You might know Lauren Graham best as the quick-witted, coffee-gulping mom on TV series “Gilmore Girls” or as the once-struggling single mother Sarah Braverman on the recently ended series “Parenthood.”

Now the actress is taking on another mom role, this time in the PG-rated film “Max,” opening in theaters today, about a military-trained dog that comes to live with the family of his fallen Marine trainer and partner.

Graham chatted with mom.me about family—including her boyfriend, actor Peter Krause, and his 13-year-old son Roman—as well as her new movie and what she would like parents to know about kids. After all, she’s worked with a lot of them.

You’re known for playing sometimes quirky or struggling single moms like Lorelai Gilmore in “Gilmore Girls” and Sarah Braverman in “Parenthood.” What drew you to the heartland mom character in “Max”?

I just thought the movie was really moving and it was a good story. I like the filmmaker Boaz [Yakin], and I love Thomas Haden Church. I heard that [Thomas] was really excited about me, and I was really happy about that until I had the horrible realization that I wondered if he was thinking of Heather Graham. And I was like, I can’t imagine that he’s a fan of mine. It’s probably Heather Graham. And then when I met him, he was like, “No, man, it was you!”

The family has often played a large role in a lot of your films and on TV. What would you say is most important to you about family?

I have two thoughts about that. One is, I have an amazing family, and they don’t benefit from more communication. And then I also have a family that I’ve created, which is my boyfriend and his son, and our friends—our extended family, in that sense. Both are important to me. I just think the more you show up, the better things tend to be. And I also don’t hold grudges. That, to me, has been a really important thing to learn that I see in other families—people really hang on to some injury or some conflict that happened, and I just have never been that way, and it’s always served me. It’s not served me to just forgive and forget and move on.

You’ve worked with a lot of kids in your roles, and you mentioned your boyfriend’s son. Do you have anything that you’d like moms to know about kids?

I have several kids in my life—most importantly, my boyfriend’s son. In some other families, I get to be “friend-adult.” I have a friend, and I’m friends with his kids, and he calls me “Cool Aunt Lauren”—not that I’m cool, but because he has found that his kids will tell me things that they won’t tell them. And all I do is ask a bunch of questions. One of them was going on a date, and I was like, “A date? What is that for you? Do you go sit and look at each other across a table?” And [my friend] was like, “We never really asked them that before. We didn’t know.”

And so, I’ve gotten the most out of asking questions and then not answering for them. My tendency can be to be like, “So how did that feel? Weird, huh?'” or fill it in for them, but I’ve really gotten a lot out of my relationships with younger people by just letting there be silence. Letting them come up with an answer and find their way to what they want to say. And to just ask more questions.

There’s a scene in the movie where your character stands up to authority. Do you have any advice for women and girls about standing up for themselves and saying what’s on their minds?

I feel like for women and girls, there’s a lack of experience there. I’m much more assertive now definitely than when I started out, but hopefully not obnoxious-assertive. Just like, “I know myself, and I’m OK to say how I feel,” but it’s a learned skill. In the case of this character, she’s pushed to the point where there’s no other choice, and she’s going to stand up for her kids. But in general, I think it’s an area that needs attention. You have to practice exercising your confidence and speaking for yourself. Then it tends to get easier.

You’ve also written a novel, “Someday, Someday, Maybe,” about a struggling young actress in New York. Was that a difficult transition, going from acting and producing to writing a novel?

No. That came out of actually hitting a point as an actor where I had more time on my hands than I had during “Gilmore Girls,” and I wanted to do something creative that wasn’t dependent upon any infrastructure or anybody else. It came from a time in my life when I suddenly had a moment to look around and feel like, “How did this happen?” I went from, “All I wanted to do was be an actor” to “Here I am in this environment I always dreamed of, and how have I changed? Who was I then, and how dare I? How did I ever think I could do this?” So it just came very organically, at least initially.

Then when I sold it, it became a terrible chore that I had to finish, and a deadline I had to meet, and everything from school flooded back, and I was like, “No, no, I can’t do it.”

The funny thing about something like a novel is it’s frozen in time. There are mistakes I made and things I would do differently, and there it is—just, out there. The most empowering part of that was I did something I’d never done before, and I practiced, and I got help, and I asked for advice, and then I finished. And it made me feel like, “I’m going to build a house next! There’s nothing I can’t do.”

Source: mom.me

Lauren Graham News

Seth Rogen, Lauren Graham Support Young Female Writers at ‘Lights, Camera, WriteGirl!’

The Los Angeles event featured scenes written by young girls and acted out by Rogen, Wayne Brady, Wendi McLendon-Covey, Keiko Agena, Stephanie Katherine Grant, and Kirby Howell-Baptiste, with Graham as the show’s host.

As two stars who have built careers out of their writing talents, Seth Rogen and Lauren Graham took part in supporting the next generation of writers at “Lights, Camera, WriteGirl!” on Saturday night.

The Los Angeles event was put on by WriteGirl, a nonprofit which mentors and encourages creativity for aspiring young female writers, and featured scenes written by young girls in the program, acted out by Rogen, Wayne Brady, Wendi McLendon-Covey, Keiko Agena, Stephanie Katherine Grant and Kirby Howell-Baptiste, with Graham as the show’s host. Established female TV and film writers, including Clare Sera (Smallfoot, Blended), Lauren Miller Rogen (Like Father), Josann McGibbon (Descendants) and Lisa Cholodenko (The Kids Are All Right), also gave feedback to the girls on their projects.

Seth Rogen said the cause was particularly personal to him, as he “started writing when I was 13 years old; I still write with the person [partner Evan Goldberg] I started writing with them. I was a writer on a TV show when I was 18, so I personally believe that young people of any age, if encouraged, can really create good work. I think with young women especially, obviously with the way our world works, the more support and help, the better.”

The star, who acted in seven of the 14 scenes performed at the show, told The Hollywood Reporter that he was very impressed with the work the young writers — ranging from 13 to 18 years old — had created.

“They were really well written and some of the funny ones were really, really, genuinely funny, and the dramatic ones were truly emotional,” Rogen said. “There’s a lot of raw emotion in that, and as someone who reads writing all day, it’s hard to tap into that stuff, and they really did in a way that affected people, which isn’t easy.”

Graham, who has authored three books, not only joined the organization to emcee the event but has also been a mentor in the WriteGirl program for the last year. The actress said she was inspired to volunteer by her former Gilmore Girls co-star Agena, and because writing has taken on an increasingly large part of her life.

“Writing has become something that is important to me and something that I work hard at, but it took me a while to find the confidence to do it,” she told THR. “My hope is to give that to a girl at a younger age, because no matter if I had books published or not, the practice of it, the act of it, really gives me so much. It was just on a simple level like, ‘What’s something I can impart to a younger person? I could say it doesn’t matter if it never leaves your notebook, just the practice of doing this will give you such a strong sense of yourself.'”

Graham added that the mentorship has been just as beneficial to her, because in teaching a young writer about writing a scene or a poem, “it’s very freeing.”

She added, “And as creative people, it’s always a battle between art and commerce and the business side and your vulnerable artist side, so this is really a return to the fun of it. It’s a good reminder.”

Inside the show, held at Hollywood’s Linwood Dunn Theater, Graham opened the evening with a brief speech, joking that in joining the organization, “I have discovered in my life that I’m kind of in recovery from eighth grade endlessly like that’s my constant state. I feel the exact same way as I did then, and I thought, ‘Oh, my God, these people are actually in eighth grade, what a wonderful mentorship.’ I don’t know who will be helping who.” The actress also oversaw a raffle and silent auction to raise money for the group, admitting that being an auctioneer was the fulfillment of a lifelong goal.

The stars performed the 14 scenes, which covered topics ranging from relationships and insecurities to abuse and the recent college admissions scandal. Many of the writers were in the audience watching their pieces being performed and received a round of applause after each. One particular scene told the story of a young K-Pop star, which cast Rogen as a 20-year-old Korean lead.

As a clearly over-20 white man, Rogen joked with the audience, “Don’t ‘Scarlett Johansson’ me, I didn’t ask for this,” referencing the actress’ past of playing minorities. “They gave me the role, I didn’t jockey for it or anything.”

Source: hollywoodreporter.com