In 2016, Amy Sherman-Palladino’s beloved series “Gilmore Girls” has been picked up thanks to Netflix – subtitled “Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life.” — and a whole bunch of actors from the original series returned to reprise their roles, including the incredibly reserved and busy Melissa McCarthy (who originated the role of Sookie St. James in 2000). So what happened to Tristan Dugray, the character first played by Chad Michael Murray?
Let me paint the scene for you. Longtime best friends and academic rivals Rory Gilmore (Alexis Bledel) and Paris Geller (Liza Weil) return to their high school, Chilton, to speak to current students; while they are there, Paris panics after thinking she sees Tristan, for whom she once carried a huge and embarrassing torch, and drags Rory into the bathroom to hide. We barely see Tristan, but he is not played by Murray; instead he is played by Anton Narinskiy. So what happened?
Talk to Entertainment tonight In 2017, Murray revealed that he was asked to come back, but said no because he couldn’t make it work. “I heard [it was happening] and I was not available at that time. “It just didn’t fit what we were doing at that time, so I know someone came out and it was Tristan, but it wasn’t me.” Still, he had nothing but good things to say about his replacement. “But I hear good work, good work, man!” he said, clapping. I heard he did it well. » So who is Tristan in the world of “Gilmore Girls,” anyway?
Who was Tristan Dugray in Gilmore Girls?
A huge, recurring theme in “Gilmore Girls” is the push and pull Rory feels between an upper echelon of society and her upbringing. What I mean by that is that Rory’s mother, Lorelai (Lauren Graham), raised her daughter modestly her entire life…only for Rory to have the opportunity to attend Chilton, a top prep school, thanks to her wealthy grandparents Emily and Richard Gilmore (Kelly Bishop and the late Edward Herrmann). Chilton, which is filled with extremely rich kids, initially feels alienated by Rory…and it certainly doesn’t help that Tristan Dugray keeps bullying her into showing he has a strange crush on her.
Tristan exists, more than anything else, as a plot device to push Rory away from her more grounded life in Stars Hollow (and the show does this much better later with the fabulously wealthy Logan Huntzberger, Rory’s college boyfriend played by Matt Czuchry). To be more specific, Tristan exists to create a love triangle between himself, Rory, and Stars Hollow High student Dean Forester (Jared Padalecki), Rory’s boyfriend. I wouldn’t say Tristan plays his role well when it comes to romancing Rory. He calls her “Mary” (a joke about her being a virgin), is incredibly rude to her almost all the time, and is just kind of a pest, paving the way for Dean to win Rory’s heart. Still, Tristan and Rory share a moment…but it happens shortly before he leaves the show for good.
During the original broadcast of Gilmore Girls, Tristan Dugray was written out
After Tristan is a weird jerk to Rory for a while throughout the first season of “Gilmore Girls”, the two briefly connect at a party at a classmate’s house after Dean and Rory first broke up (Dean told Rory he loved her and Rory wasn’t ready to say it, leading him to end things). After watching Tristan break up with his girlfriend in real time has At the party, Rory tries to comfort him, and they kiss… but she breaks down crying and runs away from the party.
Desperate to put some distance between her and Tristan, Rory insists that he and Paris should go on a date, and although it apparently goes well, Tristan then tells Paris that he just wants to be friends, absolutely humiliating her. Worse yet, Tristan tries to woo Rory Again during the season 1 finale “Love, Daisies and Troubadours” by collecting tickets to a PJ Harvey concert; even though she tells him she won’t accompany him, Tristan tells Paris they have a date, leaving the easily irritated Paris incandescent with rage (against Rory, in particular). Rory’s dream of Tristan is dashed once again when she tells Dean, outside Chilton’s front doors, that she loves him too.
Chad Michael Murray’s final appearance as Tristan comes in the season 2 episode “Run Away, Little Boy” when a jealous Dean is angry because Rory and Tristan are playing Juliet and Romeo in a school show. Luckily, this whole saga comes to an end at the end of this episode, when Tristan reveals that he’s being sent to a military school in North Carolina. Based on the timeline, this could be a sly reference to Murray’s next role: “One Tree Hill.”
What has Chad Michael Murray been doing since Gilmore Girls?
If you’re a millennial like me who was a pre-teen during Chad Michael Murray’s run on “Gilmore Girls,” you know that he became a teen idol in a pretty short amount of time thanks to starring roles in the aforementioned drama “One Tree Hill” and teen-oriented romantic comedies like “Freaky Friday” and “A Cinderella Story.” Over the years, Murray has appeared on shows like “Southland,” “Chosen,” “Agent Carter” and “Riverdale” and in films like “Fruitvale Station” and “Other People’s Children.” He currently stars in “Sullivan’s Crossing”, a Canadian drama series broadcast on The CW, as California “Cal” Jones, and in 2025, he reunited with co-stars Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan to appear in the long-awaited sequel “Freakier Friday.”
In “Freakier Friday” – where Anna Coleman’s (Lohan) daughter Harper (Julia Butters) swaps bodies with her mother and Harper’s future half-sister Lily Reyes (Sophia Hammons) lands in the body of Tess Coleman (Curtis) – Murray reprises his role as Jake Austin, Anna’s ex and the object of her desire in the first film. Lily and Harper, trapped in Anna and Tess’s bodies, try to use Jake to separate Anna and her fiancé Eric (Manny Jacinto), and it definitely doesn’t go as planned.
According to Murray, he was excited to come back. “It was awesome. It was just a nostalgic kick,” Murray told fans at Christmas Con 2024 (via People Magazine). “It was like a high school reunion, you know? It was like no time had passed, and yet we had entire lives in between.” That said, it’s a shame he didn’t get to experience the same thing during the “Gilmore Girls” revival.
