Watch Alexis: MTV at noon, “It’s On with Alexa Chung”
Days until “Post Grad”: tomorrow!!!!!
Twitter: @alexisbledelfan
Alexis had a talk with Parade.com’s Jeanne Wolf. Read the interview below..
Trying to get work.
“Auditioning for parts as an actress was kind of like a job interview for me. I sort of discovered acting in college at NYU. I’ll never forget my audition for Gilmore Girls. I did it only for the experience, never expecting that I’d get the part of Rory, which changed my life and career.”
Facing unemployment.
“I haven’t gone through anything extreme, but when Gilmore Girls ended, I didn’t go on to another TV series. You don’t always go from one thing to the next in this business. Sometimes you have several months in-between, and you don’t know what your next job will be. So I can relate a little bit to that sense of wanting to get to work.”
The good part of down time.
“Doing a TV show was like running a marathon. It would have helped if I was in great shape, watched what I ate, got enough sleep and exercised. Unfortunately, I skipped all that and often I was a very tired actress.”
Understanding the value of work for women.
“I kind of tried to think about it from a post-feminism perspective because, historically, there was such a struggle to get women to a point where they could choose between a job and family life, and now we have that option. But what’s interesting is how important this job is to my character. She spends the entire movie working toward it, she’s like totally obsessed, and then she gets it. And she finds that it’s not everything she expected. To me, that’s a reminder that your work isn’t everything.”
She’ll never be a workaholic.
“There are people, like my character in Post Grad, who are fixated on a career and don’t entertain any other ideas whatsoever. It takes a strong personality to have that focus. It’s not like mine at all. I’m very open to different things and don’t want to limit myself. I just really want to see what comes my way.”
Guys as just pals.
“At different points in my life I think I have had guy best friends, but I think my best friends are typically other girls. I don’t know. It gets complicated with guys, especially when you’re younger. I think it’s easier for that line between best friend and boyfriend to get complicated.”
As for living at home like her character.
“I know that if I had to do it, I’d probably last for about a week. It’s a hard thing to do. It’s almost against nature. I know a lot of people go back and live with their families, especially in other countries. I think in the States there’s so much emphasis on the self and succeeding individually that you want to be on your own. But in many places, like Latin America and Europe, people live with their families for longer than we do. Here there’s definitely, I think, a stigma about it. But I like the message that life isn’t all about what you do; it has a lot to do with who you surround yourself with and go home to and that becomes your life.”
