfriend back home. Just like how your grandparents met! I shook hands with a cute guy for the first time while presenting him with an award. Backstage, we had charming banter. He asked for my phone number, and then didn’t call me for three months. THREE MONTHS. Of course, when he finally called, I told him politely that he’d waited too long and I didn’t appreciate being disrespected like that. AHAHAHAHAHA. NOPE, I went out with him anyway! I wanted to hold out for men with good behavior, but ultimately I gave in to less-good behavior because I was working all the time and wasn’t sure when the next chance to meet someone would be. One thing I learned: starting off with very low standards is a surefire way to ensure they’ll be met.

Not surprisingly, none of the relationships that started during Billboard Face Awards Show Presenter Time stuck. After all, how many successful, lasting unions do you know that began with the words “And the winner is…”? Plus, if you’re meeting someone for the first time after three hours of hair, makeup, and styling, you’ve already set the bar too high. There is no way they won’t be disappointed when you reveal your true self. “Hey, where were those boobs I was promised when I saw you up on the podium?” “They’re, um—hey, look over there! Isn’t that Ryan Seacrest?” Also, if you think actors are already self-obsessed, imagine actors who are at a show that exists solely to affirm they are indeed as great as they might think they are. Lots of attention and praise and hot girls everywhere bring out the humble side in everyone!

It wasn’t just the guys I met who were the problem. In more ways than just being covered in eighty layers of self-tanner, the person they were meeting wasn’t really me either. You know how before a party you clean up your house so that everyone thinks you live that way all the time? That’s meeting someone at an awards show. It’s a way more exaggerated version of meeting anyone you hope to impress for the first time. You present the fresh-flowers-on-the-table, bed-always-made side of yourself first. But ultimately you’re going to slip and show your house the way it is on a morning when you’re running late for work, or can’t find an outfit, and that’s a relationship. Ultimately, everyone who gets close to you is going to see inside your closet on its worst day, and their reaction to that is what will tell you if you’re going to make it or not. You can’t live an entire life secured in by Spanx.

When I started working with Peter on Parenthood, he made a lot of references to the fact that we were playing brother and sister. While true that our characters were siblings, I wasn’t sure why it kept coming up. He’d hand me a prop or a cup of coffee and then sort of narrate: “I’m handing my sister a cup of coffee. That’s my sister drinking the coffee over there.” By week two of work, I wanted to say, “I get it, I get it—you’re not interested in me that way. Well, I don’t trust handsome actors, either, so we’re good!” In fact, I think he was actually trying to talk himself out of starting anything. At our age, we’d probably both been through “showmances” that went south and made work an uncomfortable place to be. But ultimately, our mutual wariness gave way without much discussion or effort—it just sort of happened. That’s one thing I’ve learned when it comes to relationships. There’s so much to negotiate once you really get to know someone—the beginning should feel easy and inevitable.

By the time Peter and I actually started dating seriously, I finally knew exactly how to handle myself and all my public-vs.-private issues instantly melted away. Wrong! Instead of making the public part of life easier, it was even more difficult. Now I actually had someone I cared about, which made me care even more about protecting that person and our privacy and our brand-new status. So I stuck to my old reliable “I’m dating,” without naming any names, until journalists started rolling their eyes to my face. This standoff lasted for a while, but eventually more people found out, and I kept getting asked to talk about it. I continued to say no, until I was told an outlet was going to “run with it anyway.” What to do? I was going on the Today show around then (hi, Savannah!) and was asked if I wanted to “announce” us as a couple. Did I? All I knew for sure was that I felt strange. I went on Ellen, where she showed a picture of Peter and me, and I admitted that yes, I was seeing someone, but in a panic I referred to him as “Fred.” She had just shown a picture of me and Peter, which I had okayed, but somehow in the moment it felt too personal to also say his actual name. Ellen looked at me like I was insane, which thankfully I was used to, since that’s pretty much our regular relationship. I was confused. She was confused. Lucy, I need more pamphlets!

Not saying anything wasn’t really working, but making an “announcement” of any kind just felt so wrong—too big and weird. Today, in order to grab your already taxed attention, news of any kind sometimes gets positioned as an urgent proclamation or a major confession—some massive secret being revealed, rather than what it really is: Today, an actor you might know from a TV show you may have seen reluctantly admits to something that may or may not be of mild interest to you.

A few months into dating, Peter and I planned a vacation to go skiing. In preparation, he took me to REI. I had never been to an REI store and didn’t know what REI stood for or what they sold there. I asked him why we had to go. He asked me where I thought people went to get outdoor gear, and I was like, “Um, not Barney’s?” No, Lauren, not Barney’s. What I was to discover at REI would blow my mind—and, weirdly, help me understand show business better.

First of all, the sign on the front door says FREE WI-FI AND INSPIRATION. Whoa. I was impressed by this offer, which was already better than some nice hotels I’ve stayed in. In fact, if you go to REI right now, you’ll probably find me in the glamping section checking my email and eating freeze-dried watermelon!

It didn’t take me long to realize that everyone who works at REI is named Tad. Tad has zero percent body fat and a deep tan. From the joyous way Tad describes the absorbency levels of the Shammie Wowzas by the register, you might suspect he is on drugs. But Tad would never take drugs, what with all the fresh air in the world! Tad and all his co-workers, Tad, wear matching vests adorned with loops and hooks. You may briefly wonder if the Tads go out after work wearing their matching vests, or if they’re just part of a cult whose members love to fish. Tad is always happy and positive. The only time I’ve ever seen Tad a little bit down was when I told him I thought all sleeping bags were alike. Don’t be sad, Tad! I know better now. Every food available at REI has the word “fiber” on the package, and everything else they sell has a tough or scary name: the Enforcers, the Prowlers, the Trailblazers, the Strykers. No, these aren’t names of military attack plans—they’re just waterproof socks!

I was always one of those East Coast kids who refused to button my jacket. I was cold through most of the 1980s. In college, I wore a thin, vintage men’s overcoat I got for twelve dollars at Screaming Mimi’s—who thought about warmth? But now I was dating someone who grew up in the Midwest, where cold is no joke and where being prepared to face the elements is just something a person who isn’t an idiot does. Peter knows everything there is to know about outdoorsy things like what to do if you see a bear (run? Don’t run? I always forget), and if you want to talk about wind-resistance ratings or sweat-wicking properties, have I got the guy for you! He’s also tried about a million times to explain to me why warm water makes ice cubes faster than cold water, which confounds me to such a degree that I respond by running around the house yelling, “I was an English major! I wrote my thesis on Tennyson!” But at REI, with the help of Peter and the Tads, I stocked up on thermals and a good ski jacket, plus socks called the Annihilators, the Doomsdays, and the Widow-Makers.

On our ski trip, I was warm and dry. And I realized for the first time in my life that feeling like your toes are going to fall off doesn’t have to be part of being outside in the snow. I couldn’t believe such comfort existed! I started buying so much outdoor athletic gear that I actually applied for an REI membership card. My bungee cords now earn points!

Whether it’s on your own or through someone else, it’s wonderful to be introduced to something you didn’t realize you needed. In learning about the wonders of REI, it occurred to me that going into vulnerable public situations unprepared was a little like facing winter in New York City or being on the ski slopes with my twelve-dollar Screaming Mimi’s coat flapping open. I wish I’d learned sooner, but in more ways than one, I now know more about protective layers than I used to. I’ve learned that a little readiness goes a long way when facing the elements, be they rain, or snow, or Access Hollywood. Just like in the outdoors, I’ve learned it’s much easier to strip off a layer if you find you don’t need it than to put one on. If you’ve already exposed yourself, it may be too late.

Peter has family in Northern California, and the first time I traveled with him there, I stopped short in the middle of the Sonoma County airport. There, in the center of the lobby, is a life-size Lucy advice booth with a sign that says THE DOCTOR IS IN. Charles Schulz was a native of the area, and Peanuts characters abound. The Lucy booth carries mostly travel pamphlets and maps to wine country, rather than advice for actors, but I still found its existence comforting, its appearance a positive sign.

Last week I opened the car door and one of Peter’s golf balls rolled out and onto the street, and I thought, there was a time when this would have been a very big deal. Today my car not only has random golf balls in it, but also khaki-colored sun hats that resemble those worn by beekeepers, an assortment of bandanas, those sunglasses that are only meant to be used as protective eyewear during a racquet sport, and dog-eared paperback books of poetry. Now I take these items for granted. Back then, a man’s golf ball rolling out of my car would have prompted frenzied calls to my girlfriends: “He left a golf ball in the car. He just left it there. What does it mean? WHAT DOES IT MEAN? Should I text him about it? I SHOULD, right? He’s probably looking ALL OVER FOR IT.” I wish I’d enjoyed my single days more and spent my free time reading or becoming a better photographer or something, and not worried so much about the meaning of golf balls.

Because here’s the thing: I was fine on my own, and so are you. But it can be hard when you feel ready for Happy Couplehood and you seem to have missed the train. As my friend Oliver Platt used to say to me about hopes and dreams I’d share with him: “It’s coming, just not on your time frame.” I find this a helpful reminder in any number of ways: not only when you’re hoping to meet someone, but also when you’re waiting for a better job or for some relief during a bleak time. When Peter and I held hands that night all those years ago, I had no idea we’d end up shopping at REI together one day. It might have been nice if he could have turned to me and said: “Look, tonight isn’t the time, but we’re going to leave here and learn a bunch of things that are going to make this work approximately five years from now—see you then!” But life doesn’t often spell things out for you or give you what you want exactly when you want it, otherwise it wouldn’t be called life, it would be called vending machine.

It’s hard to say exactly when it will happen, and it’s true that whatever you’re after may not drop down the moment you spend all your quarters, but someday soon a train is coming. In fact, it may already be on the way. You just don’t know it yet.