From School Plays to Stars Hollow: The Spirited Life of Rini Bell
We chatted with Gilmore Girls' Rini Bell about playing Kirk's girlfriend Lulu, Anne Rice's house, and her secret talent for soap-making!
Some characters on your favorite TV shows just bring warmth and joy in every scene they’re in. And nobody does this quite like the lovable Lulu. And the actress who played her is no different. We had a lively chat with actress Rini Bell, who portrayed Lulu in Rini in fifteen episodes of Gilmore Girls, starting in Season 4. Rini joined us in June 2022 during our month-long Gilmore Girls festival at Remarkist, Super Sensational Summer Spectacular. 🗣 We learned so much about her early childhood living abroad, Carl Jung, her teenage break into acting, and the craft business that she is absolutely passionate about!
She partied at Anne Rice’s house!
Rini Bell spent a lot of her childhood living in New Orleans, LA. She happened to know the son of bestselling and legendary horror 🧛♂️ author Anne Rice (Interview With the Vampire), Christopher Rice in high school. “I went to a girls school and we would bring in guys to do our plays and he came in and did a bunch of our plays; he had the voice of an angel! He had a couple of the cast parties at her house–we totally went in every room!”
When asked what the house was like, she said, “It was a very campy [house]. Her husband painted [cartoon] dogs with their heads cut off! He was a painter, he did these New Orleans-y, macabre paintings. In the living room when you walk in there was a bunch of skeletons sitting in rocking chairs in different sizes,” she laughed.
“And in his room he had a rug with an animal head on it. And this is sad but they had a little girl who died as a child but they preserved her room.” And what did the house look like? Rini told us, “It was this beautiful garden district home, it was dark purple.”
Her early life abroad
Rini didn’t spend her entire childhood in New Orleans. “I was born in 🇮🇹 Italy; my family lived there for a while. Then we moved to Switzerland 🇨🇭. My dad changed careers in his 40s and became a Jungian psychoanalyst and that was the only Jung institute in the world then–now they’re everywhere–we went to Zurich and that’s where I learned French. I went to a French school there and learned to read and write in French before English, and all my friends were French. The school was a French school. Then we moved to New Orleans when I was about 8 or so. [My dad] graduated and then went to New Orleans and he established the Jung institute there.”
Catching the acting bug
Rini started her acting career early in her teenage years, in high school. “Our school was a really small girls’ school with a strong arts bent. We had a really strong choir program, and the choir director was one of those teachers that you remember forever. She was just like, the best. She would put on these school plays, and they were a big production. A lot of us went on to be singers and work in the arts and actors.”
In one of her school musicals, she was cast in The King and I. She had one line in the show and said, “I don’t know, I just got hooked.”
shared how he first got excited about the theater arts. “My first theater exposure was, my sister was a ballet dancer and they needed boys to play the mice in the nutcracker and I was like sure, I’ll do that. It was very basic, just a couple of dance steps but for the most part it was just me in a big mouse costume and just the sound of the whole theater up on their feet clapping, I was hooked.”Rini was so hooked on the acting bug that she made some serious plans to leave high school early. “I could not wait to get out of school. I was about sixteen when I moved out of the house to pursue acting. The headmistress at our school was really supportive of that, and helped me get all my documents in order and graduate and get my degree.”
She went to Paris 🇫🇷 first. At sixteen, she was going to French auditions and meetings, and didn’t get a job. There were about two months of strikes happening at the time, so she couldn’t get work. She took some classes while she was there, but eventually wanted to make a big move back to the States, to New York.🗽
“I moved to New York and I went to auditions and did a couple of jobs. I went out to L.A. a year later. I just did my homework by mail and did my degree that way. I never went to college, but I took acting classes.”
The first big acting job that Rini booked was as a cheerleader in the instant-cult favorite movie, Bring it On!
Rini was attending auditions for both film and theater 🎭, as well as musical 🎼 theater when she landed the role of Lulu. “When I got the first episode of [Gilmore Girls], a lot of people around me said ‘oh that’s good they like to reuse their actors, and bring people back.’” She tried not to get her hopes up, but definitely wanted to be asked back. Rini tried to stay positive! But this is a running theme we have heard from other cast and crew members, like Joe Fria and Alix Kermes. Actors who made an impression often were asked back if it was possible.
“I had been auditioning for the show over the years. Mostly for Rory’s friends: Chilton, the ‘hot girls’ or whatever! Younger stuff” she laughed. “And then I was kind of surprised to get the [role of an older character.]”
John added that he’d had a similar experience. Before he landed the role of Brian, he had auditioned for the son of the Harvard alumni that Rory meets. “There was a scene at the dinner table and I wanted that role, and then the role I got was so small and I was like ‘ugh, there’s like two lines here.’ And then I came back for five seasons so…there’s something so cool about the fact that every actor that I’ve talked to this month has basically said the same thing.” We heard from several actors during our Super Sensational Summer Spectacular chats that they often auditioned for other Gilmore Girls roles before finally nailing a job. John credits casting directors Jami Rudofsky and Mara Casey for bringing actors back to the audition room again and again until something worked for them.
Rini articulated how it isn't super common in Hollywood because there’s a lot of anonymity, and it’s nice to be remembered by casting directors. This is reflected in the quality of the show.
“I think you’re right,” John said. “That stuff really does come out on screen. You can tell when something is really special. The cast, yes, but there’s also this special bond that the crew has together.”
Bell of the Bath
Did you know that Rini has been making homemade soaps 🧼 for years and selling them through her Etsy shop? It’s a passion of hers that was ignited long ago. “It’s so fun making them!” she told us.
So, how did she get started? “I was quite young, in my early twenties, and my best friend and I happened upon a book 📗 at Barnes & Noble about soap making. We went back to her apartment and started making soaps and we lost our minds. It was so fun. So we started a business together. It was short lived, but we would make gift bags for L.A. fashion week, and we sold them to whoever wanted to buy them. It was a different time; it was just something we loved doing.”
After that, occasionally she would make soaps for fun, but these days, she is entirely inspired by the fandom. A fan actually helped set up her Etsy shop and soon enough, Rini was in business!
“It was a really awesome creative outlet for me. I get really excited in a little kid way. Bringing it back to Carl Jung, that’s creative play. It’s positive for adults to play like little children. It helps us psychologically. So I get that from soaps!”
She explained the process for making intricately designed bars of soap and everything she’s learned about it over the years. And we asked her about the first soap she made that was inspired by the Gilmore Girls fandom: daisies! 🌼Of the “thousand yellow daisies” that Lorelai says is the appropriate gesture for a proposal, Rini said, “that’s what inspired me!”
Creating scenes in soap making is layered. For the daisies to float inside the bar, it’s a bit…scientific. And actually, they aren’t daisies at all! “They are pressed flowers: only one type of flower does well in soap. It’s called calendula, according to my research. So there’s a rare little window where the calendula is more yellow than orange and that’s when I go for it!” Rini then prepares the flowers. “You have to press them in a way that makes them extremely dry because you can't have any moisture in soap. And then I did a layer of yellow on the bottom and then a really clear soap base to surround the daisies. It’s just more science than you would think in terms of the temperatures and how to make things stick together and not blend together and not leak the colors.”
When asked if she enjoys creating these soaps that speak to a certain fandom, or if she’d rather do other designs, she said, “Fandom first, fandom everything! I didn’t watch the show at first but then I went back and watched and I was like, aha! All of my inspiration comes from the fandom.”
Rini explained that she makes soaps from soap base instead of from scratch, which is made from lye. When asked if she’d like to try her hand at making soap this more complicated way, she said, “It’s a lot of math! A lot of fractions and stuff. I’ve always wanted to get into that, and you can do different things with different methods. My intent is about making it a theme, and fun to look at.”
John asked the question only an actor who played Brian, the bass player of Hep Alien would ask: “Have you made anything based on Hep Alien yet?” 👽
“No! I should make rock and roll soaps, that's a great idea! There’s so much there with the musical stuff! 🎸🤘I’ve learned how to make soap dough which is like play dough, and then I can make little figurines and put them in the soap. Now I’m dying to think of ideas for Hep Alien!”
And she meant it. After this interview, Rini made a special Hep Alien soap just for Remarkist members. She created a Memento on the Remarkist app for collectors who purchased the soap at her shop!
One of her fan favorite items, a coffee bean ☕️ soap, is still available on the site, and she will make others depending on the season and her inspiration. “It’s a craft thing, and I’ve met so many crafty people through this fandom!”
Would she move back to Europe?
“I don't want to move back to Europe right now, I kind of want to be here. I fantasize about running away, or visiting for a long stretch.” Would she want to retire abroad? “I don’t ever want to retire, but I do have a “death” fantasy. It’s silly, but I have a fantasy where I’m in Italy, on a winery 🍷, and I just grow old and die! I imagine it being like, I'm so old everyone I know is dead.” John said, “That's very morbid!” Rini said, “Well, I’m one morbid lady!” But as John articulated, “well you were exposed to creepy beheaded dogs early in your life, so…”
Want more?
Want more? We’ve got more chats with cast members Sean Gunn, Emily Kuroda, Keiko Agena, Mitch Silpa, Alix Kermes, Joe Fria, Robert Lee, and writers from Gilmore Girls! And head over to our Discord where you’ll find tons of other fans there chatting in our forums about the TV shows, movies, music, games and books we all love! Don’t forget to follow us on Instagram, tumblr, and Spotify for more fandom content—and hit that subscribe button so you never miss a thing at rmrk*st!
