Alexis Bledel isn’t your usual young actress. The star of the much-mourned “Gilmore Girls” series, who returns to the big screen in “Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2” as a member of a female foursome brought together by magical blue jeans, isn’t the tabloid presence a young woman in Hollywood often risks becoming — and she’s perfectly happy about that.
“I’ve always thought of it as a job,” the bright, soft-spoken Bledel says of acting. “And I’ve never had time to get in trouble. I’m a pretty low-key person anyway,” she adds, keeping an eye on Sophia, her equally low-key Chihuahua amusing itself in the corner.
But sometimes trouble finds her. Sitting down to discuss her work on the “Sisterhood” sequel, the first thing Bledel thinks of is a fender-bender. “It was a hectic shoot,” she says. “Did you hear about the motorcycle accident?”
The story goes that on the first day of shooting, while filming a scene where the girls (Bledel, Amber Tamblyn, America Ferrera and Blake Lively) cruise around picturesque Greek island of Santorini on mopeds, something went wrong, causing a four-starlet pileup. While who is to blame is hotly debated among the cast, Bledel thinks she got off easy.
“I think I was third in line, and I kind of fell off to the side,” she says. “I had scratches all over my legs, but luckily didn’t have the massive knee bruise that Blake walked away with. She was on crutches the whole time.”
When the first film came out, Bledel and Tamblyn, star of TV’s “Joan of Arcadia,” were arguably the big names of the group. But with Ferrara’s award-winning turn on “Ugly Betty” and Lively’s skyrocketing visibility thanks to “Gossip Girl,” the balance has shifted.
Given that Bledel spent seven seasons as Rory Gilmore, the rising TV stars came to her for advice, right? “I don’t remember if anyone asked,” she says, laughing, “but I do remember contributing my two cents. ‘Oh, you’re going to be on a show? There goes your life.’ They’re all-consuming jobs, these series. And it’s nice that we’ve all had these experiences.”
Bledel, who attended New York University for writing and directing, is back in New York filming the independent feature “The Good Guy,” and returning to the Big Apple suits her just fine. “I love it,” she says. “I’m only here for six weeks, but I’m kind of deluding myself, pretending like I live here.”
And since she studied film, does she really just want to direct, as they say? Not so much. “Directing is not really my personality,” she says. “But I would like to write.” That would be the more low-key thing to do, after all.