The Handmaid's Tale actor recalls sweet story from '00s with Gilmore Girls star: "She's just a notoriously lovely human being"

In a delightful crossover of fandoms, Bradley Whitford has reunited with his former co-star and Gilmore Girls legend Lauren Graham in an adaptation of Colleen Hoover’s novel Reminders of Him.

The actors had the “incredibly painful” challenge of playing Grace and Patrick, the parents of a 23-year-old man, Scotty (Rudy Pankow), who dies in a car crash on his birthday.

His girlfriend Kenna (Maika Monroe), who was driving the car, lives on, but is sentenced to seven years in prison. While she serves her time, Grace and Patrick are left to raise Kenna and Scotty’s daughter, their granddaughter, Diem.

The heavy subject matter was made easier for Whitford by working alongside Graham, as the duo have known each other for over 25 years, often bumping into each other while performing their career-defining roles in the early 2000s.

“I go so far back with Lauren,” Whitford tells Radio Times. “When The West Wing started, she was shooting Gilmore Girls, and they were both notoriously difficult shows to shoot. You would shoot late into the early morning.

“I just remember a couple of times memorising lines on the Warner Brothers lot and bumping into her, and she's memorising lines on the lot. This was a quarter century ago.

“She was on Studio 60, and I got to work with her again,” he adds. “She’s just a notoriously lovely human being who I think is a great actor, and I was thrilled that she was doing it.”

Whitford admits that while Hoover’s books or the “young, hot romance” is not his “go-to genre, because I’m old”, he was “blown away” by Reminders of Him, which he read just before filming.

“My daughter, Lulu, is obsessed with Colleen Hoover's stuff, and I was really blown away. I'm like, this is really heartbreaking and sexy and incredibly well written,” the actor adds.

“I remember reading the book and thinking, it's just a terrible, terrible, seemingly unresolvable situation where all of the feelings are justified and painful, and none of the choices are easy.”

Whitford also credited his co-stars Maika Monroe and Tyriq Withers for their “grounded” and “truthful” performances.

“Working with Maika and Tyriq, they were just, honestly, Lauren and I turned to each other and we were like, ‘These kids are amazing,’” Whitford said. “They're just incredibly grounded and truthful. It was really fun to be around them.”

The Handmaid’s Tale star also credited his director Vanessa Caswill for creating an on-set environment that was “completely lovely... where actors feel comfortable just dilating and opening up your heart in front of a bunch of strangers”.

Reminders of Him is an emotional adaptation, heart-wrenching at points, but Whitford isn’t one for taking the serious tones of the material off-set, as his “theory of acting” relies on treating the work with a “sense of recess, not school”.

“My theory of acting, no matter what the material is, I think the best way to play any scene, the best atmosphere, the best set-up for good acting is a sense of recess, not school,” he explains. “I felt that if you watched the Olympics and saw the gold – you’re much better off when you're out there having fun, no matter what the material is. The Beatles were having fun, and out of nowhere you get Hey Jude.

“It was not a painful, heavy atmosphere on the set. There are two atmospheres on a set - one is, I can't wait to see what you guys are going to do. The other, all too common atmosphere is, there's a lot of money at stake, I hope you don't screw this up. That was not the atmosphere here. It was the atmosphere that you need to get really honest performances. That was a testament to our producers and to Colleen and to Vanessa.”

Reminders of Him will be released in cinemas on Friday 13 March 2026.

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