Alexis Bledel and her quiet career: The Gilmore Girl who escaped the spotlight

Actress Alexis Bledel, 44, is much more than the face of a generation. She is a clear example of how to take control of your life, your career, and the narrative that is created around you. Sunday, October 5, marked 25 years since a very young Rory Gilmore first appeared on television, walking the streets of Stars Hollow in Gilmore Girls — the show that made Bledel famous before she even turned 20. But her more than two decades in the film industry have been marked by her discretion and her insistence on keeping the focus on her work.

Bledel was only 17 when she made her film debut with a tiny role — so small that even the character’s name is unknown — in Wes Anderson’s Rushmore. What she could not have imagined at the time was that two years later she would bring to life one of the most popular characters of the 2000s, a role that would make her one of the most in-demand young actresses of the era. Now her name is back in the headlines, coinciding with the 25th anniversary of the series, the unofficial special starring its cast, Drink Coffee, Talk Fast — in which neither Bledel nor Lauren Graham, who plays her mother on the show, appear — and the mother-daughter reunion at the Emmy Awards on September 14.

Although she was born in Houston, Bledel has Latino roots: her mother is American but grew up in Mexico, and her father is from Buenos Aires. That’s why Spanish is her first language. “Some people go to the United States and don’t want to speak to their children in Spanish, but my parents only spoke to me in Spanish. When I went to school, I had to learn English there — I didn’t speak a word. I really lived in a kind of Latin bubble,” the actress explained in 2015 in an interview with the program Back Home, which took place on the streets of Buenos Aires.

Bledel added that she never felt fully American or fully Latina: “That leaves you searching for an identity, and I think that’s why I was drawn to acting — because I could create my own identity and character, and explore different aspects of my personality.”

It was her parents who enrolled her in acting classes to help her overcome her shyness. The rest is history: she went on to star in a series that continues to captivate new generations, thanks in part to the fact that it was added to streaming platforms like Netflix.

When she landed the role of Rory Gilmore, Bledel was just starting her studies at New York University, where she earned a degree in film. Years later, in 2017, she recalled on The Late Show with Seth Meyers how she got the part that would change her life: “I didn’t know the process. I grew a tad bit impatient. I had a little attitude, and our boss [Amy Sherman-Palladino] really liked that a lot. She was like, ‘That’s our girl!’”

Bledel also found love on set — twice over. She had a brief relationship with Jared Padalecki, her co-star in the first season. A romance, both on-screen and off, that wasn’t confirmed until 2021. “I don’t know if we tried to keep it a secret. I wish it was scandalous or something! I think it was more kind of silly. We were two 17-year-old kids who were like, “Hey, you want to go bowling?” It wasn’t anything super juicy,” Padalecki confessed to Glamour.

At the end of 2002, she began dating Milo Ventimiglia, whom she met while filming the second season of Gilmore Girls. In a 2005 interview with People magazine, Bledel even spoke about wedding plans with the actor: “I think everybody who has been dating for more than a couple of years probably talks about it at some point. It’s a fun thing for us to talk about, but that’s it — it’s down the road." However, the marriage never happened. They broke up a year later, a fact confirmed by Ventimiglia’s representative.

For seven years and seven seasons, Bledel balanced Gilmore Girls with other successful projects, such as The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, in which she starred alongside Blake Lively, America Ferrera, and Amber Tamblyn. Gilmore Girls concluded in 2007 after 153 episodes, but years later, seeing the nostalgia of fans who longed for a different ending, the cast reunited.

“Having the time in between the end of the series and beginning of the revival does give us a lot of perspective on what this show meant to people and what it means for us creatively,” Bledel explained in a 2016 interview with Variety. "And coming back to [Rory], it’s different because she’s grown up now. It was interesting to go back to the characters in real time because I had grown up the same amount probably, but in a very different environment.” She also acknowledged, however, that it was a challenge to step away from that role.

In 2012, she had a small role on the TV series Mad Men, appearing in three episodes — a project that introduced her to her future husband, Vincent Kartheiser. They married in 2014 in a private ceremony in California. Their relationship has been so private that even the name of their son, born in 2015, remains unknown. After a decade together, Kartheiser filed for divorce. No details about the separation agreement or the reasons for the breakup have been made public.

But, contrary to popular belief, Rory Gilmore is not the most important role of her career. Thanks to her portrayal of Emily Malek in The Handmaid’s Tale, Bledel was nominated for four Emmy Awards, winning in 2017. Despite the success and recognition, she chose to leave the project in 2022. “It was deeply upsetting to even imagine Emily going through something like that — being captured, powerless, with no say over her body,” she said in a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter. After a three-year hiatus, she now has two projects in post-production: the films Ponderosa and Joy Will Prevail.

Little is known about Bledel’s private life. She has no social media presence, and her public appearances are rare — the most recent being a small Gilmore Girls tribute at the Emmy Awards. But that has always been her goal: to stay under the radar and maintain as anonymous a life as possible. She has deliberately built a career against the current, making her absence a form of presence.

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