Press conferences are always something of a dicey proposition, and you typically lose quite a bit of the (admittedly manufactured) informality of roundtable interviews in the translation to this format, no matter how well managed against free-for-all they are. Sometimes, though, as at the press day held in Los Angeles this past weekend for the forthcoming Evan Almighty, the tradeoff proves deliciously worth it, either because of an instinctive performance moment born of appearing in front of a larger group or… well, just a stupidly phrased question that provides its own inherent entertainment value. To wit, this exchange with Lauren Graham, above:

Question: In both this movie and in Gilmore Girls, you’re the sexy
mom…

Lauren Graham: Thanks.

Q: Not skinny at all, but very light…

LG: Mmm… wow, there’s that. Not at all? You wouldn’t say at
all?

Q: What do you do to…

LG: To be so not skinny?

Q: … do you work out, or…?

LG: (laughs) Well, thank you for part of that question. I
don’t have really any awareness of that. What I knew is that I thought that… You
know, we sort of discussed that I didn’t think [my character] worked. And so I
wanted her to feel kind of casual and natural, especially in opposition to this
guy [Steve Carell] who’s very buttoned up and has kind of gotten into this more professional
time of his life. I felt like this is a girl who’s known him a long time, and
knew him before all this stuff happened. And so I just wanted her to be kind of
a counterpoint for him. And the other stuff: like, if I did anything I wanted
to do, I would be, like, a lot… Uh, this is me like running and doing
everything I can. I’m sort of fighting a battle… I guess. I could go really far the
other way, so this… I work out a lot. I watch what I eat. It’s very hard won
even to be this not skinny. Yes! Next…

For the record, and for what it’s worth, the question came from a female reporter…