Sorry, Zack.
Where is Lane Kim from Gilmore Girls now? Keiko Agena, who played the Hep Alien drummer and best friend of Alexis Bledel’s Rory Gilmore, has some ideas. In a recent conversation with E! News, the actress said she believes Lane is still married to husband Zack Van Gerbig (Todd Lowe) — but perhaps she’s also reconnected with first boyfriend Dave Rygalski (Adam Brody).
And there might still be some feelings there, too. “As rock ‘n roll as she said she was, I think she would be pretty above board, but I think there is some lovelorn heartsickness over that relationship,” Agena said. “Maybe some daydreams. I don’t know that she would ever act on anything, but a friendship for sure.”
The beloved dramedy from Amy Sherman-Palladino followed the lives of a close-knit mother and daughter duo (Lauren Graham and Bledel) in the fictional small town of Stars Hollow, Conn. It ran for seven seasons between 2000 and 2007 and also starred Kelly Bishop, the late Edward Herrmann, Melissa McCarthy, and Scott Patterson.
Brody joined the series during season 3 as Lane’s love interest and fellow musician in the band Hep Alien, which also included future-husband Zack and Brian Fuller (John Cabrera). Brody left ahead of season 4 to join the cast of The O.C., which was aptly alluded to in the series via his character leaving Stars Hollow to attend college in California. While Lane and Dave agree to a long-distance relationship (sans Brody on screen), it ends due to miscommunication over a marriage jug.
Lane later begins a relationship with Zack and the two wed in a memorable season 6 episode that featured both a traditional Korean Buddhist ceremony at the Kim residence and a western service in the local church. They welcome two sons and are revealed to still be married in the 2016 revival A Year in the Life.
Agena recently looked back on the experience of starring on the show during an appearance on the Dear Felicity podcast, revealing that as a young actor at the time, she was in “such a survival-mode situation.”
“I didn’t think of it that way at the time,” she said. “So now it’s just a mix of just having gratitude for having gone through that experience and having that experience. I have to let go of the pressure that I put on myself to be the best version of who it is that I think that you love. Because I love her, too.”
Keiko Agena hopes Lane Kim’s journey leads her beyond Stars Hollow. “I do have this fantasy of Lane traveling,” the Gilmore Girls actress exclusively told E! News of the Hep Alien drummer. “Because she was such a fan of music, in my mind, I always craved more outside of Connecticut interaction for her.”
And while Keiko believes Lane—BFF to Alexis Bledel’s Rory Gilmore—is still with her husband Zack Van Gerbig (Todd Lowe), there’s a chance she reconnected with her ex-boyfriend Dave Rygalski (Adam Brody). Platonically, of course.
“As rock ‘n roll as she said she was, I think she would be pretty above board,” the 50-year-old noted. “But I think there is some lovelorn, heartsickness over that relationship.” (ICYMI, Brody left the show for The O.C.—and in turn, his character Dave went off to college in California.)
“Maybe some daydreams,” she said with a laugh. “I don’t know that she would ever act on anything, but a friendship for sure.” A friendship that might just inspire some writing.
“This is the actor side of me, not the writer side of me,” Keiko joked of the potential storyline. “Lane is still with Zack, but she’s writing really bad fantasy fanfiction. Like, another world of a freer Lane.”
The fanfic then “becomes a concept album that Björk somehow got involved with,” she mused. “And it’s a hit and she becomes world famous.” It’s an idea worthy of pitching to creator Amy Sherman-Palladino. In fact, if the Gilmore Girls team were to reunite for more episodes in the future, Keiko would return.
“Amy’s so talented that if she was excited about an idea,” Keiko told E!, “and if she had a way that she wanted to tell some of these stories, if people were available, I think everyone would be interested in finding where these characters are now.”
Because it’s not just the fans who have an attachment to the show, which ran from 2000 to 2007. “We were also there for seven years following these storylines,” she shared. “It was pleasurable, it was great.”
Feeling nostalgic for more Gilmore Girls content? Keep reading for more behind the scenes secrets. The show’s fictional Stars Hollow—which has gone on to become one of TV’s most beloved settings—was inspired by Amy Sherman-Palladino’s unexpected visit to Washington, Conn. Charmed by the people she met, traditions she witnessed and the inn she stayed at, she left the small town with the concept for the series—including some of the pilot’s dialogue.
“If I can make people feel this much of what I felt walking around this fairy town,” Sherman-Palladino told Deseret News, “I thought that would be wonderful.”
Alexis Bledel had only one uncredited acting role on her resume and was a student at New York University when she auditioned for Rory. “I was very sick, I was a student at NYU, and they kept calling me back up to audition,” Bledel recalled during an appearance on Late Night with Seth Meyers. “I think I went, like, six times. Oddly, I wasn’t a very seasoned actor at all. I didn’t know the process. I grew a tad bit impatient. I had a little attitude and our boss really liked that a lot. She was like, ‘That’s our girl!’ I was like, ‘Are you guys going to bring me back again?’ and she was like, ‘I like that, that’s perfect.'”
Gilmore Girls without Lauren Graham as Lorelai? Unimaginable, right? But it almost happened. “When I got the script for the Gilmore Girls pilot,” Graham wrote in her 2016 book, Talking As Fast As I Can: From Gilmore Girls to Gilmore Girls (and Everything in Between). “I was in New York, staying in a friend’s studio apartment, waiting to hear if the series I just completed for NBC — Don Rooses’ M.Y.O.B.—was going to be picked up for a second season or canceled.”
Fortunately for us, M.Y.O.B. was not picked up, allowing Graham to play the fast-talking lead, which was also good for any other actress in consideration for the part. “There’s a sort of manic recognition that happens very rarely when I read something that I want so much that I go briefly but totally bonkers,” she explained of her connection to the character after reading the script. “That feeling is a combination of ‘Hello, old friend,’ meets EVERYONE GET OUT OF MY WAY SHE’S ALL MINE.”
Scott Paterson was the only actor to audition for Luke, winning over the casting directors immediately with his charming yet curmudgeonly take on the diner owner and Lorelai’s future husband.
Source: E! News, Deseret News, Late Night with Seth Meyers
