How Milo Ventimiglia Wanted To Kill Jess On Gilmore Girls

Milo Ventimiglia had some tragic ideas for how to kill off his character Jess Mariano on Gilmore Girls. In the classic argument of who Rory Gilmore’s best boyfriend was, Jess is one of the more controversial answers, having been an off-and-on romantic interest during seasons 2 and 3. Jess (Milo Ventimiglia) was Luke’s nephew who was sent to live with him in Stars Hollow after becoming a troublemaker, who quickly latched onto good-girl Rory as her new bad-boy influence. Although Jess gave off vibes of apathy and cynicism, he was really a misunderstood intellectual who had major soft spots for Rory and Luke.

At the end of season 3 of Gilmore Girls, Rory chose to attend Yale instead of Harvard and had to decide what to do about her distant boyfriend. When Jess finds out he won’t be graduating high school, he packs his bags and heads to California without saying goodbye to Luke or Rory. They break up and Jess continues to stay in California in a backdoor pilot episode that was meant to set up his own spinoff, though he returns to Stars Hollow intermittently over the next three seasons.

In an interview with E! Ventimiglia revealed he personally advocated for Jess to be killed off in some brutal ways. Says the actor, “I was the one who actually tried to get [the character] Jess killed, and they didn’t go for it. [I wanted to] get him hit by a bus, a knife in the side of the neck, something bad. [Laughs.]” If Jess were to be killed off so tragically, it likely wouldn’t have happened in the show’s Stars Hollow considering there’s nobody crazy enough to stomp into town and knife someone in the throat. Unless his demise were to occur while still back in California, Jess would be pretty well protected in Stars Hollow’s confines.

Thankfully for Jess’ character redemption and future impact on Rory, Gilmore Girls’ creators didn’t agree with Ventimiglia’s ideas for killing the character off. Instead, he returned to Rory’s life occasionally to either win her back, remind her of who she really is, or show how far he’s come since his rebellious teenage days. Ventimiglia even reprised his role in Netflix’s revival Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life where he visited Luke and subtly expressed a longing for the girl that got away. Many Jess fans were also hoping he was the father of Rory’s baby, though the likely culprit is her college boyfriend Logan Huntzberger.

Had Jess been killed off, any hope for he and Rory finally finding their way back to each other would be lost – even though now that Luke and Lorelai are married they’re technically cousins-in-law. Since Ventimiglia returned to the original series six times after apparently wanting to kill off his character and once again for the Netflix revival, it’s possible he would consider playing Jess Mariano again if the creators decided to release another sequel series. A Year in the Life ended on a life-changing cliffhanger for Rory, so bringing back Gilmore Girls characters like Jess to explore her life as a mother still isn’t out of the question according to Us Weekly.

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Jordan Williams
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Jordan Williams is a Movie/TV Feature Senior Staff Writer for Screen Rant. She graduated from the University of Oregon in 2020 with a B.A. in Psychology and a minor in Media Studies.

Jordan is based in Seattle, Washington and enjoys exploring the natural beauty the PNW has to offer. She runs on coffee and classic movies, taking pride in having watched every film on AFI’s 100 Greatest Films list and every Best Picture Oscar winner.

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