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" In this era of artfully staged paparazzi shots and red-carpet arrivals, it&amp;#039;s a rare thing for a reporter to be invited inside a star&amp;#039;s home. For a celeb to have you over, actually cook for you, and send you off with a gourmet doggie bag? It would be the Hollywood equivalent of triple cherries on the slot machine. But that&amp;#039;s exactly how Lauren Graham handles our interview. &amp;quot;Sorry for the mess!&amp;quot; she says, leading me into the kitchen of her airy, suitably gorgeous home in Los Angeles (wearing an airy, suitably adorable outfit of a white sundress and bare feet). &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m making a little avocado salsa for us,&amp;quot; she explains, expertly chopping tomatoes. Later, when I mention that I&amp;#039;m heading from her house to a friend&amp;#039;s barbecue, Lauren insists I take a Tupperware container of the dip and some spicy tortilla chips. (&amp;quot;Don&amp;#039;t forget the chips,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;They make the whole thing!&amp;quot;) Needless to say, my celebrity salsa is a huge hit, and not just because it was prepared by TV&amp;#039;s favorite school-lunch-maker. If Lauren is feeling a bit extra domestic these days, there&amp;#039;s a reason: After spending her 30s so wrapped up in work that she back-burnered her romantic life, she has finally found love, with her Parenthood costar Peter Krause. (And yes, in a vaguely awkward twist, Krause plays her brother on the show.) Lauren&amp;#039;s legions of fans are thrilled to see her happily coupled at 43 \u2014 and who wouldn&amp;#039;t root for her? She&amp;#039;s as real and relatable as one of your best friends, the one you just knew had a great romance in her future. Her excellent news takes on a bit more poignancy when you know her childhood backstory: The woman who won our hearts playing moms wasn&amp;#039;t raised by her own mother. She grew up in Washington, DC, with a single dad; her mother left the family when Lauren was 5, to move to London and pursue a singing career. Graham speaks lovingly of both parents (her mother died five years ago), as well as her stepmother, whom her father married when Lauren was in high school. In her book-filled library, she shows me a framed black-and-white portrait of herself as a baby, being held by her maternal grandmother. They&amp;#039;re watching a beautiful dark-haired woman \u2014 Lauren&amp;#039;s mom \u2014 being interviewed on TV. &amp;quot;That one&amp;#039;s my favorite,&amp;quot; she says of the picture, smiling. When we settle down to do the interview, it turns out Lauren is as low-key and witty as you&amp;#039;d imagine her to be \u2014 with a couple more little secrets to reveal, too. So on Parenthood, you&amp;#039;re playing a single mom again. How did you feel about that? When I was considering Gilmore Girls [at age 32], people were like, &amp;quot;You shouldn&amp;#039;t play a mom. People will think you&amp;#039;re too old.&amp;quot; And I was like, why? People are mothers at my age. And when I took Parenthood, people said, &amp;quot;You shouldn&amp;#039;t play another mom.&amp;quot; That&amp;#039;s like saying, oh, you&amp;#039;re playing another woman. Mom isn&amp;#039;t an adjective or a personality; they&amp;#039;re not all the same.      VIDEO: Lauren Graham dishes about some of her all-time favorite TV moms. Had you worked with anyone from the cast before? Peter was one of the first people I met when I came out to L.A. [in 1995]. We did an episode of Caroline in the City where he walked on his hands.  And now Peter is your boyfriend. What&amp;#039;s it like to play the sister of someone you&amp;#039;re dating? You can be dismissive and obnoxious to them and no one can blame you \u2014 but you can only get away with that on camera. [Laughs.] You know, one of the things that&amp;#039;s been so fun [about this relationship] is that it&amp;#039;s so easy. And it&amp;#039;s a lot, to work with somebody and then spend time [at home] with them too. What&amp;#039;s the story of how you got together? As I said, we met when I first came out here, but the timing wasn&amp;#039;t right. Though I think we liked each other. I remember one day he asked me over to his house to play a board game \u2014 and that&amp;#039;s exactly what we ended up doing. So I was like: This guy doesn&amp;#039;t like me. But I was also like: Who actually plays a board game? [Laughs.] It&amp;#039;s so interesting to me that there was clearly a connection there back then, but I don&amp;#039;t think either of us was ready. What was getting in the way? You know, he&amp;#039;s obviously a very confident, appealing guy, but he&amp;#039;s shy, and so am I. We stayed friends over the years, and I&amp;#039;ve always been a huge fan of his work.  What are the benefits of meeting someone great in your 40s, as opposed to your 20s or 30s? I&amp;#039;ve had one, maybe two really good relationships that for whatever reason didn&amp;#039;t work out. I&amp;#039;ve dated people who I thought were going to be a big deal in my life, and I&amp;#039;ve also spent long periods by myself. While I very much wanted to be in a relationship, I didn&amp;#039;t want to be in the wrong one.  So you were commitment-phobic? Yeah. But I think I&amp;#039;ve grown up a lot. Now I know the difference between my problem and somebody else&amp;#039;s. It&amp;#039;s also nice to be in this place in my career where the dire need to achieve has shifted, because I&amp;#039;ve had the satisfaction of accomplishing some of my goals. Not all of them \u2014 that will never end \u2014 but I am proud of the things I&amp;#039;ve done. It takes the edge off work as a main focus and allows space for a more balanced life.  What are some of the challenges of dating in the spotlight?  I don&amp;#039;t really experience a spotlight. In this case, nobody knew for a while, because we like to be at home, cooking and not going out. I&amp;#039;ve also been really protective of it, because it&amp;#039;s important that you can buy us as brother and sister on the show. It is interesting that you have so many fans, but you don&amp;#039;t seem hounded by paparazzi. How did you pull that off? I have the same friends I&amp;#039;ve always had; most of my dear friends are from college [she went to Barnard] or high school. I think with a little bit of effort you can lead a somewhat quiet life in this business. And anyway, I don&amp;#039;t know how interesting people would find it to have the Gilmore girl caught in a brawl. [Laughs.] I&amp;#039;m lying. That would be really cool. Besides Parenthood, you have a new movie, It&amp;#039;s Kind of a Funny Story. Yet you&amp;#039;ll probably be asked about Gilmore Girls forever. How do you feel about that? It wasn&amp;#039;t until I did Guys and Dolls [she starred in the Broadway show in 2009] and met people daily who came to see me because I was on Gilmore Girls that I realized the impact it&amp;#039;d had. It was a show people bonded over. It was a bonding experience for my mom and me as well. My mother had lived in London since I was little, so she never got to see my school plays and stuff. So I had the production office send her tapes [of the show]. She saw more of me that way, and I feel really happy about that.  So let&amp;#039;s talk about your upbringing. Did you ever think, I&amp;#039;m being raised by my dad and all of my friends have mothers? Yeah. In elementary school there would be mother-daughter things where I wouldn&amp;#039;t have anyone to bring. It was unusual. But my parents were really young [when they married]. They knew my dad was in a better position [to raise me], and I respect that. People make the best choices they can, that&amp;#039;s honestly how I look at it.  How did having your father as your primary parent shape you as a person? He is extremely smart and mellow and positive, just an easy person to be with. And we had all these adventures: We lived on a houseboat in the Virgin Islands for half a year, and I went to Europe more than any kid I knew. One thing I got from both my parents was a sense that it was important to follow something [you&amp;#039;re passionate about] that might not seem practical.  So how do you envision the next 10 years? I would like to be part of a family, however that looks. Family is really important to me. And I&amp;#039;ll probably keep cooking and decorating. And working. As an actor you have to maximize your time, because you don&amp;#039;t know what&amp;#039;s going to happen in your 50s and 60s and 70s. It&amp;#039;s like the career of an athlete: For many people, it ends at a certain point. Hopefully I&amp;#039;ll live a long time and people will be saying, &amp;quot;How can you play another grandmother?!&amp;quot; "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.redbookmag.com/life/interviews/a6530/lauren-graham-dating-peter-krause/>