‘Gilmore Girls’: Lorelai’s Couch Was Actually Just Wood Covered With Fabric and Extremely Uncomfortable
From 2000 to 2007, Gilmore Girls chronicled the trials and tribulations of an impulsive single mother and her remarkably mature daughter in a picturesque community filled with quirky residents. Nestled in the quaint Connecticut town of Stars Hollow, the cozy country style of Lorelai and Rory Gilmore’s iconic home invited viewers to get comfortable with them on their apparently soft and well-worn couch.
The show was such a hit that it briefly returned for a much-anticipated revival titled A Year in the Life in 2016. As realistic as the homes and their furnishings looked on the sets and sound stages that comprised the fictional town, a lot was going on that we never got to see.
For the show’s 100th episode, Melissa McCarthy toured the set and revealed a literal hard truth about a certain piece of furniture that was not nearly as comfy as it appeared.
The charming set of ‘Gilmore Girls’ had a real inspiration
The charming streets and delightful architecture of the fictional Connecticut town are the amazingly realistic creations of Warner Brothers Studios in Burbank, California. Though the pilot was shot on location in Unionville, Ontario, The Cinemaholic reports that the elaborate sets and sound stages we grew to know and love were actually located in Burbank on a backlot called The Midwest Street.
Many other popular shows have been filmed there too. You may even recognize the revamped Gilmore Girls set as the secretive town of Rosewood, Pennsylvania, in Pretty Little Liars.
According to the Deseret News, the show’s creator Amy Sherman-Palladino got her inspiration for the set and the show during a visit with her husband, Daniel Palladino, to the tiny town of Washington, Connecticut. “We’re driving by, and people are slowing down saying, ‘Excuse me, where is the pumpkin patch?’ And everything is green, and people are out, and they’re talking,” Sherman-Palladino recalled.
“And we went to a diner and everyone knew each other and someone got up and they walked behind the (counter) and they got their own coffee because the waitress was busy, and I’m, like, ‘Is this out of central casting? Who staged this thing for me?'”
By the next morning, Sherman-Palladino had worked out the idea for Gilmore Girls right down to the dialogue for the pilot. “If I can make people feel this much of what I felt walking around this fairy town, I thought that would be wonderful,” she said.
‘Gilmore Girls’ co-star Melissa McCarthy called Lorelai’s couch ‘the worst couch on Earth’
In 2007, Melissa McCarthy, who played the bubbly, accident-prone chef, Sookie St. James, gave fans a behind-the-scenes look at the set of Gilmore Girls. “Welcome to my house,” said McCarthy, stepping onto the porch and through the front door.
“When you come through my foyer, all of the sudden, which makes no sense, you’re in the middle of Lorelai’s foyer, so see that?” she said, opening the closet door to reveal a wall of bare framing. “That’s probably why we don’t put coats away very often.” McCarthy then led the way across the lot to the sound stage where the interior of Lorelai’s house is filmed.
Here we see the catwalks and equipment that surround the set and help the crew make it look so real and inviting on film. As far as the furnishings go, one cozy-looking piece is a complete fake. “This couch is the worst couch on Earth,” McCarthy said as she perched on it for the camera.
“It’s the most uncomfortable couch that’s ever been built. So next time you see us all lounging around on the couch, just know I’m really sitting on fabric wooden blocks.”
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There must have been some seriously good acting going on to make it look so comfortable. At least, according to McCarthy, all the food we saw in the show was “fantastically real.”
‘Gilmore Girls’ ditched the uncomfortable couch in Season 6
In Season 6, Lorelai and Luke decide to remodel her house, throwing everything into disarray, but in Episode 9, Luke surprises Lorelai with the finished product a week ahead of schedule. There’s cheery yellow wallpaper in the foyer, new paint inside and out, and antique furniture in the upstairs bedroom that Luke loves and Lorelai hates. We also get a first glimpse of the new and hopefully improved couch that now sports a pinstriped motif.
Screenrant pointed out that more changes appeared in the 2016 revival, including a flat-screen television, more new paint, and an updated retro inspired kitchen. There’s also another new couch with red stripes, much like the one at the inn during the original series. A remodel is a great way to explain the changes. Still, according to HelloGiggles on Twitter, after the show ended in 2007, no one remembered exactly how the original set of Stars Hollow was constructed.
“Weirdly … there were no plans, and there were no drawings [for Stars Hollow], so we were just watching [old] episodes going ‘I think there was a wall there?'” Sherman-Palladino said. Fortunately, we can all still do the same to create some Gilmore Girls-inspired decor of our own.
