Liza Weil, best known for playing Rory Gilmore’s neurotic frenemy on Gilmore Girls , talks about what she learned from life in Stars Hollow, working in ShondaLand for five years, and becoming a series regular again on How to Get Away With Murder .
Christopher Polk / ABC
Liza Weil couldn't be further from Paris Geller, the overly confident, controlling character who made her famous after seven seasons on Gilmore Girls. "When I first got the material [for Paris], I was really unsettled. I was like, 'How on earth could they think this is something that is in me at all?'" the soft-spoken actress said with a laugh at a pizza parlor in Los Angeles recently. "I found her intimidating. I love Paris now, and I've always loved her, but it was scary to be a judgmental, mean girl."
Currently, Weil is also loving the role she's playing, that of Bonnie Winterbottom, one of two associates on ABC's How to Get Away With Murder who works with law school professor Annalise Keating (Viola Davis). "There's an odd ease on the set. There's an element that feels like we've been doing it forever. It feels like The Shining a little bit when you think about it, like, 'You've always been Bonnie Winterbottom, madame,'" she said, putting on her best horror movie voice. "She's new certainly and that's always a little daunting when you're taking baby steps with a character, but each chunk of information really does inform so much. I feel like I have a good handle."
But it wasn't always so easy for Weil to settle into a character, particularly with Paris. The actress, who was raised by parents who could have easily fit into the fictional quirky world of Stars Hollow on Gilmore Girls, was the polar opposite of her Connecticut alter ego in every sense. Though she was born in Passaic, New Jersey, she spent her childhood traveling around Europe with her mother, father, and their comedy troupe (a far cry from Paris' stuffy prep school upbringing). The family eventually moved to Pennsylvania, but Weil was still constantly surrounded by eccentric, colorful people, which helped shape her desire to get into acting. "My parents would take me along when they would play venues and I just would sit in the audience with a Coca-Cola and watch them do their act. I don't know who wouldn't find that appealing," she said. "It's kind of magic when you're a kid."
In her teens, Weil would commute into New York City after school to shoot PSA-esque projects, like movies shown in health classes about peer pressure. And very unlike Paris, Weil barely graduated high school and didn't go to college. Instead, she moved to New York permanently to pursue acting. She won the starring role in Susan Skoog's 1998 independent movie Whatever, and once it was released, she decided to relocate to Los Angeles. Almost immediately after her move, Gilmore Girls nearly fell into her lap. "Gilmore Girls kind of saved my life really, for being able to have a consistent job through my entire twenties while I was figuring out who I was and how to be a person," she said.
The WB via missmegrose.tumblr.com
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