page_title: List of Gilmore Girls characters
section_title: Sookie St. James
hierarchical_section_title: List of Gilmore Girls characters / Main characters / Sookie St. James
caption_attribution_description: Melissa McCarthy DSC_0812
context_page_description: This is a list of characters for the dramedy television series Gilmore Girls.
context_section_description: Sookie St. James, played by Melissa McCarthy, is the loving best friend of Lorelai Gilmore. While being a bit on the klutzy side, Sookie maintains her position as the executive chef at the Independence Inn and later, the co-owner and head chef at the Dragonfly Inn.
  Throughout the series, Sookie is Lorelai's business partner and cheerleader. Sookie shares a somewhat antagonistic relationship with Michel, the hotel's front desk clerk. She is also the one person who consistently champions Lorelai and Luke's romantic relationship, even long before the two were actually involved.
  She dates and later marries Jackson Belleville, a sweet but whiny vegetable farmer with an extremely odd family. They eventually have two children: David "Davey" Edward and Martha Janice. At the end of the series, Sookie is again pregnant.
  In the revival, she left the Dragonfly Inn for a planned 6.5 month exploration of her culinary talent on a retreat which involuntarily turns into a permanent leave. After an absence of two years, she returns to prepare Luke and Lorelai's wedding cake.
  Alex Borstein, the real-life wife of actor Jackson Douglas, who plays Jackson Belleville, was originally cast in the role of Sookie St. James, but had to back out due to scheduling conflicts, mostly voicing Lois Griffin on the animated Fox series Family Guy. Instead, she has taken miscellaneous supporting roles throughout the show, including Drella, the harpist from season 1, and Miss Celine in seasons 3 and 5.
  At the 2015 ATX Television Festival, show creator Amy Sherman-Palladino stated that she had initially intended for Sookie to be gay. She told the Huffington Post, "Things were different back then. The networks were very different in how permissive they would allow you to be. So, Sookie was originally supposed to be gay, but that was a non-starter at that time."
caption: Melissa McCarthy
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