By: Phoebe Reilly

It's a given that actors don't play their ages on television anymore, but 21-year-old Alexis Bledel may be as close as it gets. As precocious bibliophile Rory Gilmore, the adolescent half of the WB's mother/ daughter drama Gilmore Girls, she's the latest incarnation of the girl next door--a more confident Felicity, a less surly Angela Chase. It's an alter ego the actress hasn't outgrown. "I'm not as rebellious [as Rory], but I did a lot that I was never caught for," she says. "I don't think my mom knows everything, but she knows more than she used to."

This month, Bledel works her spirited verge-of-adulthood persona in Tuck Everlasting, Disney's adaptation of the Natalie Babbitt novel. She plays a girl who must choose between growing up and living forever when she falls for the son of a family that has found a spring that bestows eternal life. Faced with the choice herself, Bledel would readily opt for old age: "The older I get, the more comfortable I feel in my skin," she says. "I find that much more appealing than not having wrinkles." It's a lesson she learned while modeling in high school. "They were constantly telling me to lose weight because my hips were too big. I was like, 'I'm still working, so what's it to you?'"