Keiko Agena

Ever since I found out I got the part on 'Gilmore Girls,' my life has been changing in so many ways. It seems as though all we get is good news. I'm just so grateful to be a part of it. It's a wholesome show with an edge. I have no idea how we pull it off.

Being on a successful show is kind of like being a sea turtle. Every year, sea turtles lay hundreds and hundreds of eggs, but only a few manage to survive and mature. It's the same with TV pilots. There are so many great ideas, but for whatever reason only the lucky ones get picked up.

The standardization of world culture, with local popular or traditional forms driven out or dumbed down to make way for American television, American music, food, clothes and films, has been seen by many as the very heart of globalization.

From 1961 to 1964, I was fortunate enough to work at a think tank in the Kenwood neighborhood of Chicago. As a writer and editor, I reported in a publication about the thinkers. Our offices were in a former mansion; I worked in what had been the ballroom. As I sat typing my copy, I imagined the dancers waltzing.