Actress Lauren Graham learned early on that you can’t have everything you want.
The star of the WB’s “Gilmore Girls” was a senior in high school who’d sparkled as the star of most of the school plays. But when they were casting “Once Upon a Mattress,” she didn’t get the lead.
“I kind of took it a little bit for granted that I would get the next lead,” she said. “I remember my teacher saying, ‘You need to tell me now if I give you a smaller part, will you not do it?’ And I did it.”
That taught her a valuable lesson, she said. “That became the way I disciplined myself. If something didn’t happen the way I wanted it to, I really did learn how to stick with it and try harder and to challenge myself in a bigger way,” she said.
After six years of struggling, Graham, 37, landed “Gilmore Girls,” which airs its 100th episode Tuesday, a point that most television shows never reach. But starring in a popular and consistent show is not everything.
She would like to have an equally enduring relationship, she said. “I was with somebody for a long time, off and on, but we broke up not too long ago,” she smiles, a half-shy shake of her head.
“I want to have a family. I really love being in a relationship, and my dad is such a great man, and my relationships have been very positive. I really think I grew up with a good experience of what a good man is and have a lot of respect for that. It’s been tough, this job, because it’s all-involving,” she said.
Graham’s mother left the family when Lauren was 5. Her father raised her alone until he remarried when she was in high school. Her mother settled in London and eventually had a child; her father had two more. She’s still on cordial terms with her mother, though they only met annually when she was growing up.
Except for missing someone to share her life, she’s content, she said. “I have a sense of faith, look at all the blessings I have. I don’t have everything I want right now, but there are plenty of people out there in a great relationship, but they’re not in the job they want. You just don’t get everything you want when you want it.”
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Edited by Cara DiPasquale ([email protected]) and Kris Karnopp ([email protected])
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