Olivia Hack had to reshoot her entire first scene to make her look younger than Alexis Bledel
Olivia Hack joined the cast Gilmore girls in 2003 as Rory’s (Alexis Bledel) Yale roommate, Tana Schrick. Tana was a teenage prodigy who turned 15 during her first year at Yale. The problem was that Hack looked the same age as Bledel, which she was.
Hack appeared at Scott Patterson’s I Am All In podcast October 12. She shared how they made her look younger Gilmore girlseven if it meant reshooting her entire first scene in 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 The Brady Bunch movies, but was 20 when she played Tana. So in the scene together, Tana looked about the same age as Bledel, as Hack was.
“It was the source of so much drama,” Hack continued I Am All In. “So basically I did my first day. I felt good about it. Went home and a few days later I got a call at six o’clock at night and they said, ‘How quickly can you get to Warner Bros.? We want to take 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 were talking 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 have created the Olivia Hack look 15
Hack did the wardrobe fitting and hair tests. In the end, they came up with a look that made Tana look 15.
“So they dressed me up and they did that thing where they throw you out in front of 10 people and they all look at you but not in your eyes,” Hack said. “You are just like a piece of meat or a circus animal. They stare at you, they put you in a different outfit. So they said, ‘Okay, yes, this is the outfit you like. This is how we’re going to do it.’ They put my hair up and say, ‘Okay, let’s shoot it.'”
‘Gilmore Girls’ take 2 was a whirlwind
Hack was game for the wardrobe decoration. The Gilmore girls reshoots came as a shock.
It’s like eight at night at this point. I didn’t know I was going to shoot anything that day. I had already shot the damn scene. And I said, “Shoot it?” And they say, ‘Yeah, we’re going to reshoot your whole first scene, right now.’ So fine.”
If you rewatch the episode, “The Lorelai’s First Day at Yale,” you’ll still see Hack’s original appearance in some shots.
“So I go in there and I’m like, ‘What about this first scene where I’m kind of walking in this room where there were a ton of extras, a ton of stuff going on?'” Hack said. “They say, ‘Uh, we’ll just leave it at that.’ So if you watch the first scene, before I walk into the room, I’m in a group of people who are completely different dressed with completely different hair, and they just let it slide. Then I’ll go in, anyway.”
As regulars, Bledel and Lauren Graham had already moved on to subsequent scenes. Hack said the whirlwind contributed to her portrayal of Tana.
“So I shot this scene, Alexis and Lauren, they’d 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. Oddly enough, I love that scene. I love how it turned out, but I think she was probably chaotic and nervous and all that. It probably just resonated with me because it was just what I felt. What’s going on?”
