Ryan Gosling “Didn’t Impress” The Gilmore Girls & Other Fan Fest Revelations

This weekend, Gilmore Girls enthusiasts flocked to Washington Depot, CT — the real-life inspiration for Stars Hollow — for the first-ever Gilmore Girls Fan Festival. The highlight of the first day was the Behind the Scenes panel, which featured some of the show's key players, including dialogue coach George Bell, costume supervisor Valerie Campbell, casting director Mara Casey, writer/producer Sheila Lawrence, casting director Jami Rudofsky, and consulting producer/writer Stan Zimmerman. One particularly interesting tidbit came from Rudofsky, who disclosed that Ryan Gosling once auditioned for a small role (“a football character”), but didn't get the part after his audition failed to impress the show's producers. We can't even believe it! Hopefully, that small part wasn't a love interest for Rory, because Rory and Ryan sitting in a Gilmore tree would have been a DREAM. Fans also learned that Melissa McCarthy was not the first choice to play Sookie, as TVLine reports. Casey and Rudofsky initially cast Alex Borstein in the role, but she was not able to get out of her contract with Mad TV. After seeing several hundred potential Sookies, they met McCarthy and as Casey recalled, “it was done” as soon as she auditioned. All four episode of Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life will start streaming on Netflix on Friday, November 25 at 12:01 p.m. PST.