Adam Brody joined “Gilmore Girls” back in 2002, giving him a big small-screen boost and giving Keiko Agena’s character, Lane, both a bandmate and a love interest.
Alas, his character, Dave Rygalski, didn’t stick around for long, as Brody soon found himself an even bigger role as one of the leads on “The O.C.” But looking back at his brief nine-episode arc on “Gilmore Girls” now, the 41-year-old remembers just how much he loved it — and the one thing he “didn’t love” about it.
“It was a joy,” he said in an interview with the AV Club of working on season three of the beloved dramedy series. “It was phenomenally well written.”
But as much as he loved the fast and witty dialogue the show was so well known for, it also proved to be problematic for the actor. That’s because in order to keep the reference-packed, almost-rhythmic banter so on point, there wasn’t any wiggle room at all.
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“I remember at the time chafing a little at how exacting they were with the dialogue,” he recalled. “They had two script supervisors. I’ve never seen that before or since. One for continuity’s sake and the other purely to go through dialogue and after every take go to every actor, ‘You missed the pause.’ I thought that was … I didn’t love it.”
At the time, that is. Given the benefit of hindsight and so many other onscreen experiences, he now sees the benefit of those unforgiving scripts.
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“Almost 20 years later, I realize that’s still some of the best written stuff I’ve ever gotten to do and the rarity of it,” Brody continued. “If they wanted it word-for-word perfect, they’re writing at such a high level, they deserve it. Who was I to chafe at that?”
The answer to that is simply that he was a 21-year-old rising star who’d never experienced anything like “Gilmore Girls” before. Then again, it was a unique experience for audiences, too, who loved the series so much it returned to TV for a miniseries nearly a decade after the final episode aired in 2007. And fans still clamor for another return to Stars Hollow.
Brody and Agena gave those fans the next best thing last fall, when they reunited on Instagram Live to get out the vote and to reminisce about the old days.
"I've seen, just on my end, some people wanted our characters to end up together,” he told his former co-star of the comments scrolling by during the chat. “And they did not. Shame.”
Agena laughed, adding, “Well, in another universe...”
Or as one fan put it, “Dave and Lane forever!”