MIXED DOUBLES
They’re not a real-life couple, but Adam Brody and Alexis Bledel are our top TV twosome. Here, they spend a Hollywood afternoon in fall’s most charming date looks.
Calling an actress unpretenious, down-to-earth, or worst of all- “real” is so commonplace now that it’s crossed over from compliment to complete cliche. But in the case of Alexis Bledel, it’s true.
The 22-year-old Gilmore Girls star isn’t just Hollywood real (as in: Gwynnie getting praised to the high heavens because she still speaks to her school friends); she’s so mild mannered and modest that it’s easy to forget she’s famous.
Until, that is, a couple of frat boys start banging on the window at Silverlake’s House of Pies, interrupting a late lunch and causing her companion to jump about a mile. Alexis, evidently accustomed to this sort of thing, simply stifles a startled little frown.
“TV is a very powerful medium,” she says with a small sigh. “As soon as they start airing promos for the show, people started staring at me. And that first year, when we had billboards up all over L.A., was kind of unbearable.” All the attention would be uncomfortable for almost anyone, but celebrity’s side effects seem especially illsuited to Alexis’s retiring nature- ironically, it was in the hopes of conquering her shyness that she first gave theater a try.
“I never really thought that this was what my job would be,” she admits, half-gesturing with her sandwich-holding hand, as if to indicate that “this” includes not only the cap-wearing glass-bashers but also the interview, the industry, all of it. She began modeling at fourteen, and despite the trips to Tokyo and summers spent in New York City, Alexis was able to maintain a normal existence back home in Houston, Texas. “It’s kind of a mindless job, but somebody’s got to do it. I’d come home and make up the hours I missed by going to school on Saturdays.” She started auditioning halfway through her freshman year at NYU mainly because posing wasn’t quite paying the bills anymore- but she didn’t expect to book a high profile pilot her first week.
Not that she’s complaining. “It’s a good job,” she continues, “for sure.” Asked if she was intimidated back then because of her total lack of experience, she seems almost confused by the question. “You just pretend,” she deadpans, leaving one to wonder is she’s only talking about acting.
Because for all her apparent diffidence, Alexis’s schedule suggests nothing so much as serious ambition: She’s made three new movies in her scant time off from show. First there’s Bride and Prejudice, a Bollywood musical remake of the much adapted Jane Austen classic, from the director of Bend it Like Beckham, followed by The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, about four sixteen year old friends spending their first summer apart. Finally, she’ll play a prostitute alongsideBrittany Murphy, Josh Hartnett, and Benicio Del Toro in Sin City. Based on a series of graphic novels, the film focuses on, as Alexis explains, “People trying to get by in an environment full of, um, sin.”
And, of course, she returns to Gilmore Girls next month. Alexis says that her character, Rory, will have a new, more grown-up relationship, which we hope won’t completely cut out the possibility of a return visit from Jess Mariano, played by Alexis’s real-life boyfriend, Milo Ventimiglia. (She doesn’t like to talk about their two-year relationship, but when Milo turned up at the tail end of the Teen Vogue shoot for a surprise visit, she lit right up.) Alexis has heard- though “not from any, like, credible source,” – that this season could be the show’s last, but that possibility doesn’t scare her. “My life is going to change so much when it’s over,” she says, “and I’m excited for that.” As to whether she’ll devote herself to film, do another series, or maybe even go back to school, she claims to be completely open. “There’s so much to do in the world,” she says, “and I don’t like to make plans.” Maybe she’s right- look how well she’s done without them.