Gilpin tells PEOPLE that "all these movies that I watched when I was younger, I'm now rewatching and now I'm noticing the kind of adult love story B-stories underneath"

NEED TO KNOW

• Betty Gilpin cites 1998’s The Parent Trap as one of her favorite rom-coms of all time
• The Office Romance star tells PEOPLE that “all these movies that I watched when I was younger, I’m now rewatching and now I’m noticing the kind of adult love story B-stories underneath”
• “Lindsay Lohan should have gotten an Oscar nomination, but the Natasha Richardson and Dennis Quaid love story in that movie is so beautiful,” she adds

Ahead of her role in Office Romance, Betty Gilpin watched a lot of rom-coms — and came to the conclusion that The Parent Trap is one of the best.

Speaking with PEOPLE about working on the new Jennifer Lopez-led Netflix rom-com, Gilpin, 39, shared that she was already quite familiar with the genre before starting work on Office Romance — but watching films with her kids gave her a new perspective on some of her childhood favorites.

"I mean, I've seen every rom-com that exists," she tells PEOPLE. "I think it's funny watching now that I have a five-year-old and a two-year-old, all these movies that I watched when I was younger, I'm now rewatching and now I'm noticing the kind of adult love story B-stories underneath."

"[1998's] The Parent Trap, for instance, with Lindsay Lohan," she says. "By the way, Lindsay Lohan should have gotten an Oscar nomination, but the Natasha Richardson and Dennis Quaid love story in that movie is so beautiful. That's my favorite rom-com — Parent Trap."

Gilpin also cited Captain Von Trap and Maria's romance in The Sound of Music, as another favorite.

"It's so sexy and beautiful and it just went over my little childhood at the time and now so I'm now the weird mom in the corner being like, 'This children's movie is so sexy and funny,'" she jokes.

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Gilpin and husband Cosmo Pfeil have two daughters: Mary, born in November 2020, and a second daughter born in May 2024.

Gilpin's experience with motherhood also played a role in Office Romance, as her character, Lopez's workaholic pal Sydney, spends most of the story pregnant until (spoiler alert!) she suddenly goes into labor in the office, giving birth on a desk. 

"I had done birth scenes before,” the GLOW alum tells PEOPLE, "but never with a literal prosthetic vagina before." Before filming the scene, Gilpin recalls, she "was kind of panicking about it."

However, one thing helped her get through the stressful day of filming.

"When I got to set, I realized, oh, I'll literally be holding the hand of one of our greatest working mothers in this nation, Jennifer Lopez," she teases.

"It just felt like this meta thing of what being a working parent sometimes feels like, where you feel fully exposed and like you're screaming at the sun and your guts are on the table whether you want them or not out there, but also it felt really empowering and silly and fun," she adds. "And then it was time to go put my real kids to bed. It's like, oh, I guess that's my legacy now on camera forever. Well, time to make some mac and cheese."

Office Romance, co-written by Brett Goldstein, stars Lopez and Goldstein as coworkers embarking on a secret romance under their company's strict no-relationships policy.

The film, which also stars Joe Kelly, Tony Hale, Amy Sedaris and Edward James Olmos, is on Netflix now.

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