‘Gilmore Girls’ Hep Alien Bassist John Cabrera Thought He Nailed a Different Audition for the Show 1st
Gilmore Girls had a little of everything. It had comedy, drama, romance. Gilmore Girls even introduced the band Hep Alien. Sebastian Bach played Gil, the band’s guitarist. John Cabrera played bassist Brian Fuller, but that’s not the role in which Cabrera originally thought Gilmore Girls would cast him.
Cabrera was a guest on Scott Patterson’s I Am All In podcast on May 18 to discuss Gilmore Girls. He revealed the first role he auditioned for on Gilmore Girls and why he’s glad he played Brian Fuller instead.
John Cabrera met the ‘Gilmore Girls’ casting director one Christmas
Mara Casey was one of the casting directors of Gilmore Girls. She met Cabrera at a holiday gathering, and cast member Sean Gunn introduced them.
“I met Mara Casey through Sean Gunn,” Cabrera said on I Am All In. “Mara Casey is a close friend. She’s a Chicagoan, I’m a Chicagoan, so is Sean. We all came here together. She of course knew Sean from the show. The Christmas before I was cast on the show and she was home for the holidays. She wasn’t able to go home for the holidays so we invited her to the Christmas party.”
That Christmas party led to John Cabrera’s 1st audition
Casey broached the subject of Gilmore Girls with Cabrera, unprompted. She came through relatively quickly, but this was before Hep Alien appeared on Gilmore Girls.
“I met her there and we had a great conversation,” Cabrera said. “I had just been in Los Angeles for about a year and a half. She said, ‘I want to try and get you on the show.’ I was like, ‘Oh, sounds good to me.’ She brought me in for a role.”
Cabrera thought he was a lock for this role.
“It’s actually, I can’t remember the name of the character,” Cabrera said. “You remember the brother and sister that Rory goes to the home of that friend, the one who’s going to help her get into Yale? He’s got the two siblings. He’s got the brother and sister and they’re at the table talking trivia and stuff. I auditioned for that guy and Dan seemed really into the audition. I came out of it thinking like oh, I got that. He was laughing. Then I didn’t get it and I was kind of bummed.”
Hep Alien offered more ‘Gilmore Girls’ job security
Had Cabrera gotten that role, he would have been off Gilmore Girls by the time Rory (Alexis Bledel) went to college. Cabrera is glad now. he got to be in Gilmore Girls‘ band Hep Alien.
“Then this role came up and Mara said Dan was like, ‘Hey, that one guy that came in for that, can you bring him in?’” Cabrera said. “Now, that role had a lot of lines in it. I remember the other one, being like I’d really love to grab that role. The Brian role had one line in the first episode. So my feeling was okay this is cool but he’s only got one line. Never would I have thought that 37 episodes later and five seasons later…”
Cabrera shared this story to inform other aspiring actors that sometimes the smaller part grows into something you couldn’t imagine.
“That’s a really good lesson for that old saying there’s no small parts, just small actors,” Cabrera said. “That’s a perfect example. I would’ve assumed that was the end of that character and probably if I had been given both on a platter, I would’ve taken the first one as an actor because it had more lines, not realizing of course that five years later I would’ve been a part of the show.”
