Happy Birthday To Lauren Graham, The Beloved Gilmore Girls Star Turns 53 Today

Mar 16, 2020

Actress Lauren Graham turns 53 today. Having been in the entertainment industry for more than half of her life, she has had her fair share of interviews.

To celebrate her birthday, we're taking a look at some of her best talk show interviews.

We know her best as Lorelai Gilmore in Gilmore Girls. The success of the comedy series propelled her to fame and success, which won her two back-to-back Teen Choice Awards in 2005 and 2006. But she had humble beginnings.

Lauren started her acting career as a mascot for the 1994 America's World Cup soccer team, Striker the dog. In an interview with Vanity Fair in 2010, Lauren shared that the two-day gig had paid her $300 per day, and she had "never made so much money in [her] life".

"I actually smiled underneath my giant foam head for every picture, until three-quarters of the way through the day when I realized that no one could see me smiling," she recalled. "The job gave me sympathy for people who play Disney characters," she added. "I really know what it's like in those costumes. They're suffering for their art."

This interview from 2016 starts out with Lauren talking to host Stephen Colbert about her childhood in Japan. She shared that her first word was actually in Japanese: 'heso', which means 'belly-button'.

She also dispelled a myth that suggested that the cups that they carried from the iconic Luke's Diner in Gilmore Girls were always empty. Stephen held up a card of a tweet that wrote about the rumor and showed it to Lauren which she busts, saying,

"I want to tell you one thing, it is a true thing – there is always coffee in my cup."

Lauen's sense of humor shined in her first-ever interview with David Letterman in 2001, where she admitted to the host that she had an "obsessional-kind of thing" for him.

She revealed that she used to take breaks from writing her thesis in college to "check" on David, by watching him on the monologue segment of the show at a time when he was down with a "terrible cold".

When asked about her family, Lauren joked that she and her family were so glad that her brother, who had just completed his first semester in college, was coming back home from school, and not from juvie.

Her conversation with host Kelly Clarkson was aired in February, making it one of Lauren's most recent televised interviews. In it, Lauren describes her character of Joan in Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist as "unhinged nutball".

Kelly, who is a big fan of Lauren, was gushing over her the entire time. As with most – if not, all – of the TV interviews she takes part in, Lauren keeps it lighthearted and funny.

The 53-year-old talked about her adopted puppy whom she named 'Mochi', and about her experience performing in school musicals during her childhood and teenage years.

Here is a photo of Lauren as a young girl with her father. It's hard to believe that she's now 53. Are you a Gilmore Girls fan? Pass this along to your friends and family to get them into the show as well.