‘Gilmore Girls’: Olivia Hack Had to Reshoot Her Entire 1st Scene to Make Her Look Younger Than Alexis Bledel
Olivia Hack joined the cast of Gilmore Girls in 2003 as Rory (Alexis Bledel)’s Yale roommate, Tana Schrick. Tana was a teenage prodigy who was 15 during her freshman year at Yale. The problem was, Hack looked the same age as Bledel, which she was.
Hack appeared on Scott Patterson’s I Am All In podcast on Oct. 12. She shared how they made her look younger on Gilmore Girls, even though it meant reshooting her entire first scene wearing a different wardrobe.
‘Gilmore Girls’ had to make Olivia Hack look younger
Bledel was 22 in 2003. Hack had played youngest daughter Cindy Brady in the ‘90s Brady Bunch Movies, but was 20 by the time she was playing Tana. So in the scene together, Tana looked about the same age as Bledel, which Hack was.
“That was the source of so much drama,” Hack said on I Am All In. “So basically, I did my first day. I was feeling good about it. Went home and a few days later I got a call at like six o’clock at night and they said, ‘How quick can you get to Warner Bros.? We want to do a wardrobe test.’ And I live right around the corner from Warner Bros at the time so I said I can get there. I got there and they said, ‘We didn’t like how you looked in that episode. You look too old next to Alexis.’”
Part of the problem, Hack said, was that they made Rory look too young in the scene, considering it was her freshman year at Yale.
“Now, Alexis in that scene and Alexis and I talked about this later, they had put her in this French braid that she never wore again but it made her look incredibly young,” Hack said. “Standing next to me, we look the same age.”
New hair and wardrobe made Olivia Hack look 15
Hack did her wardrobe fitting and hair tests. Finally, they came up with a look that made Tana look 15.
“So they dressed me up and they did that thing where they cart you out in front of 10 people and they’re all looking at you but not at you in the eye,” Hack said. “You’re just like a piece of meat or a circus animal. They’re staring at you, they put you in another outfit. So they went, ‘Okay, yeah, this is the outfit you like. This is how we’re going to do it.’ They put my hair up and say, ‘Okay, now let’s shoot it.’”
‘Gilmore Girls’ take 2 was a whirlwind
Hack was game for the wardrobe fitting. The Gilmore Girls reshoot came as a shock.
It’s like 8 o’clock at night at this point. I didn’t know I was going to shoot anything that day. I’d already shot the damn scene. And I went, ‘Shoot it?’ And they go, ‘Yeah, we’re going to reshoot all your first scene, all of it, right now.’ So okay.”
If you rewatch the episode, “The Lorelais First Day at Yale,” you’ll still see Hack’s original appearance in some shots.
“So I go in there and I go, ‘What about this first scene where I’m kind of walking in this room where there was a ton of extras, a ton of stuff going on?’” Hack said. “They go, ‘Uh, we’re just going to leave that.’ So if you watch that first scene, before I enter the room, I’m in a group of people dressed totally different with totally different hair and they just let that slide. Then I walk in, whatever.”
As series regulars, Bledel and Lauren Graham had already moved on to subsequent scenes. Hack said the whirlwind did contribute to her portrayal of Tana.
“So I shoot this scene, Alexis and Lauren they had already been there all day long so they shot their establishing group stuff and then left,” Hack said. “So I did all my stuff with some stand in. Weirdly enough, I love that scene. I love how it turned out but I think probably she was chaotic and nervous and all that stuff. It probably just resonated for me because that’s exactly what I was feeling. What is going on?”
