Gilmore Girls gave us lots of loveable characters, yet Luke Danes was perhaps the most iconic with his plaid shirts, backwards baseball cap and grumpy attitude.
From 2000 until 2007, actor Scott Patterson was a regular on our TV screens, playing the diner-owner in the show who has a will-they-won’t-they romance with Lorelai Gilmore.
The show later arrived on Netflix and introduced the residents of Stars Hollow to a whole new generation.
Scott starred in all 153 episodes of the show, and later appeared in the Netflix mini-series Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life, which consisted of four 90-minute episodes, in 2016.
A perfect antidote to fast-talking and upbeat Lorelai, Luke is one of the show’s less-quirky characters and provides the girls with a home away from home at his diner where he serves up fresh coffee and burgers.
Eventually, a romance blossomed between Luke and Lorelai and the pair are still together in the series reboot.
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Scott Patterson was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1958. He pursued a degree in Comparative Literature at Rutgers University and then studied acting in New York.
Initially, he didn’t pursue acting straight away and played in minor league baseball for seven years, from 1980 until 1986.
In 1988 he formed the Arclight Theatre Company in New York with John Bishop. He appeared in several films in the 90s, including Three Wishes in 1995 which also starred Patrick Swayze.
In 1995 Scott appeared as the character Billy in an episode of Seinfeld, and featured in an episode of Will & Grace in 1999, alongside other TV appearances.
For seven years he played Luke in Gilmore Girls which has been his most memorable role.
Since the show stopped airing, he made appearances in the horror franchise Saw, appearing in Saw IV in 2007 and Saw V in 2008.
He briefly starred in 90201 in 2010 as Liam Court’s ex-con father and in 2011 appeared in an episode of CSI: Miami. From 2010 to 2011 he had a regular role as Michael Buchanan in the one-off sci-fi series The Event.
In 2001 he met his wife Kristine Saryan while they were both attending a play. In 2014 the couple married and in the same year welcomed their son Nicholas. He was previously married to Vera Davich between 1983 to 1985.
Gilmore Girls is clearly still a huge part of Scott’s life. He reprised his role as Luke Danes in 2016 for the revival miniseries Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life, which streamed on Netflix.
Away from his TV roles, he founded a coffee company in 2017, called Scotty P’s Big Mug Coffee.
In 2021, he partnered with I Heart Radio to launch the ‘I Am All In’ podcast, dedicated to fans of Gilmore Girls, where he watches an episode and discusses it with its producers and guests, which have included stars of the show such as Sean Gunn, who plays Kirk Gleason, and Keiko Agena (Lane Kim).
He revealed on one episode of the podcast why he thought Luke is such a grumpy character.
Scott said: “Why is he grumpy? He’s grumpy because he’s in love with a woman that he can’t get, who doesn’t really respect him.
“That’s kind of how he feels. It’s like, ‘she’ll never take me seriously. The daughter doesn’t take me seriously. And I’m grumpy ’cause I’m never gonna get this woman.”
In March 2022 he shared a selfie of him and co-star Yanic Truesdale at a Fandemic Tour convention in Atlanta, who played Michel Gerard, the concierge at the Independence Inn and later the Dragonfly Inn.
