‘Gilmore Girls’ Michel Is Stopped ‘Every Day, All the Time’ by Fans ArticlePure

If you’re lucky enough to catch this Gilmore Girls star out and about, he doesn’t mind if you say hello!

Yanic Treusdale — who played Michel Gerard, the concierge, for all seven seasons of the show — spoke exclusively to PEOPLE at the premiere of his new series, Étoile, on Tuesday, April 15, at New York’s Museum of Modern Art. 

Treusdale, 55, told PEOPLE that fans stop him on the street to talk about Gilmore Girls and Michel, “Every day. All the time. 40 times a day. People were waiting in front of my hotel today, and I was like, ‘How do they know I live here?’ ”

But he doesn’t mind the intrusion. “It’s great, because you don’t get so many parts that have such an impact on people 25 years later,” he said. “I’m not going to fight it. I’m Michel, and it’s okay.”

On Gilmore Girls, Truesdale’s Michel was the concierge and assistant manager at the Stars Hollow Independence Inn, where Lauren Graham’s Lorelai worked and Melissa McCarthy’s Sookie was the chef. Later in the series, Lorelai and Sookie buy the Dragonfly Inn, and Michel also makes the jump to work there instead. 

The Canadian actor noted to PEOPLE that before Gilmore Girls, he had mostly appeared in French-Canadian productions. Amy Sherman-Palladino — who created both Gilmore Girls and Étoile — “gave birth to my artistic career in the U.S.,” he said. She worked on both shows with her husband, Dan Palladino. Treusdale said, “They have the best dialogue in the business. Their talent is indisputable, and it’s just amazing to [work with] someone that has such a strong voice and a strong vision.”

Étoile, he said, is “a love letter to dance and to art.” The series is about two struggling ballet companies on opposite sides of the Atlantic who exchange principal dancers in order to drum up interest. Truesdale plays Raphael in the new series.

Truesdale said of working with Sherman-Palladino, “There’s something very rewarding as an actor when you get older, and you get to work with people again, full circle. There’s an ease. There’s a chemistry. There’s an understanding. We need fewer words. Just a look. Just a look, and they’re like, ‘Yeah, yeah.’ ” Sherman-Palladino also helmed the ballet drama Bunheads and Prime Video’s The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.

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The couple and creative partners are famous for their dialogue that goes “a million miles a minute,” but Trousdale says, “It’s so much in my brain and my DNA when I’m with them that I don’t even think about it.”

Truesdale also told PEOPLE he still touches base with his costars McCarthy and Graham “every week,” and he often meets Kelly Bishop for a meal when he’s in New York. “We became good friends,” he said of their bond.

Étoile premieres April 24 on Prime Video.