As an ailing Alexis Bledel sniffled her way through her Gilmore Girls network screen test, casting director Jill Anthony was worried. Though Bledel was an acting novice, she had a unique quality that helped her shine even among a vast pool of young actresses who would one day become movie stars; another casting director had already fallen in love with her in New York. Now, though, Bledel’s illness was threatening her performance—enough to potentially cost her the part.

“Luckily, we had videotaped one of her early auditions,” Anthony, who cast the show’s pilot with Julie Mossberg, told Vanity Fair. “We popped that in, and they saw her on camera and she just jumped off the screen, you know. Those blue eyes.” The part was hers.

As Gilmore Girls fans know, the rest is history. Bledel and Lauren Graham spent seven seasons embodying the sort of mother-daughter relationship on-screen that had never really been seen before: a bond so tight that it bordered on sisterly. As Lorelai, Graham portrayed one of TV’s most complicated and empathetic young mothers to date; as Rory, Bledel became an equally magnetic mascot for introverted bookworms everywhere. (Anthony declined to name any of the actresses Bledel beat out for the role.) And the magnificently strange hodgepodge of eccentrics that surrounded them—their high-society relatives, their nosy neighbors, and everyone else—only made their world more appealing.

But finding the perfect actors to play those beloved characters was a process—one that wasn’t always easy. The pilot had to be cast in just four and a half weeks, Anthony recalled, rather than the usual 6 to 10. Somehow, in that time, she and Mossberg managed to find and secure most of the series’s most important players. As for the rest? Credit goes to Mara Casey and Jami Rudofsky, who cast the remainder of the series once it got picked up, as well as its upcoming Netflix revival.

Everyone’s main objective? Casey summarized it this way: “Amy”—that’s Sherman-Palladino, creator of Gilmore Girls—“wanted funny. ‘Just get me funny.’”

“‘And talk fast,’” added Rudofsky.

LORELAI GILMORE

In casting the elder of the two Lorelais (Rory’s real name is also Lorelai), Anthony said she and Mossberg “were looking for [someone] really smart, witty—someone who was able to do that rat-a-tat kind of banter with her daughter.”

That turned out to be a difficult ask—especially because the thirtysomething actresses they were after didn’t really want to play the mother of a teenager. Luckily, there was Graham—whom both Anthony and Mossberg were convinced was just right for the part.

They pursued her—“oh my gosh, we were pursuing Lauren!” Anthony recalls—but she kept turning them down. At the time, Graham was already on another show called M.Y.O.B. (as in, Mind Your Own Business). Though the casting duo knew that show wasn’t doing well and wouldn’t be picked up for another season, Graham wanted to remain loyal to her prior commitment. Thankfully for Gilmore fans, things ended up working out in the end.

EMILY AND RICHARD GILMORE

Once Graham and Bledel were in place, Anthony and Mossberg were able to select actors from the options they had lined up for other roles. Kelly Bishop and Edward Herrmann both got their roles during casting sessions in New York, when Sherman-Palladino and producer Gavin Polone flew out to see contenders. Anthony said both actors “just blew them away.”

The eldest Gilmores developed a real-life rapport very similar to that of their characters—albeit platonic. Kelly Bishop told Vanity Fair that she and her stage husband hung out behind the scenes—getting drinks and lunches together. Herrmann’s wife, Star Herrmann, referred to Bishop as Herrmann’s “second wife,” and even invited her to say good-bye when the family decided to remove him from life support. To Bishop’s surprise, she arrived to find that she had been the only person invited outside of Herrmann’s family.