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Shortly after your second serving of Thanksgiving dinner later this month, you may find yourself planted in front of your laptop or television to start episode one of Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life around midnight. The four-part series is finally premiering on Netflix after what feels like an eternity of teasers and the never-ending great debate of Who Rory Gilmore Will End Up With. The revival will see Liza Weil reprise her role as the incomparable Paris Geller, Rory’s frenemy-turned-true-constant who was bound for medical school at the end of season seven. Cosmopolitan.com recently spoke to Liza, who currently stars on How to Get Away With Murder as Annalise’s right-hand woman Bonnie, about playing Paris for the first time in nearly 10 years, her favorite Paris storylines, and where she thinks Asher Fleming’s printing press is right now.

Did Shonda Rhimes have to sign off on you doing Gilmore Girls again? What was it like to juggle between the two?

I had gotten some emails from Amy [Sherman-Palladino] but it was finally maybe looking really good to happen. That was very exciting. It really worked out quite beautifully because we started filming in February and we only did 15 episodes of How to Get Away With Murder. [The revival] lined up with our hiatus. We were all very surprised. Amy was worried that I wasn’t gonna be able to do it. I was only doing two of the four episodes.

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How did you make the transition back to Paris after being away from her for so long? (Paris last appeared on the penultimate episode of the final season in 2007).

It was daunting. A decade is a very long time to be away from somebody. In some way, she was always in there. Paris sort of still lurks around. But I was trepidatious for sure. I was relieved once I read the first episode of the revival. It was very magical opening that script and going through those pages. Paris is so alive in that writing. That was very comforting.

Is Paris still with Doyle?

I can confirm that we are both in it and that we have scenes together.

I will accept that. I want to get into Paris as a character for a bit. I remember it took me a while to warm up to her and it was not until in the later seasons I began to relate more to Paris. Was she just too mature for her time? And did this backlash ever hurt your feelings?

In the beginning, I remember it being difficult for me to find where her behavior was coming from, because in the beginning, Paris does present as this very mean and confrontational, not very pleasant [person]. The interesting thing about a lot of serialized television is that it’s a blessing and curse. Smart writers really take their time in investing in backstories and characters. As a viewer, you have to invest in them and love them before you can chip away at what’s going on more on a deeper level with secondary characters.

In season one, it was hard. I do remember feeling like, oh gosh, what is the value of portraying a mean girl on television? I’m not sure if it was helping anybody. It didn’t feel good to do it. Once we started learning more about Paris, it really made sense to me very quickly. Again, Amy and Dan and the writers were very smart about what was motivating that behavior. I agree with you, as I ‘ve gotten older — and I don’t know if it’s just aging and sort of having a better understanding of human pathology, psychological reasons for behavior — but it is easier for me to identify with what makes her tick, the older that I get. I certainly think I have aspects of Paris in me. All those things are a part of me.

Can you elaborate?

I think I can get a little passionate about things that I believe in and maybe that can be a little intense for people. And I think a lot of that stuff comes out of the need of wanting to belong, and being insecure and uncomfortable. Like all of us, she figured out who she was and became less apologetic about it.

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Should young women aspire to be more like Paris? Do you have a message for all the Paris girls out there?

The thing that’s the most lovely to me, looking back at my time on Gilmore Girls, was how fortunate I was to be a young actor and to be on a show that made it really cool for girls to be smart. I really don’t think there were any other shows like that at that time that were portraying young girls like that. There were a lot of beauty shows, teen soaps, a lot of attention on looking pretty and being sexualized. It was really a gift for me to not have to do that and to really be able to explore the real issues of what it is to grow up. There are a lot of great role models on the show. I think that it’s probably a good thing to aspire to be a little mix of every woman you see on the show. The grandparents were amazing. I think Lorelai Gilmore is an amazing role model. Sookie was a great role model. If you put all those women in a blender, you’d be in pretty good shape.

When the show aired, the whole “Is this show feminist or not” conversation didn’t really exist. Looking back, was Gilmore Girls feminist?

No. I don’t think so. I think that Amy is a really smart, funny, eccentric person and that’s the world she came up with. She’s a woman. She wrote the people she wanted to see on TV. I don’t think that was in the zeitgeist at the time as it is now. I don’t think we thought of it that way.

Would Gilmore Girls work if it premiered in 2016, considering all the social media hoopla that goes with anything that’s on TV?

We were all very young. That was my first big job. I don’t know if I would’ve been able to handle being aware of myself or watching myself or seeing the things people were saying about the show at the time. I don’t think I had the skill set to separate those things. I have to do it now for How to Get Away With Murder, it’s kind of a Shondaland mandate, which I totally understand. It generates fans and gets people excited about the show. I think that there’s something that can be beautiful for connecting with viewers and watching something together. But it’s a bizarre thing. I also think that Gilmore Girls is really a show you have to sit down and pay attention to, or you’re going to miss it. I don’t know if that really serves social media or live-tweeting. I think it’s also important to remember that we wouldn’t be tweeting in character and not ourselves, and it would probably be disappointing to people because it would not be as witty as our characters. It would be hard to keep that up, I think.

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Amy recently said that she wishes fans would focus less on Rory’s boyfriend storylines. Do you share the same sentiment?

Yeah. I think that’s also something that’s happened because time has passed and there’s a lot more focus on that. There are people shipping relationships on social media and that’s sort of a whole phenomenon. I don’t know that when that show was on, if people were so focused on it. I think that’s something that’s developed over time. I think like we were talking about it earlier, these are very strong women who don’t need men to go through life with or have them be a part of their identity; they’re very capable of standing on their own. She kind of deals with that beautifully in the revival. I can tease that. Amy is commenting on all that in the revival. It’s very smart. There’s a lot to be learned from that, to watch Rory navigate, and watch her figure it out and be a little older.

Amy also revealed that Paris was one of her favorite characters to write for. Can you talk about some of your favorite Paris storylines?

The fencing episode at Chilton was a great one. I think that was the first time we really saw how vulnerable Paris can be. The amazing thing about Amy and Dan is when they come up with ideas like that, they go all the way. They sent Alexis and I to fencing school, we had weeks of fencing lessons that were really involved. I spent a lot of time … whenever I had free time, I would go to this amazing place in the Valley and just fence with people. When you watch the episode, it’s not that long of a sequence. But they really invested the money and time for us to do that, which was amazing. It helped me so much as an actor. I mean, all that stuff, the Krav Maga episode with Danny, we trained at Krav Maga school for two months. It’s 10 seconds of fighting. We got to learn so much and really do it.

There’s an episode, I think it’s season six, the Founders Day Punch episode, where Paris gets drunk and is having sort of a mild psychotic episode in the town. That’s all based on this scene from the John Cassavetes movie that Amy really loves called A Woman Under the Influence. I got messengered the DVD one day with a note from her being like, “This is what we’re modeling the scene after, watch this movie.” It was incredible just to do a Gena Rowlands impression. She’s one of my all-time favorite actresses ever.

From "To Live and Let Diorama" (season three, episode 18). Warner Bros. Television

Gena Rowlands in A Woman Under the Influence (1974). Cine-Source

It really was refreshing to see her out of her comfort zone. On that note, do you have a favorite Paris quote?

“Tie your tubes, idiot” for sure. It’s up there. There’s a lot of them, but I remember that one so clearly. It really makes me laugh all the time.

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This is random but quite important, I think: Where is Asher Fleming’s printing press right now?

I’d like to think that Paris has it maybe in storage. That was a beautiful thing. His family, maybe one of his grown children might have come after it. She would’ve had to let that go. That’s a hard thing to keep tabs on as you’re going through your life as a young woman.

That was one of my favorite Paris relationships, actually.

I think it warmed her for sure. It was very well-handled as well. I’m a fan of that relationship too.

Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life premieres on Netflix on Nov. 25.

This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.

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Peggy Truong Entertainment Writer Peggy is Cosmopolitan.com’s entertainment writer, specializing in Leonardo DiCaprio, This Is Us, and the royals.

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