It's no secret that early '00s pop culture is like candy for millennial consumers. So, it's not surprising that a lot of current cinema involves early aughts nostalgia. (See: Lady Bird, which indulges in the fantasy that "Crash Into Me" is actually a good song.)
The latest to do so is The Disaster Artist, the origin story of Tommy Wiseau's masterpiece The Room (2003). The film follows director Tommy Wiseau (James Franco) and Greg Sestro (Dave Franco) as they try to make it in Los Angeles. Eventually, they make The Room together, but for much of the film, Greg and Tommy are just your average struggling actors.
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At one point, Greg is sitting with his girlfriend Amber (Alison Brie) watching television. Naturally, they're watching a '00s classic: Gilmore Girls, which is so beloved that it even got a Netflix reboot in 2016. As they watch, Greg tells Amber that he once auditioned for the role of Dean. At this point in the movie, Greg is still actively going on auditions. Also, Greg Sestro is a very real person, and it's entirely plausible that he auditioned for Gilmore Girls.
Because Gilmore Girls is so beloved (and therefore scrutinised), there is a lot of info out there about who auditioned for the show. Chris Pine read for a role. So did Ryan Gosling and Adam Brody. The role of Dean, which eventually went to Jared Padalecki, was particularly difficult to cast. Mara Casey and Jami Rudofsky, the casting directors for the show, told Vanity Fair that by the time they were brought on, the show had already fired two Deans. (They did not name the actors who were fired.) The directors eventually found Padalecki, but even after Padalecki read for showrunner Amy Sherman-Palladino, the casting directors kept seeing actors for Dean. Among these actors might have been Greg Sestro, the actor immortalized by Tommy Wiseau's The Room.
Refinery29 has reached out to Sestro to ask if he did indeed audition for Gilmore Girls.
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