Scott Patterson Shares Update on ‘Gilmore Girls’ Revival While Celebrating Show’s 25th Anniversary (Exclusive)

It’s been 25 years since Gilmore Girls brought us into the quirky, charming, and fast-talking town of Stars Hollow — and fans are still clamoring for more.

Scott Patterson, who kept the coffee flowing as Luke’s Diner proprietor Luke Danes for seven seasons of Gilmore Girls and on Netflix’s limited A Year in the Life revival, opened up to PopCulture.com about the show’s legacy as he celebrated the 25th anniversary with a walk down memory lane on his iHeartRadio rewatch podcast I Am All In…Again! with Scott Patterson.

Asked if it felt like 25 years since he first donned Luke’s iconic flannel, Patterson admitted that, “Yes, it does.” He joked, “We measure the time the way the fans measure the time, vis-à-vis, ‘When’s the next one? When’s there going to be another?’ … so we know how many years it’s been.”

“They shouldn’t let us forget,” he clarified. “They want more. They demand more. They’re the reason that we’re all doing this, and we’re having this experience … so if they want it, they should get it.”

With Gilmore Girls creator Amy Sherman-Palladino and series stars Lauren Graham (Lorelai Gilmore) and Kelly Bishop (Emily Gilmore) all agreeing that they would be open to continuing the Gilmore story in the future — possibly as a Christmas special — Patterson said he thinks “there’s some intention there” for another revival.

“Hopefully, there will be some kind of announcement,” he told PopCulture. And while Patterson admitted that as of now, he has “no idea” about what the future will hold, he quipped that he thinks he’d “find the time” for a return to Stars Hollow.

“You fans, you’re beautiful,” he added later. “We’re doing our best to get it back together for you and get the schedules all aligned, and hopefully we’ll have something for you. Hopefully, there’s an announcement. I don’t know.”

Looking back on the first season of Gilmore Girls, Patterson said the cast “knew it was something very special,” balancing humor and “a real intellectual edge” with its heartfelt scripts.

Patterson never watched the show while it was airing, telling PopCulture he has “no interest in watching myself and anything I do,” but that all changed with his rewatch podcast, I Am All In, back in 2021.

“It was a real journey of discovering a show like a fan had discovered it in 2000,” he recalled of his first full series watch. “And I became like this kind of super fan.”

“I was like, ‘Man, I get it now.’ I didn’t really get it before. I was pleased that people were so happy about the show, but I didn’t get it,” the podcast host admitted. “But now I was like, ‘Okay, yeah, they’re right. You get obsessed.’”

Now working through his second full rewatch on the podcast, Patterson has a much more generous view of his performance as Luke. “I’m better than I thought I was,” he admitted, explaining that at the time he was filming Gilmore Girls, he was just “trying to do the best” he could.

“But as I watched these [episodes], I go, ‘You know, I used to be pretty good,’” he quipped. That doesn’t mean he hasn’t had to “throw the flag” on himself a couple of times, including while watching a scene in the first season in which Luke yells at Sookie St. James (Melissa McCarthy) for going behind the diner counter.

“I thought it was a little much,” he admitted of his performance, adding that while he had done takes where he “pulled it back,” he was encouraged to “just go for it.” Now, watching the scene back, Patterson confessed, “I just thought at the end of the day, it was a little much. Acting police pulled me over, wrote a ticket.”

Gilmore Girls is streaming now on Netflix, Hulu, and Hulu on Disney+. Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life is streaming on Netflix.