Paris Eustace Geller is a fictional character on the television series Gilmore Girls and its spin-off A Year in the Life, played by Liza Weil.
Paris is introduced as an ambitious high-school student from a wealthy Jewish family, who was raised almost entirely by her nanny. She has an extreme form of a Type A personality; she is driven and goes to any extreme to get what she wants, whether it be a high grade or a life goal, and is very disappointed in herself and others if she does not succeed. This is in stark contrast to her friend Rory Gilmore, who is much more relaxed and casual about most matters, and the only person close to Paris who can consistently pacify her. Paris's style of speaking is usually brash and matter-of-fact, and it is very rare that she lapses away from her usual tone.
Paris was conceived as a short-term character who would serve as Rory's foil and arch-nemesis in high school. However, the role was gradually developed by series creator Amy Sherman-Palladino and her husband/writing partner Dan, and Paris would remain for the entirety of the series while growing closer to Rory. Weil's performance won critical acclaim, with Paris becoming one of the show's most popular and topical characters.
Introduction of Paris Paris was originally created for a three-episode guest arc by series creator Amy Sherman-Palladino and executive producer Gavin Polone at the beginning of the show's first season to introduce Rory Gilmore's character to the high pressures, competitiveness and stress of going from the small public high school in Stars Hollow, to the storied and respected halls of Hartford's Chilton Academy. This character was created in consolation for Weil (who had been signed to a talent holding deal with show distributor Warner Bros. Television the year before, guest-starring through her arrangement on The West Wing and ER) after a strong audition for the role of Rory (Weil had previously been known to Polone through her work in the role of Debbie Kozac, a character who served a minor but pivotal role as a babysitter to Tom Witzky (Kevin Bacon)'s child in the 1999 film Stir of Echoes, which he and his company produced), which eventually went to Alexis Bledel. Weil, however, had to change her hair color to play Paris from her natural brown hair coloring to blonde. This was done to further the contrast of Paris to Rory. The character proved to be the proper foil to Rory in time, and the role of Paris in the show was extended and expanded through the first season until Weil became a series regular in the second season.
Plot lines Season 1 On her first day at Chilton Academy, the soft-spoken Rory Gilmore meets the high-strung Paris Geller, who immediately views Rory as an academic rival. Prior to this encounter, Paris reads Rory's Stars Hollow transcript, courtesy of a student worker in the administration office she paid to sneak her the information out the window. The first day with the younger Gilmore ends up challenging Paris, and a few hours after giving Rory a lecture that she wouldn't make things easy, Rory accidentally broke Paris' castle project after tumbling into her because of a stuck locker. Paris refuses Rory's offered help to put it back together, and in spite the new girl answers lecture questions usually tackled by Paris right away.
Relations between the two remain frosty through their first semester as her crush Tristan gave more attention to Rory than to Paris, whom he considered a platonic friend. After Rory earns a D in a literature class as she tries to catch up with her classmates, Paris jokes bitterly the grade would be perfect to apply for work at McDonald's. Later, the comment would come back to haunt her as an annoyed Rory went off on her for calling her a "loser" during a test she failed to make due to oversleeping.
Paris' backstory is built with each episode after this point. She is forced by her mother to attend Rory's 16th birthday party thrown by her grandparents, and makes it clear she doesn't enjoy it. Later, she bumps into Rory at a college fair, and away from the pressures of school and Tristan, she opens up a little to the girl, discussing Harvard and how she hopes to go there one day because "ten generations of Gellers have gone to Harvard", as does Rory. Though they don't get along, they agree to disagree and be cordial to each other, noting that Harvard is a big campus and they probably would not see each other again after Chilton.
Her hidden crush on Tristan is a major theme for the first season, and as she sells tickets to the school's Winter Formal, tries to bring up the courage to ask him out when he tries to buy his tickets. However she backs off after he makes a flirty comment about her already having a date. She takes out that bitterness on Rory for not wanting him and yells at the girl as she buys her tickets, not realizing that Rory already has a boyfriend in the local new boy, Dean.
Because she needs a date for the Formal, she is forced after asking her mother to take her cousin Jacob as a date. Paris is able to keep it a secret for at least half the dance, until Jacob asks Rory if he could have her phone number and reveals his bloodline connection to Rory's rival. Though Rory doesn't say anything, Paris ends up jumping to conclusions and yells at Rory in front of all at the Formal in attendance, angered that Rory would divulge such secret information. However Rory had said nothing, and Paris unwittingly revealed her own secret.
Paris's parents then went through a nasty, messy divorce that was the talk of Chilton with many tabloid-like rumors of affairs and plastic surgery flying through the gossip mill, and despite her exceptional success at school, Paris' self-esteem suffered as her home was torn apart with Mrs. Geller replacing all reminders of her husband, and pushing Paris to bring up her self-esteem, be less introverted, and use makeup and topical medications to hide blemishes.
During this same period, she caught Max Medina, her literature teacher, passionately kissing Rory's mother Lorelai, and spread the gossip to assert herself over Rory and to take the heat off the negative attention she was receiving in the wake of the divorce. After Rory confronts Paris and asks her to explain why she's treating her the way she is when she was nothing but nice to Paris, she reveals some sorrow and guilt over spreading the news and speaks out about how the divorce has affected her. Knowing the girl was in a tough position, Rory tells Paris that if she needs help with anything, she can come to her and talk about anything she might need to.
The girls are then put together for a project in a government class (along with Madeline and Louise), and the four decide to use Rory's home in Stars Hollow as a meeting place for the project, which just happens to be at the same time Lorelai is organizing the town's rummage sale, filling the house with assorted clothes and merchandise. Madeline and Louise seem to want to befriend Rory and are yelled at several times by Paris to keep working, but keep going back to talking about Rory's relationship with Dean, annoying Paris to no end. Later, Lorelai gets an idea upon seeing Rory, Madeline and Louise bond, and invites all four girls to a Bangles concert in Manhattan. Paris declines to go, but is talked into it by her friends, and surprisingly enjoys the music and the band, and then enjoys the unwanted attention Madeline and Louise end up with after sneaking off with some boys to a party nearby, watching as Lorelai becomes authoritarian and lets it known that she won't allow any trouble around Rory. After all of this, she tells Rory that the evening was the best night of her life.
Slowly Paris and Rory become friendly toward each other, and Rory tries to help out the girl by asking Tristan to take her out on a date, then help her dress for it. The date seems to be a success, but Tristan remains focused on wanting Rory, and unwittingly reveals that Rory asked him to ask Paris out. She takes offense to this, and again they become distant, Tristan getting in the way of their friendship to the point where he spreads word at the end of the school year that he would take Rory to a PJ Harvey concert. Seemingly, this is the last straw for Paris, and she cuts Rory fully out of her peer circle, using her new power as editor of The Franklin, the school's newspaper to prevent the younger Gilmore from any advancement in position, assigning her to do a menial report about a parking lot paving project to start her Franklin career.
Season 2 Eventually, Paris and Rory realize that they work better together than apart, and after a few more underhanded moves to annoy Rory away from her, Paris eventually accepts her as a friend and an unsaid co-editor on The Franklin. Also helping is the departure of Tristan for military school in North Carolina after he gets into trouble and falls in with a bad clique in the school over the summer, which culminates in a failed robbery of a safe belonging to the father of one of his new friends. As his departure took place mere moments from a performance of the last act of Romeo and Juliet Paris was producing, in which Tristan was to play Romeo and Rory, Juliet, Paris had to step in at the last second to don a male wig and portray Romeo.
After being encouraged to be more social, Rory then found herself about to get into one of Chilton's most prestigious sororities, The Puffs, which was led by one of Paris' rivals, Francie Jarvis. Paris had always wanted to get into this club too, as it ensured many guarantees for when she got into Harvard (which involved a show-created history where Sandra Day O'Connor was a member), and she asks Rory to put in a good word. Her plan works, and both girls find themselves about to be initiated into the Puffs (which involved a late-night burglary into Headmaster Charleston's office to ring a bell), when Charleston walked into his office with security mid-initiation, hastening the end of the Puffs.
Paris continues to allow her to be a friend, through many grade panics and frets through the rest of the season. She also finds Rory teasing her by not revealing her PSAT grade, which annoyed her to no end. She also ends up visiting Stars Hollow several times throughout the year, first as a guest at a holiday dinner at the Independence Inn which she enjoyed despite what she thought were anachronisms, trying to score a story for the Franklin about the town's supposedly hidden dark side (at least until Kirk curtains off every non-G-rated movie in the town's video store behind a Rory Curtain, which Paris immediately jumps on for a story), and in a grade panic.
With the departure of Tristan, there was no boy for Paris to be attracted to, and except for teasing a nerdy boy who got on her nerves sometimes (Brad Langford), she focused on her studies and building her college admissions chances. She also made a successful run for student body president in her senior year with Rory as her vice president towards the end of the season, and their reward is a two-month trip to Washington, DC for a Junior Leadership program.
Season 3 The third season begins towards the end of the Washington trip, with Rory and Paris as roommates and becoming very close. Paris is revealed to be a sleep talker in slumber, having dreams aloud about Woodward and Bernstein of Watergate and Washington Post fame, then dreaming of herself as Bill Clinton during his denial of having an affair with Monica Lewinsky.
She finds romance at the conference with a boy named Jamie (Brandon Barash), who was often a partner with her in debates through the summer and took a liking to her assertive and commanding personality. This is proven as she tries to engage Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) in a debate, only to be passed onto a confused Rep. Doug Ose (R-CA) during a farewell luncheon.