Lauren Graham Reveals Details of ‘Gilmore Girls’ Clause in Her Contracts

Lauren Graham has most recently starred in Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist and the upcoming Disney+ show, Mighty Ducks: Game Changers, but she will likely be most associated with her role as Lorelai Gilmore in Gilmore Girls for the rest of her career. The original WB dramedy aired from 2000-2007, and then returned for a Netflix revival in 2016. No matter how many years fans are removed from the series, there will always be strong feelings about things like who was Rory’s best boyfriend or whether Lorelai was right to be so hard on her parents. Those fond feelings are shared by Graham, who told SiriusXM’s Jessica Shaw that she has a “Gilmore Girls clause” built into her other contracts.

“I put that window into all my new jobs just in case,” Graham explained, but she was quick to shut down any rumors of another revival season. “And it’s not — I don’t want to start any new rumors — it’s not for any concrete reason.” Ultimately, Graham credits her closeness with showrunner Amy Sherman-Palladino for her willingness to potentially return to the role. “I have a loyalty and an openness to working with her, first of all. And because we could never have predicted [a revival] in the past,” she continued. “So that door is open. Is it creatively warranted? Is it, you know, something? I don’t know. I don’t know. But yes, technically yes.”

Graham explained that regular show schedules are “so restrictive now” so adding in a Gilmore Girls clause is a failsafe so she can “carve out some pockets [of time] just in case.” Sherman-Palladino has expressed similar sentiments in the past, telling Entertainment Tonight in 2020 that she’d never completely rule out a return to Stars Hollow. “You know, it’s the kind of thing where we hadn’t planned on doing the Netflix movies,” she explained. “Never say never. It would just have to be the right time for everybody. ‘Cause it was [in 2016]. It was, like, the moment where Lauren’s like, ‘Hmmm,’ and Alexis’ like, ‘Hmmm,’ and Kelly’s like, ‘Hmmm.’ So we all just did it.”

Sherman-Palladino even joked about her own Gilmore Girls clause to The Hollywood Reporter in 2017. “We’ve got the Gilmore clause, we’ve carved it out,” Sherman-Palladino said. “The thing about Gilmore Girls is, it’s an amorphous thing. The reason that it happened the first time is because we all went to that Austin [ATX] Festival and we all sat together and there was an open bar and we were all sitting there saying, ‘It feels good now, let’s do it now.’”

“I think it would have to be a similar situation,” she continued. “There would have to be an open bar and we would have to have the right story and the right format and it would have to be a time where the girls and us all felt like, ‘Yeah, let’s dive in again.’ There’s nothing being planned right now but it’s open if the muse strikes.” The revival ended (spoiler alert) with the reveal that Rory was pregnant with her own child, so there is certainly a wealth of storyline potential should the right time ever arise. Where they lead, we’ll certainly follow.