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The Good Guy’s Alexis Bledel on Boys’ Clubs and Sisterhood in the City

Alexis Bledel, the strikingly blue-eyed actress of the WB’s Gilmore Girls and movie series The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, is starring next in Julio DePietro’s The Good Guy (premiering at the Tribeca Film Festival on Sunday). Bledel plays Beth, the brainy and charming object of a greedy Wall Street hotshot’s affection (played by Friday Night Lights’ Scott Porter). As a soon-to-be full-time New Yorker, Bledel talks to Vulture about filming a “guys’ movie,” checking out Broadway, and not being a scenester.

You always seem to play the quiet, intellectual girl. Is that true to your personality?
Yeah, maybe. I’m definitely not a very outgoing person.

Have you spent much time in New York since attending NYU?
I’m going back and forth to L.A., but I might make a permanent move here soon. For now, I’m just shuttling back and forth and gradually becoming more of a New Yorker. But when I do go back to L.A., I can really appreciate the sunshine and being outdoors and the people there, and then I don’t resent New York as much in the winter. And Texas, where I’m from, is just a complete departure from both.

The Good Guy seems to have a fun cast of twentysomethings. Did you hang out together off the set?
It was a really good group, but the guys mostly hung out by themselves. They had this boys’ club in the film and shot all their scenes without the girls. It was kind of like their own little world. And our downtime mimicked our time in the film. The guys would go out drinking. It’s not that we weren’t invited, it was just separate. It’s sort of a guys’ movie.

Everyone loves Scott Porter in Friday Night Lights. Are you a fan of the show?
He seems like, and he is, a really great guy, but there’s something about him onscreen that’s really elusive and convincing. He had a lot to do in the film; his character really had a lot of layers.

The film deals with the socially competitive culture of guys on Wall Street. Have you ever experienced a similarly competitive culture among girls?
Women are so competitive with clothes, especially in New York. And with work. A lot of people take their work away from the office. That work culture spills over into their social lives, and the more people work, the more they can’t leave it. It can be destructive.

Goldbar and Back Room, among other New York locales, are featured in the movie. Are you familiar with the New York scene at all?
Sometimes I end up at places like that when I meet friends out. But I don’t know about that stuff. I really can’t keep up with it. It’s a full-time thing to do, and I seriously can’t keep track.

Do you have any Broadway aspirations? Have you ever done theater?
Yeah, I’ve been thinking about that. I’ve gone to see five or six plays in the last couple months. I saw August: Osage County, and of course Lauren Graham in Guys and Dolls. I hadn’t seen a lot of shows since I was a kid, so I’ve been kind of reeducating myself and it’s been a lot of fun.

Do you keep in touch with any of your Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants co-stars? Are you a Gossip Girl fan, or a fan of Ugly Betty?
I don’t have a TV. But I’ve definitely kept in touch with all the girls. We’re all in New York now, which is great, and everyone’s working really hard, so we just see each other when we can. But I keep in touch with all of them, and Lauren. Every job you do you meet new people.

The Good Guy’s Alexis Bledel on Boys’ Clubs and Sisterhood in the City