1 ‘Gilmore Girls’ Director Made Scott Patterson, Milo Ventimiglia Do 30 Takes of This Scene
Gilmore Girls was known for filming long days. Read any interview with a cast member and it’s likely to allude to lots of dialogue to memorize, delivering it fast and doing it until they got it right. Still, 30 takes was considered extreme, even for Gilmore Girls. But, Scott Patterson and Milo Ventimiglia did one scene 30 times.
Patterson told the story on the Sept. 14 episode of his I Am All In podcast from a live recording in Raleigh, N.C. Sean Gunn was his guest and did one scene even more times than Patterson.
Scott Patterson gave 1 ‘Gilmore Girls’ director a nickname
There were many directors who only did one Gilmore Girls episode. Others did over a dozen episodes over the seven seasons, and there were some who just did a handful. Patterson wouldn’t out this particular director, but he knew if they were directing an episode to get ready for many, many takes.
“We had one director who will remain nameless who was a very good director,” Patterson said on I Am All In. “Really knew where to put the camera which is half the battle. We referred to that director as Takedy McTake because we did so many takes with that director.”
The ‘Gilmore Girls’ scene Scott Patterson and Milo Ventimiglia did 30 times
The season 2 episode “Nick & Nora/Sid & Nancy” introduced Luke (Patterson)’s nephew Jess (Ventimiglia). Jess would recur through season 6, but it was quite a debut for him. Not only did he have to get all wet, but he had to do 30 takes of the preceding scene.
“Remember when I push Jess in the lake?” Patterson said. “Well, there’s a walk and talk before that scene. We shot that 30 times.”
That obviously wasn’t a deterrent to Ventimiglia because he kept coming back for 37 episodes. Patterson also rolled with it and continued throughout the seven seasons.
Sean Gunn’s 40 take scene
Gunn had Patterson beat. He joined the cast as Kirk Gleason in the second episode. Kirk wasn’t there every week, but he appeared in over 100 episodes. Gunn recalled a scene in the season 1 episode “Love and War and Snow” that had up to 10 more takes than Patterson’s scene.
“There’s a long walk through the fake snow in season 1 that’s like all these townspeople,” Gunn said. “It was probably the fourth episode I did, maybe fourth or fifth. Yeah, it was after midnight and I think we did over 40 takes of that shot and it was long and all the way through. And that fake snow is like made of shredded paper, finely shredded paper which I hope didn’t have any long term health [consequences].”
