Just like his character Luke Danes, Scott Patterson is all in.
Unlike his iconic Gilmore Girls persona, however, the actor is embracing technology, hosting his own podcast, I Am All In, with iHeartRadio, a move that would likely cause the somewhat charming curmudgeon to roll his eyes and point to his diner's "No Cell Phones" sign.
But Patterson is committing to his new venture in epic fashion by dissecting his fame-making iconic series, which means watching the iconic show—we're talking all 154 episodes—for the first time ever.
Ok, not the first time ever, but it wasn't by choice that the 62-year-old star watched a few outings, including one from Netflix's four-episode revival, Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life, in 2016.
"I make the sausage, but I don't eat it. I'm with it 12 to 14 hours a day, I don't really want to consume it," Patterson told E! News in a recent Zoom interview. "I've seen the pilot and I've seen 'Winter' because I was forced to watch it at the premiere. I wanted to leave and my wife just grabbed my forearm and said, ‘Sit. Down.' I just don't like watching myself, it's a nauseating experience for me."
So then why did he decide to go, like the podcast's title states, all the way in and sign on to not only view every episode, but also discuss it for millions of people? It's simple: He wanted to interact with Gilmore Girls' "ravenous" fanbase.
"It was really a good idea to engage the fans because they are hungry to take about it and still sort of be in the deep end, if you will, of the Gilmore-sphere," Patterson explained. "It's a very rich environment where they are very well-versed and they want to talk about it. This platform is giving them another opportunity to discuss it."
And when it came time to actually sit down and watch himself, Patterson didn't "have a problem with it now because it was so long ago. I barely even recognize [myself]. I'm like, 'Who's that young guy?'" he joked. "And it's weird because I was 41 at the time when I got the show, so I was still a little bit long in the tooth. I don't mind it now. I'm not judging. I'm not going, 'Oh, how is this going to affect my career?' I already know how it affected my career."
In fact, his main takeaway from having streamed several episodes on Netflix for the podcast so far—"I stupidly tried to sign up with another company and they just didn't carry the show so I canceled the subscription!"—is that the show is "fantastic." Cue every Gilmore Girls fan responding with a resounding "Oy with the obvious!"
"I just thought the performances were fantastic, the writing is fantastic. I laughed and laughed and laughed," he gushed. "I just fell in love with every character and I was stunned at how good it was. I forgot how good it was. I have become obsessed with the show. So now I'm a super-fan and I'm going to have to compete with the number one fans to become the number one fan. It's knocking me out. I love the show."
And Patterson's only gripe is that the show failed to receive any major nominations at the Emmys or Golden Globes during its initial seven-year run.
"That's the big sticking point for me. I get it, it's a small network, it's a different type of financial model, it's just smaller, we kind of maxed out at 6-7 million people," he explained. "Compared to Friends, it's a fraction of what they were getting, but still to not recognize the work is to me, the crime of the century in the entertainment business. I mean, how does Gilmore Girls, one of the big series in the history of TV, it's sort of turning out that way, because new generations keep discovering it. I am getting approached by 7-year-olds and they go, 'Luke!'"
And those interactions are just one example of the show's enduring legacy, with Patterson saying, "Our true reward is the fan loyalty."
So, while Patterson is becoming Gilmore Girls' ultimate fan thanks to his rewatch, there are a few Luke-centric moments he's nervous to relive, especially Luke's first kiss with Lorelai (Lauren Graham) in the season four finale. After years of anticipation and fan expectations being at fever pitch, the pressure was on and the pair knew it at the time.
"We both wanted to get it right," Patterson admitted. "We were sweating bullets a little bit. The great thing about that scene is that everybody knew, the crew and the cast, usually, when they don't need to be on set they're not on set. But everybody stayed and even people came out of their trailers, like, ‘They're going to kiss, they're going to kiss!' The whole studio!"
As any fan knows, the kiss more than lived up to the hype and cemented Luke and Lorelai's standing as one of TV's most iconic couples, even as many other suitors for Lorelai were introduced throughout the show's run.
"I never felt any real competition for her. It was all acting!" Patterson said with a laugh. "Listen, it was just so right and the fans responded so favorably to it. And they didn't like anybody else, they didn't want her with anybody ese. That's the beauty of it."
While Lorelai's romantic situation was more a matter of when, for daughter Rory (Alexis Bledel) it was all about who?
Throughout the series, three major love interests were introduced for Rory—Dean (Jared Padalecki), Jess (Milo Ventimiglia) and Logan (Matt Czuchry)—each guy amassing his own loyal faction of the fanbase. And Patterson admitted to being fully Team Jess, which makes sense, given that the bad boy was Luke's nephew.
"Listen, Jess is blood and you gotta stick with family and that's all there is to it," Patterson said. "I'm a Northeasterner, I'm from Jersey!" (Though he will concede, "He needed to do a little growing up. I strongly identify with that character because I was a little bit like that when I was that age.")
Five years after Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life, the debate about Rory's love life rages on thanks to the series' bombshell cliffhanger: Rory is pregnant and didn't reveal who the father was.
Patterson has "some suspicions" about the baby's paternity, but said, "My theory is not worth spit because every time I go out on a limb with a theory I get smashed and proven wrong, so I'm not going to do it this time!"
Plus, there are more important issues to address, like are we even going to get more Gilmore Girls after the revival helped kick off the reboot trend.
"I think it's a very different environment now," Patterson said. "Amy [Sherman-Palladino] is doing The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, she's very busy and successful with that. I don't know that there's the incentive to do it again for Amy. It's up to her, it's not really up to anyone else. I don't know. I don't know what she's thinking and what her feelings are toward it, other than I'm sure she's very fond of the idea."
He continued, "But I don't think they would've left the show hanging on a cliffhanger like that if there wasn't some kind plan to do some more. I'm optimistic."
And we're all in.
I Am All In With Scott Patterson is available on all of iHeartRadio's platforms and wherever you get your podcast fix.