Old School. Biblically Independent.
By Emma Chance | Celebrity | June 20, 2024
Actress Keiko Agena played Lane Kim, Rory Gilmore’s best friend for all seven seasons of Gilmore Girls. Lane was a fan favorite for a slew of reasons: she was an Asian-American character on a teen drama in the early aughts, she was f**king funny, and her character arc over the seasons was broad and messy and far—far—more relatable than Rory’s.
Expectations of Lane were higher than golden child Rory, who was treated like Pavlov’s dog if Pavlov’s dog was rewarded for being cute and knowing how to read. Lane’s immigrant mother wanted her to love God, go to a religious school, dress a certain way, and marry young, but she eschewed all of that in favor of making music with her band of misfits. She stayed in Stars Hollow and worked because she didn’t have rich grandparents who would pay for her to go to Yale. She lived in a ratty apartment with her bandmate-turned-boyfriend, married him, got pregnant with twins on their honeymoon to Mexico, and maintained her signature wit all the time, never once rolling her eyes at her best friend who moseyed into town every once in a while to do laundry and complain about boys.
Agena knows Lane was and is beloved, but her relationship with the character is more complicated.
“For me, it’s this separate thing a little bit because I think what [the role] was for people was different than what it was for me,” she said on a recent episode of the Dear Felicity rewatch podcast. “And so, in a weird way, I feel like I want to honor the experience that people had from the show, and what it meant to them, especially young Asian people, because I get that comment a lot, about what it was like for them to see someone like that on screen.”
She added that, for her, it was a “survival mode situation” and she didn’t think of the role as a meaningful representation at the time. While she understands it now, she’s ready to let go.
“I think I’m at a transition point in my life where I have to let go of the pressure that I put on myself to be the best version of who it is that I think that you love. Because I love her too. I can tell, when I meet someone who knows Gilmore Girls or who loves Lane, it’s like, I recognize that love. I see that you love that person.”
As Agena moves forward in her career and life, her perspective provides fans with a nuanced understanding of the person behind the character. It’s a reminder that while fictional characters can be frozen in time, the actors who portray them continue to grow, change, and redefine their relationships with their past work.
