The high school football drama, which is based on movie that was based on book, has had so much success on NBC that executive producer Peter Berg announced at a Television Critics Association event on Monday that talks for a movie have begun.

It’s tough to say whether the writers could create a movie different enough from the last one to keep it fresh. But if the show’s been successful, executive producer Jason Katims must know what he’s doing.

“It’s still very early,” Katims said. “I’m just beginning to plot out the story for the script, but it’s something that we’re all excited about.”

The movie would probably revolve around Kyle Chandler’s and Connie Britton’s characters, Berg said. While the season ended with their two characters, Coach Taylor and Wife Tami, respectively, living in Philadelphia, the movie would probably take place in Texas.

However, before the process can move further, Katims said he has to get on with the script.

“I haven’t talked to [Chandler and Britton] about it that much because I feel like the first thing they’re going to want to know is, ‘What’s the story?’ and that’s understandable,” Katims told Entertainment Weekly. “So the best chance we have of bringing back not only Kyle and Connie, but at least several other cast members, is by first moving forward with the script.”

Hopefully, the producers can round up enough members from the original TV cast to make this movie worthwhile.

Source: Gather

“Friday Night Lights,” one of my all-time favorite series, won the “Program of the Year” prize at the Television Critics Association Awards Saturday night and Connie Britton, Kyle Chandler and others from the cast were there to receive it.

It was like going to a class reunion. Connie said she’s hoping the suggested “FNL” movie will transpire; Kyle told me he was proud of “Super 8.” “That turned out well, didn’t it?”

Source: Sioux City Journal

“I think we all love the idea so much about being able to do that,” Britton said Saturday (Aug. 6) at the Television Critics Association press tour.

That said, any possible feature-film project is still a good ways down the road. “I’ve talked to Pete [Berg, who directed the 2004 "Friday Night Lights" movie and developed the series] and [showrunner] Jason Katims, and it really is in its very baby stages right now,” Britton says.

“Listen — I was just watching an interview with Jason Bateman,” she continues, “who talked about the ‘Arrested Development’ movie they’ve been working on for [years], so I’ll believe it when I see it. But it would be so fun to do. It would be so fun to do the second ‘Friday Night Lights’ movie.”

Source: Zap2it

Not many in the cast have brought themselves to watch this season yet, though they wrapped last summer.
Britton: I haven’t seen much of the season. Because it’s our final season, I’ve been very resistant to watch it. Every time I think I’ll sit down to do it, I think, “Nope, too sad. Too soon.”
Gilford: To be honest, I’m a real fan of the show. I didn’t even read the scripts of the episodes I wasn’t in for this last season because I was excited to watch it as a viewer. I can’t wait to get the DVDs.
Jordan: I don’t know how it turns out. We do every scene five ways, every time, and we shoot a lot of footage that doesn’t make it into the episodes, so I’m really anxious to see how everything turns out. I hope it turned out as good as we felt while we were making it. But then, it never felt like work being on the show; it was always fun.

Chandler asked to direct an episode at the start of the season. He stepped behind the camera for the series’ penultimate hour, “Texas Whatever,” which featured the return of Tyra among other original cast members.
Chandler: I was nervous. It’s like the show was going so good, I didn’t want to be the one to screw it up. But we’re a tight-knit group, so it was really a fun and relaxed creative atmosphere. Directing on this show is great because everyone is eager to create something that is fresh and new… to try and find that unexpected thing that pops up… That stuff is what makes the scenes you remember.
It was the perfect episode to do too, because after five years it’s the one where everyone sort of comes back… some of them say good-bye, wrap up stories. So I got to work with everyone a bit, and we had time to really say good-bye to each other. It worked out really well.

Because producers knew in advance that the fifth season would be the show’s last, Katims and his team had time to craft the ending they wanted — and the ending they hoped their loyal fans would love. Every character gets their due.
Nevins: I felt total satisfaction. The thing to do these days is to end your show like, “Hey man, it’s just life. Life goes on,” and there’s no attempt at closure… I think that’s a little bit of a cop-out. What Jason did was take these characters and their stories to a logical conclusion. He wraps up every character in a way that didn’t seem forced or fake. I really appreciate that he didn’t do the “There’s no beginning and there’s no end, it just goes on” thing.
Teegarden: Well, Julie’s been slapped twice this season, so… [Laughs]. Once by her mom and once by some crazy lady who’s not even in love with her husband, so it’s all fair game anyway… yes, I really said that. No, Julie’s come a long way. She started as this whiny teen with raging hormones, at times horrible to her parents, but I think a lot of the fans are going to be really happy with the series finale and where she ends up. You get a sense of where she’s heading — well, obviously in one big way — but it’s not the end for her…
Lauria: I think they handled it sensitively, bringing back everyone’s favorite cast members for parts in significant ways. Somehow, Jason and the whole crew managed to pull it off without making it a big cheesy Hollywood ending.
Kitsch: I’m happy with five seasons — that’s more than most, you know? And I think the series ends the way it should. Me, looking at the sunset, as it were.
Katims: We don’t have the largest fan base in the world, but we do have the most passionate one, and we wanted to give them the best ending we could, one that would live up to everything that came before it.

Perhaps the most surprising ending is that of Luke Cafferty. He’s last seen boarding a bus in Army fatigues.
Lauria: That surprised me too. Like, “What? Doesn’t anyone remember how awesome Luke was in the beginning of Season 4? What happened? But then I thought, “That’s real. That’s life.” What’s a kid in Luke’s shoes going to do? Stay at home with his folks and do all the farm sh–? No. Becky’s not about to sit down and be a wife, football ain’t working out, what else is he going to do? I think it’s just really logical, and I think it’s his best opportunity, that he could go far with that. I think he’s going to be a lifer.

The one guy who doesn’t really get much of a send-off is… J.D. McCoy (Jeremy Sumpter). In fact, one of the last things we see him do is tell Saracen: “This is my Dillon now!” Aside from a few scenes in which the Panthers are tormenting Luke, we never really hear from him again.
Katims: I think he and his dad went back to Dallas. I think they could never really conquer Dillon the way they thought they were going to. So that’s where J.D. is [Laughs].

The season builds to a real boiling point for the Taylors. Eric and Tami come up against a very difficult, trying decision. Both of them are offered bigger, better jobs — in different places. Resolution comes very late in the game.
Katims: We felt very strongly that we wanted there to be a compelling story for them that would be front and center leading up to the end… Again, I’ve always felt that they’re the heart of the show… The strength of what they have between each other, it allowed the writers to throw anything at them, and that is kind of what we did. We challenged that relationship in a way that it hasn’t been challenged before.
Britton: Their conflict was very… provocative for me. That’s a real issue for people, and it was just such a cool thing for Kyle and I to play after all these years. I have to say Kyle did a really courageous job with it because he was playing such an a–hole and Tami’s gotta be like, “Dude, what is your problem?” Tami was rocking his world. Also, those were the last episodes ever of our show, so a lot of those raw emotions were at a peak. We were already on edge. I think that contributed to some great stuff.
Chandler: Tami had given Eric so much and in the long run, from my perspective, I think Eric is going to be a better, stronger person in having done and started a new life outside of Dillon.
You can only push your loved ones so far. At some point he said to himself, “I love this woman. I know she’s right. That’s why I’m married to her. So I must stick by her and give her her dream while I try and make mine over again.” I think this probably happens quite often with couples and I just think we ended it the right way.
Britton: The last thing we shot was the scene in the restaurant with Julie and Matt, telling us their news… but the very last scene was outside of the restaurant where I’m bawling because our marriage is really being tested by this problem. Oh my God, I’m going to start crying just talking about it! So we’re doing that, and all of a sudden, they’re yelling, “That’s a wrap,” and everyone, the entire crew, just started bawling. The restaurant said we could stay and have a margarita or something, but I don’t even think anyone did. It was an emotional time and nobody was dealing with it very well.

The person who has always seemed anchored to Dillon is Tim “Texas Forever” Riggins. Kitsch wasn’t in every episode throughout the final season, but he was never out of mind — a deliberate choice, Katims says.
Kitsch: All I kept asking was for it to be real — and we knocked it on the head with that. Jail would change an 18-year-old kid with no purpose, with no sense of direction. I think as simple as that life is in Dillon, he often felt so f—ing out of place. I think that hurts a lot more than anything else he’s dealt with.
But then he figures out what he wants, and the beauty of Riggs is that you can truly give him anything, put him anywhere, and he can deal. A trip to Mexico to help a friend? Let’s go. New York? Let’s do it.
Katims: What’s really wonderful is that while Tim isn’t around the whole time because he’s in jail, he’s always present in the show. He is Dillon. I particularly like what we wound up doing with his brother Billy and Billy’s wife Mindy (Stacey Oristano). I love the surrogate family that happens with them and Becky (Madison Burge) — and that happens because of Tim. it’s at once hysterically funny and very moving  to watch them. There are certain characters and stories that reach me, that grab me in ways I didn’t expect. For me, it’s watching scenes in that house with the Rigginses.
Kitsch: There were things about Tim that really resonated with me and what I’ve been through in my own life. His father, or lack thereof, was huge. Tim’s relationship with his Billy… man, that scene where Tim tells him that he’s going to give himself up and take the fall. Huge. There was just an immense amount of trust between me and Derek Phillips [who plays Billy]. I’ve been through all the brother drama too, but maybe not as intensely as their fight outside The Landing Strip. You always come back around; that’s just the way family works. No better way to go out than to be building a house with him.

In fact, the building of that house on Tim’s land was the last scene ever shot.
Kitsch: There’s so many ways we could have taken him at the end, but I love the simplicity of his “ending.” That he’s still out in Dillon somewhere. That you could drive through that fictional town and just run into that cat. It doesn’t get more real than that. Pete flew in. We had a bunch of cast. We were all there, ending it all on Riggs’ property. So it was quite full circle.
Britton: It was at sunset, and we all went out in that beautiful field, the writers, our producers, the crew… It was really a beautiful finale to everything. It felt very Texas, very much our show.

Gilford made sure they all had a good time on the way out and organized an all-night pub crawl. Still, some of his castmates can’t let go.
Jordan: I mean, I’m ready to come back for a sixth season, have Vince graduate at least, right? No, for me to be able to sleep at night, I had to let it go. You can’t hope and wish and dream for more, so I’m doing the best I can to put it to rest.
Kitsch: I’ve got the hair extremely short right now [Laughs]. Pete was sitting with me when I did it. It was comical, and probably a bit more dramatically short than it needed to be in the end. …You come out of this show with a lot of — how would you say it? — respect from the industry. Everyone knows it’s a great show, and I think Riggins has just tracked really well with people. It was a showcase that you really rarely get, a springboard that I’ll never forget.
Gilford: The pub crawl was huge. We had T-shirts made. And, I mean, it was serious sh–. We had all the A.D.s make a schedule, we had a map and a route, we hit 10 bars, all 60 of us. It was amazingly perfect… I had to do it. Friday Night Lights gave me a career. It really did. I’ve learned so much. It’s done everything for me.

Source: TV Guide

TVGuide.com spoke to stars Kyle Chandler (Eric Taylor), Connie Britton (Tami Taylor), Aimee Teegarden (Julie Taylor), Taylor Kitsch (Tim Riggins), Zach Gilford (Matt Saracen), Matt Lauria (Luke Cafferty), Michael B. Jordan (Vince Howard), and executive producers Jason Katims and David Nevins about the long road to that final Texas sunset. The series finale airs Wednesday at 9 pm on DirecTV.The show emerged victorious, scoring a renewal even after being clobbered by American Idol at the end of its first season. But critics were not immediately as in love with Season 2. In particular, the decision to have the lovable Landry (Jesse Plemons) kill Tyra’s (Adrianne Palicki) attacker did not sit well. At the time, Katims said that story had been planned since Season 1 as a way for Tyra and Landry to become deeply connected.
Kitsch: I want to tip my hat to Jesse for making that sh—so real. It was incredible what he did with that. Just both him and Adrianne playing it… story aside, he was just unbelievable.
Teegarden: I kind of throw that whole thing under the rug.
Britton: It didn’t feel off to me as we were shooting the way it did for people who watched afterward. Here’s my feeling: I feel like because of the reality and honesty of our show, it can pretty much handle everything. Adrianne and Jesse gave fantastic performances in those scenes.
My only complaint would be not that the storyline was inherently bad, but that because of the nature of our show, because it’s an ensemble and there’s so many different stories being told, that we weren’t able to really tell that one with the depth it needed. If we could have really focused in and showed what happens to this teenage kid who is trying to save his friend and inadvertently kills this guy, if we could have showed what it would do to the town… Because the idea that it would happen and nobody in Dillon would know is, like, absurd… It was maybe a little too ambitious for us.

The second season was then cut short because of the writers’ strike. For the cast, it was just another wave of uncertainty about the series’ future.
Teegarden: The strike put not only the actors out of work, but also the crew and so many businesses. We went from being able to make this amazing show to, “Uh oh, should I keep my apartment? Do I move back?” … Plus, we had been trying to get through the whole murder thing, and it just didn’t quite work out. It was a hard time to go through.
Britton: The hardest part of this whole thing has been those times where we didn’t know whether we were coming back. Meaning, we had grown to love each other so much. Having to leave Austin and not be sure we were going to come back together, it just sucked.
Kitsch: I don’t know that I was really conscious of what was going on. But what are you going to do? I just thought, “You know what, man? I’m going to enjoy it. I love Austin. I love playing this cat. If we get to go, we’re going to just keep knocking it out.” That’s as simple as it was for me… And you know, I’m actually glad the show didn’t become this massive thing. It let us keep our head down and just keep going to work.

The fans had always been vocal bunch, but their passion saved the show from being canceled after two seasons. They launched a campaign to save the show, raising cash for charity, DVDs for the troops overseas… and the purchase of more than 18,000 mini footballs (many of them sent to NBC in a show of support.)
Kitsch: It was nothing but flattering. And I think it actually worked, that it’s the main reason we’re still talking.
Britton: You could never hope for something like that to happen. To see how passionate the audience was, it was just so wonderful. And we were so grateful because it demonstrated that people were really being impacted by this thing that we love doing ourselves.
I have to say, we really started referring to the show as the little engine that could… I know it sounds goofy, but I’m telling you, there was something that just felt so special about it and we kind of knew that it would always work out. It felt kind of miraculous that way. Magical.

It didn’t hurt that not only the critics but the executives liked it, too.
Nevins: I was coming off Arrested Development, so I was used to doing a show that’s not in the mainstream. But sometimes in network television, it helps to be good. I always like to make shows where you’re almost daring the network to cancel you. If you can actually be the network’s favorite show, they sometimes keep you on.

With a third season secured, Katims made the gut-wrenching move to graduate some of the Panthers. Peter Berg had initially told the cast that this wasn’t going to be a high school show where the kids didn’t stay in high school forever. So in the third and fourth seasons, the show sent beloved characters Street (Scott Porter), Smash (Gaius Charles), Saracen, Lyla (Minka Kelly) and Tyra out of Dillon. (Oh, the tears!)
Katims: I’ve always felt that one of our important recurring questions is “Am I going to live a life that goes beyond Dillon?” Many of the characters are asking themselves, “Am I going on to bigger and better things, or is high school football the pinnacle?” When you think about Tyra’s story or Smash or Jason… this has always been the struggle. With Tim, in the final two seasons, you see it’s really his ongoing struggle. So he graduates, but he doesn’t leave like the others, which was an interesting story to tell.
Also, up until the third season, we had kind of avoided putting an age or grade level on anyone [laughs]. That had to change.
Kitsch: It wasn’t like my final episode, but the state game where Riggs hangs up his cleats, it was such a big moment for me. Being taken out of the football stuff, I just missed it immediately.
Gilford: Letting go was weird. I loved what I did in Friday Night Lights. I would have done it forever on that show.
Chandler: Of course, you’re sad because some of the actors are leaving, but to be fair, Pete had always said, “You guys aren’t going to be in high school for eight years.” Watching Smash go, that was hard one.
Teegarden: Pete did tell us when we were doing the pilot that this would be like real life. People will come in, and people will go out, and some will come around again. I don’t think we comprehended it until the third season and all of a sudden, people were leaving. I was like, “Oh my god, oh my god… Is Julie going to come back?”

Fans also had to wrap their heads around a new team of players when Coach Taylor was fired by the Panthers — curse you, McCoy! — and forced to start over with the East Dillon Lions at the beginning of Season 4.
Katims: The idea was basically Bad News Bears. This time, Eric would have to build a franchise out of nothing.
Chandler: When we were nearing the end of Season 3, the show was about to get canceled, it was going off the air, I had no doubt. Then Jason delivered that final episode that left off with the move to the new school — that was the first time I thought we could come back. It was so enticing. They basically found a way to recreate the show … It could have been a jump-the-shark moment, but it wound up being bold and brilliant.
And it really was great to do a story about the underdogs because that’s not what the Panthers were. The Lions were the kids who couldn’t do anything right. It’s quintessentially American, rooting for the little guys.
Britton: It was a full-on reboot. Pete even flew in to give us a pep talk. It felt like exciting though, like we were taking our show and giving ownership to these aggressive new actors.

Matt Lauria was already a huge Friday Night Lights fan when he got cast as Luke Cafferty, one of the only promising players for East Dillon. Both he and Michael B. Jordan, who would play badly-in-need-of-a-break Vince Howard, said the roles were a gift (even though Jordan first had to learn to, uh, play football.)
Lauria: I had just signed with a new manager who used to represent Gaius.  I didn’t watch much TV at the time, and he said, “Look, you have to watch Friday Night Lights. It’s the most awesome show…” and I was like, “Whatever, okay, okay.” I pop in the DVD and my wife and I were immediately hooked.
I was also livid, like “I should have been on this show!” I was so jealous. Then, right when we were finishing Season 3, I get an audition. I couldn’t believe it, I was such a psycho fan.
I think there’s an implicit courage that goes with writing that show. It’s not Hollywood. It’s grainy and choppy and fast, it’s like we’re breathing right on these characters, everything is living and dying in the moment, white hot, right there. As an actor, you yearn for that kind of danger, you know?
Jordan: I had thrown a football maybe five times my entire life before I went down to Austin. So 6 am mornings, waking up to practice with the stunt coordinator? It was a blast. I liked going the extra mile. What I loved about watching the show — just from a straight viewer perspective — was feeling like you’re a fly on the wall. They just keep things subtle, they keep it real. I loved that less was more.
Lauria: I remember my first fitting, I came in and they had me in one of those worn-out Panther T-shirts and I was taking pictures of myself and e-mailing them to my wife, like, “Check me out!”
Jordan: I got to be a little more badass than I probably have the balls to be in person. I’m a little shy, so when Vince starts to let everything go to his head, it was cool.

Suddenly, the Panthers were the enemy.
Katims: It was such a big gamble, the idea of literally switching teams, changing our allegiances. I kept thinking, “Is this idea going to work? Is the audience going to believe it?”
I remember watching the second episode of that fourth season, the episode where Tami basically gets booed off the stage at the Panthers pep rally [because Eric's with The Lions at that point], and it was amazing: I was in the editing room, watching the episode as a viewer would and thinking to myself, “I hate the Panthers. I hate them!”

The crew quickly followed suit. In fact, they ditched the Panthers blue entirely.
Katims: The switch didn’t just happen on the show, it happened with the entire culture in production. You never see anyone in a Panthers T-shirt, or wearing blue, period. They’re all wearing red. That really is true.
Chandler: The paraphernalia that I have left over? I think I’ve maybe got two blue hats and four or five red and black ones. Also, here’s something I’ll say, finally: I never liked that Panther blue. At all. When we got red, I thought, “Well, the red is cool, but on camera, it’s too much. Why can’t we just have black?” I started scheming, trying to find a way to get the Lions to use black shirts instead. Finally, we did. Now you tell me: Did it not look great?

The show finally — finally! — got some major Emmy recognition in 2009, when Chandler and Britton were both nominated in the lead acting categories. Britton, in particular, had a meaty storyline in which Tami advised pregnant student Becky (Madison Burge) of her options and in so doing upset the town.
Britton: The abortion was such a big issue for us to tackle and it was really important to me to make sure that we were true to Tami’s behavior in the situation, but also to the external argument in the town of Dillon. I didn’t want to depict these Southern fundamentalists who were anti-abortion and completely irrational and just have that be it…
We wanted to show the complexities of the situation, and not have it be, “Oh, an abortion comes up in small-town Texas, so they’re going to drum the principal out of town.” …I wound up calling around to see what the facts were in terms of how a principal could be removed or couldn’t be removed and what the protocol was in terms of what Tami’s position would have been. I didn’t want it to be some sort of TV-ified abortion story.

Source: TV Guide

TVGuide.com spoke to stars Kyle Chandler (Eric Taylor), Connie Britton (Tami Taylor), Aimee Teegarden (Julie Taylor), Taylor Kitsch (Tim Riggins), Zach Gilford (Matt Saracen), Matt Lauria (Luke Cafferty), Michael B. Jordan (Vince Howard), and executive producers Jason Katims and David Nevins about the long road to that final Texas sunset. Before Friday Night Lights became a TV show, it was a movie based on a book. The film’s director Peter Berg, however, felt there was more story to tell about a Texas town obsessed with its high school football team and the challenges for an incoming coach and his family.
Nevins: I had read and fallen in love with the book when it came out in 1990. I remember my very first year as an executive, I was 26 years old at NBC, and a show went on the air that was like the poor man’s version of this book. It was called Against the Grain, starring a young Ben Affleck as the quarterback. So … it had been messed up. Then the movie came along, and it really captured Texas and that sense of place and the role football played in that culture. When Pete said he’d be willing to write and direct a pilot, to remake his film as a TV show, it was a no-brainer for me.
Katims: I wasn’t initially attracted to the project at first because I’m not really a football fan, and this on its surface was going to be about football. (My sport is baseball.) It wasn’t until I watched the pilot that I realized what Pete was trying to do was pretty brilliant, and it was much more about the people in this town. I had only two questions: What happens to Jason Street? This star quarterback who’s supposed to lead the Panthers to victory is injured in the first episode, he’s paralyzed — how does that affect the team, his girlfriend, his teammates, his town? It seemed like such a great way to start the series, with this one small event that really does ripple out and hit everyone. My only other question was: Could we shoot this in Texas? It seemed to be that it would be a deal breaker if it did not film in Texas.

Kyle Chandler, star of TV’s Early Edition would play the Panthers’ coach Eric Taylor. To play his wife Tami, Berg turned to Connie Britton, who had played the coach’s wife in his film — but she wasn’t sold on re-creating the part. Zach Gilford, then fresh out of college, almost didn’t get to play the sweetly awkward second-string quarterback Matt Saracen …
Britton: I was absolutely adamant that this was a terrible idea. I had loved working with Pete and Billy Bob Thornton [who played the Panthers coach in the film] but my character wasn’t huge in the movie, and then got cut to smithereens in the editing. So when the TV show came along, I thought it was going to be the same, only the show would be on TV for six years and I’d be the glorified wallflower, you know? The wife of a coach on a football show. No, thank you.
It wasn’t until Pete left me a voicemail that, right now, I’m really wishing I kept. He was so enthusiastic. “Connie, you gotta do this. I promise you, we are going to make this woman smart and strong and sexy and f—ed-up and crazy and weak and it’s going to be awesome.” … I look back on that now and I’m so honored that he wanted to do that with me, but at the time, I thought I was making the biggest mistake of my life.
Gilford: It was actually the casting director, Linda Lowy, who put me in Friday Night Lights. She got me the job. There was someone else they wanted the whole time, and Pete, because he’s used to movies, was like, “No, that guy is the guy I want” and Linda had to tell him, “Well, you need to give the network a couple of choices, so bring Zach. Just bring him.” So there I was.

The cast and crew got the sense that they weren’t working on your typical high school drama — or even your typical TV show — while filming the pilot. That first episode followed five days leading-up to the first game of the season at Dillon High. Coach Taylor’s rally cry? “Clear eyes, full hearts, can’t lose!”
Chandler: One of the two things I miss the most are doing those speeches. The emotions would just overwhelm me. You get that little tingle, you know? I’d even get to rework them, and I’d talk to real-life coaches about what they’d say in the locker room. I loved it. It was like we were really going to play a game after them.
Nevins: When I saw the first cut of the pilot, I thought it was just gorgeous film. There was something so emotional about it, and in quite unexpected ways. That’s when I figured out that this wasn’t going to be your average series … It felt like an extended tone poem. There was a real sense of poetry to it.
Gilford: I remember calling Pete after seeing the pilot and saying, “Look man, even if this doesn’t get picked up to series, thank you. I can’t believe what we made.”
Kitsch: It was so good because it was so raw. …I remember doing that “Texas forever” speech like it was yesterday. I had time to work on it, and it just really encompassed Riggins, and his kind of contentedness at that moment.

Taylor Kitsch went with his own instincts in figuring out Tim Riggins, the popular but troubled friend of Jason. Along with the Taylors, Tim would stick around for all five seasons of the series.
Kitsch: I think it’s so boring to watch that partier, that loud, obnoxious guy who drinks too much. He’d get boring. The actors that I admire are the ones who do so much by saying so little, and on this show, we had the power to try things. With Riggs, I just felt his lack of words was intrinsic. … He’s been jaded so many times, it’s just a means of energy-saving, saving yourself from being jaded even more.

Unlike other network dramas, Friday Night Lights was not high on gloss. Hand-held cameras made for an extra-gritty feel. Actors were encouraged to improvise and try things off-script.
Teegarden: It was very much left up to us as to how things were going to go in a scene, how the action would play out. I was 15 when we started and it took a little getting used to. We didn’t have any set marks. But it all comes off very organic when you watch.
Gilford: The scripts were almost something just to show the network, and then we’d just do whatever we wanted.
Chandler: You could find emotions and humor and even anger in places you wouldn’t have expected. You’d use your surroundings and your dialogue in ways that weren’t necessarily on the page. … I had never done a show or a film that was open that way except for in college when you’re experimenting. I think all of the cast pretty much closed their eyes and jumped off the cliff together, and all that trust went with it and it was so much fun.

… But not everyone was OK with the show’s fluid format.
Britton: We definitely had some actors come on to the show who were a little freaked-out by it. We just tried to make them feel comfortable and let them know, “Hey, no, no, no, trust me. This actually isn’t scary. In fact, you get to do what you want to do.” …  For people who weren’t used to it, it was very uncomfortable.
Chandler: I always thought of it like back before the USSR fell, and you’d have a defector come to the United States and he’d stand in a grocery store with all of these thousands of products and he’d freeze. I think our show was like that for some actors and even some directors early on. There were just no guidelines.
For me, it’s why the show was exciting. You know when you get to set, you’re going to throw all the preconceived ideas out the window. It really is like rehearsing a play for the first time. I’ve felt that way for five years, and I loved going to work because of it. I even loved driving to work, the anticipation of it.

On Oct. 3, 2006, the show premiered to spectacular reviews and not-so-spectacular viewership. It didn’t help that it debuted against ratings giant Dancing with the Stars. But the show managed a full-season pickup (and eventually a Season 2 renewal), and the crew kept chugging along.
Gilford: You know, at first, it hurt. I had thought, “I’m on this amazing show. It’s going to be huge. Everyone’s going to love it.” And then it just wasn’t. But once we were renewed for our second season, and then thereafter, it was like, “Whatever, we’re still here. We’re still doing it. We’re still loving it” — which is to say, we got over it pretty quick.
Britton: It’s funny, because we were shooting in Austin and we were so in our little bubble of Dillon, it was almost like that ratings stuff never seemed that important to us. Ignorance is bliss, basically. … I do remember how great that first season felt. It was a real time of discovery. We’d shoot things and go, “Oh wow! Cool! Look what we found. Look what we learned about Tami. Or Julie.” We were creating a world, and that was very satisfying.
Kitsch: If we were going to get picked up or not, I just love that we never truly waivered. We never tried to become some soapy, mainstream thing to get ratings.
Nevins: I always knew it was an oddball, but I would say there was some degree of disappointment. You don’t realize as you’re shooting it, but looking back, there were a lot of commercial challenges to the show.

Friday Night Lights was initially marketed to boys and football fans, which made it difficult thereafter to sell what, essentially, was a character drama to women.
Nevins: Here’s the thing: It’s a show about football, but it’s primarily for women. It’s a show about teenagers, but it’s primarily for adults. It’s a show about the economically disadvantaged by it’s got some real upscale appeal. So there were a lot of contradictions built in.
Kitsch: I think they didn’t how to market it. It was tough. There’s not a specific tone to it where they could just label it something easy to sell.

If nothing else, the first season established that Friday Night Lights was anchored not by the players, but by the Taylors, a husband-wife, best-friend pairing unlike anything else on TV.
Teegarden: Nobody’s relationship is perfect, and that was always the good thing with the Taylors. Every time a script came out, Connie and Kyle would go through it together. They’d say things like, “Our relationship is solid at the end of the day.” It was really admirable.
Britton: We just got really lucky. That first day, we were kind of cracking jokes and making each other laugh at the goofiest, dorkiest things, which we then proceeded to do for the next five years. We just kind of instantly got each other and sort of shared the same values about how we wanted to play that marriage and who we each wanted to be in it.
Chandler: I think throughout most of the show, it always ended up that Eric’s wife was right in the long run. [Laughs.] What I liked were the scenes that they shared silence, where they were feeling the other out or discussing the family moving or money or loss, and they do their talking by just looking at one another. There aren’t many shows that I’ve done that allow you that silence on screen, and it wound up being so powerful. These are two people with history. They know each other that well.
Katims: The ongoing theme of the show has been about family and, especially, surrogate families.  Eric and Tami have nurturing relationships with the teens in the school and on the team, and it’s all rooted in the strength of their own marriage. The compromises, the friendship, the love.

Source: TV Guide

The A.V. Club: Has Friday Night Lights wrapped filming on the final season?

Connie Britton: We did. We wrapped a couple months ago, actually.

AVC: What was it like saying goodbye to the show?

CB: Oh my gosh. I’m still not over it. In fact, I saw Jason Katims, our show runner, last night, and he was saying how he’s been editing the final two episodes, and he says they’re just so great. I’m sure they are going to be major tearjerkers. He said he’s just been dragging it out because he doesn’t want to say goodbye to the show. He’s in the editing bays, and we used to have several different editing bays, and then every day it’s like, one editing bay disappears and one editor disappears, and then the next day, they take a couch out. He said literally, they’re basically just sitting on the floor, watching this stuff on these monitors, and he’s like, “Okay, I think I’ve just got to let it go and let it be over.” It’s just such a big deal.

But in Austin [where Friday Night Lights is filmed], because we had what ended up being two weeks of a lot of really hard work—the cast and the crew traveled because we shot in different locations, and did really hard work and debaucherous goodbyes. But the last scene we shot actually ended up being in this big open Texas field at sunset, so that was kind of a perfect way to go. And everyone, all the people from L.A., all the writers, Peter Berg, who created the show, all the producers all came in, we all gathered around in this beautiful open field while the sun was setting, and watched the last scene be shot. There was not a dry eye in the house. It was pretty great.

AVC: Season four was the first one where Friday Night Lights wasn’t on the bubble for renewal. Then this season was a predefined endpoint of the series. Did that affect the atmosphere on the show, not having the specter of ratings and renewal hanging over your heads?

CB: Yeah, you know, I think it was really nice for everybody to feel like we—it’s always good in life to have some sense of what’s going on, even when you don’t. It was actually really nice. This is a very rare luxury on a show, to have an endpoint, because—I guess that happened for The Sopranos too—we knew going into the season that we were really going to be building an arc toward the end, and there was something sad about that. We kind of went into the season knowing the end was looming ahead, but at the same time, it was nice to have a sense of that, and in the last three episodes, maybe even the last four, you can sort of feel the show ramping up to its ending. It was a very palpable, tangible thing, and a lot of the old original cast members came back, and it was great to have the opportunity to honor the show in that way, and really be able to honor the characters and the town and all that in a way that felt thorough and real. It was actually kind of a gift to have it that way, even though of course we were all like, “But maybe…” Even at the end, when we knew. Our show was so The Little Engine That Could that we were always just thinking that we were defying all the odds, so even at the end of our fifth season, we were all still thinking, maybe…

AVC: Last season, there was a lot of change on Friday Night Lights, with the move to East Dillon and all the new characters. It almost felt like a reboot. Did you have that feeling at all when you were filming it, that you were going down a very different road?

CB: Yeah, totally. That was actually a very stark change for everybody. I think people were really pleased with how it came out, but having all those new characters come in… Certainly for my character, for Tami, it was a very big change, because of the way they structure the show. All the new characters were basically at the new East Dillon High School, and Tami was at West Dillon. So for Tami, it was actually a little bit alienating. But all in all, I think it’s a real testament to just what Friday Night Lights is, and to the nature of the show, that we were able to authentically graduate all these characters who were supposed to graduate from high school and move on in their lives, and authentically bring in new characters, who now we can follow their stories. To me, that is such a great example of the fact that Friday Night Lights really is just about this town and this community and these people, and how their lives interrelate via this football team. And it’s kind of great, because I certainly think it was a challenging thing for the writers to do, to be able to pull that off.

AVC: You, Kyle Chandler, and Aimee Teegarden are pretty much the only main characters left from season one. Do you have an upperclassman mentality, where you feel a responsibility or ownership over the show and its history?

CB: Yeah, I think we really do. Particularly Kyle and I really have a sense of leadership in terms of the show and the cast. And I really attribute that to Pete Berg, because from the very beginning, when we started the first season, after the pilot had been picked up, he really empowered all of us. He empowered everyone in the cast to have a sense of ownership in the show and a feeling of like, “This show is yours.” His quote was always, “Nobody pushes us around,” because we knew we’d be having a lot of visiting directors and people coming in and out and whatever, and he charged us to really own it, to own the show, and to maintain the quality of it. And I think Kyle and I, having been sort of the old people… [Laughs.]

AVC: The parental units.

CB: Yeah, we’re the parental units, and we sort of have a strong love for the show, of course, but also a very strong sense of how that show works, and a strong appreciation for how that show works, and I think our crew absolutely does too. I think our crew really values that we’re there, and our leadership and all that. So it’s really just worked so well. Because it’s a very unusual circumstance. Our show runner is in L.A., and we’re in Austin. And we have a producing director, this guy named Michael Waxman, and he was really great to kind of maintain the look and the style of the show, but it was important for Kyle and I to keep the status quo. New actors would come in, and we would say to them, “Hey, listen, don’t put all this pressure on yourself, don’t feel like you have to do this a certain way, just go in there and have fun.” You know, all those good things. We’re cheerleaders.

AVC: Fans of the show always talk about how realistic and inspiring the Taylors’ marriage is. How much of that relationship is in the script, on the page, and how much did you and Kyle work out between the two of you?

CB: It’s a great combination of both. Kyle and I would typically get our script and we’d get together at our favorite coffee place and talk it over and go through every scene, and say “Okay, here’s what we want to be happening in this scene.” And so we’d do that, and sort of get a sense for how we wanted it to be. Then once we’d get on the set, we would know what the idea of the scene was, and then we’d get into the situation on the set—we don’t really usually rehearse, we’d kind of just drop into it—and then we’d let the scene happen and see what ended up happening. Sometimes we would do the scene verbatim, and sometimes we would say, “Here’s what’s really happening, here’s what needs to be communicated in this scene,” and we would just let it roll and see what happened. And I think the writers really entrusted us to do that, and really counted on us to do that. They knew that they would write a scene and then we would take it and run with it, and make it as real as we could, and find spontaneous moments that may not have been written in so clearly.

AVC: Those spontaneous moments between you two, the little looks and such, I think that’s what really makes it special for people.

CB: Yeah, and I think that’s something too about the way we shoot. The fact that we have three cameras rolling at all times, the fact that we don’t rehearse, we don’t have marks, so there’s not a lot of hyper-preparation, and “You’ve got to be standing there when he says that line,” and you keep shooting the same moment over and over again because you’ve got to shoot it from all angles. We don’t work that way, since we’ve got three cameras going at all times, so we can just walk into a scene and something spontaneous can happen, and I think that’s what audiences really appreciate, because it makes the audience feel like they’re being invited into something very intimate and real. And that’s exciting. People really appreciate that. I’m always really amazed whenever I run into fans of the show and how passionate they are about it. And I really believe it’s because we allow them into these lives we’re creating in a very real and sort of intimate way.

AVC: You’ve mentioned the non-rehearsed, improvisational nature of the way you shoot. Did it take any adjustment for you as an actor to get into that groove?

CB: Oh no, I love working like that. Also, Pete Berg was the one who created this particular style that we used in Friday Night Lights, and he actually did it in the movie—I was in the movie Friday Night Lights as well. But it’s always my favorite way to work, when you’re working with somebody who’s the writer as well as the director, because you feel like they’re creating it on the spot, and as an actor, that’s exciting for me. I like to have things thrown at me, and to have things feel sort of spontaneous and unpremeditated. It’s an exciting way to work. I’ve always actually really been drawn to that style. In fact, even with Ed Burns, who I have done three movies with—and my first movie, The Brothers McMullen—it’s the same. Not the same, but he works in a similar way, in that as he’s sitting behind the camera, he’s working with you and you feel like you’re creating the story and letting the story unfold. It’s really an exiting way to work.

AVC: It’s not really seen a whole lot in drama, that level of improvisation.

CB: It’s interesting, actually, because so many people in the comedy world love our show. And people who have that improv-comedy background, the Tina Feys and the Amy Poehlers, and all those people who I’ve been fortunate to run into, they’re always like, “Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, we love your show so much!” And it’s always surprising to me, because I like to think that Tami’s funny, but I don’t think our show’s a comedy. [Laughs.] I think they really have an appreciation for the improvisational aspect of it, as well as the reality aspect of it, because I think great comedy comes out of real authenticity.

AVC: What’s so funny about Tami to you?

CB: [Laughs.] Well, she’s a Southern woman. For me, it was really important right from the get-go. I was really excited to play this Southern woman, and one thing I’ve really noticed about women in the South is a sense of humor. They get through the day a little bit by keeping it light. It’s a very powerful tool for the Southern woman, I think, because they’re living in a relatively conventional culture in a relatively conventional world, so they have to be creative about how they can get what they want, or act out, or empower themselves.

AVC: In season five, Tami’s moved to East Dillon as a counselor, breaking the show’s last tie to Dillon High. Are Dillon and the Panthers going to be a factor as we move forward?

CB: It’s pretty much East Dillon. But West Dillon is always lurking in the background. It’s very interesting to me, because West Dillon quickly became very demonized. Post season four, West Dillon will be representing, you know, the establishment assholes, and it’s sort of like, “Well guys, it’s a small town.” So there is sort of this rivalry that seems to be very alive and well and actually sort of growing in season five, but I think we focus much more on East Dillon.

AVC: Are you at all disappointed that Tami is no longer principal? Do you think that was a good fit for the character?

CB: That was a tricky one, because it was a tricky move story-wise. I was always a little bit like—the whole line of reasoning behind her losing her job as principal but being able to be a counselor at East Dillon High School, where the whole abortion thing happened, was always a little bit dicey to me. But at the end of the day, there’s always something interesting about a character having to drop down a couple pegs, but at the same time, wanting to do that. In a way, it was an active choice for her to make that move, because she wants to help kids. So we got to play with that a little bit in the beginning of the season, where she’s sort of in the school, but is definitely a big fish in a little pond that doesn’t really want her that much. [Laughs.] So there was some fun stuff to play with that, for sure.

AVC: Based on the first two episodes, it seems like Tami’s very vulnerable this season, with Julie leaving for college and her feeling out of place at her new job.

CB: I think so, yeah. I think that was sort of the idea. She definitely has been put through the wringer a bit, and she has these ideals, and she wants to try and live up to them, but she’s put in a tricky position. So I do think she’s vulnerable, and I think the ground feels a little bit unstable beneath her.

AVC: A running theme on the show is that Coach and Tami are really well-loved by the kids, but they’re often at odds with the adults in Dillon, going back to the JumboTron, even.

CB: Yeah. [Laughs.]

AVC: They both have an “I know best” mentality that doesn’t always go over well with parents and the school board. Do you think that’s a character flaw they share, that they have a minor hubris?

CB: You know, it’s funny, I never thought of them having hubris. My sense was always that they were trying to relate to everybody and get along with everybody. But that’s actually an interesting point. I don’t think they’re honestly holier-than-thou at all. I think it’s sort of the difficulties of television that we ended up only seeing them probably in relationships with grown-ups who are somehow beneath them in some way. That’s interesting. That was never a thought I had, or a conscious choice by either Kyle or me.

AVC: It isn’t necessarily a bad thing, it’s just another facet to the characters. They seem to always know best, but they don’t always go about it in the most delicate manner.

CB: That’s always an interesting conflict. It’s great to play a character that even in their sort of perfection, they’re imperfect. [Laughs.]

AVC: You and Kyle Chandler finally got nominated for Emmys this year.

CB: Yeah, I know, isn’t that crazy?

AVC: For fans, that was a real “finally!” moment. What was it like for you guys?

CB: It was thrilling, and it came at just the right time. The nominations came in about maybe three weeks or a month before we were going to wrap the show, and we were right at that place of feeling like things were winding down, and it was starting to feel a bit melancholy, and people having to think about saying goodbye. When those nominations came in, it sort of shot adrenaline through everybody, because Kyle and I and Rolin Jones, who was nominated for writing, we really looked at it like it was an acknowledgment of the show. When I found out I was nominated, my first question was, “What about the show?” Actually, my cousin who called to tell me I was nominated said that Kyle was nominated, so I already knew, but then I was like, “Well, what about the show?” But we really looked at it like it was an acknowledgment of everybody. It was really just a wonderful gift for all of us to have as we were winding down, and it was nice that we all got to celebrate it together, and it didn’t just sort of come in a void after the show was long over or anything like that.

AVC: How did you celebrate? I’ve read how the Friday Night Lights cast likes to go all-out with its parties.

CB: Yeah. [Laughs.] It was a lot of that. In Texas, you do a lot of tequila drinking, a lot of going out into fields and enjoying it. And then there are quieter celebrations. Kyle keeps saying we still need to sit down with a bottle of whiskey and talk over the past five years, because it’s so much to process, and we certainly haven’t processed it yet.

Source: The A.V. Club

Then, just as deftly, Tami turned on her Southern belle charm: “Can I get ya’ll anything — ice tea? Water?”

It’s the kind of subtle moment viewers of “Friday Night Lights” have come to expect from the series, but especially from the Taylor partnership. Critically lauded by many as the best portrayal of marriage on television because of its realistic rendering of what it means to love someone for better and for worse, Eric and Tami Taylor, as played by the Emmy-nominated duo of Kyle Chandler and Britton, have managed to capture the many dichotomous moments in the life of a marriage. Where other TV series tend to focus either on the bickering or the saccharine, “Friday Night Lights” has thrived on nuance, creating domestic moments that simultaneously reflect adoration and frustration; tenderness and sarcasm; respect and fatigue.

From the beginning, Chandler, 45, and Britton, 43, had a fiery chemistry that blossomed off-screen into an easy friendship. She had played the coach’s wife in the movie; he was cast because of his performance in one episode of “Grey’s Anatomy.” They became such good friends that they’d drive together from California to Texas when production began each season, Britton in her car and Chandler trailing on his motorcycle. Although they convincingly played a madly-in-love couple, in person their obvious affection and admiration feels more like sibling love. They tease each other incessantly and interrupt each other’s sentences, but it’s clear they are thrilled to catch up on a winter afternoon in Los Angeles, after a few months of not seeing each other. “Friday Night Lights” wrapped production last summer.

“Hi, sugar!” Britton called out as she walked toward Chandler at the Four Seasons Hotel. They kissed hello, cuddled up to pose for photos and started chatting.

On the series, things are not so cozy for the Taylors, who are at a marital impasse. For the first time in their life together, Tami has been offered the job of her dreams — as dean of admissions at a college in Philadelphia. And the man she has followed from town to town, chasing one football coaching post after another, wants none of it. Eric has put his foot down: “We live in Texas.”

The Taylors are struggling, but in their own way: Nobody storms out of the house or sleeps on the couch. No one resorts to alcohol, drugs or an affair as an escape. They continue to raise two daughters, cope with stressful jobs and love each other — even when they don’t like each other very much.

“These conflicts go on within life,” said executive producer Jason Katims, who has been married to his high school sweetheart for 24 years. “Most of us deal with stuff and life goes on around us as we’re dealing with stuff. Really great couples can have these big arguments. What’s so great about what Kyle and Connie built as far as their own relationship, and the relationship of their characters, is that they allowed us as writers to be able to put that marriage through every challenge we could come up with because you knew you were going to watch them deal with it and thrive because of their connection.”

Based on a book and movie of the same title, “Friday Night Lights” peaked on NBC at 6 million viewers and avoided cancellation only when the network entered into an unusual deal with DirecTV to split costs and distribution rights, giving DirecTV customers dibs at the high school football drama for the last three seasons. But the low-rated series — it averages nearly 800,000 viewers on DirecTV and 4 million on NBC — about a small Texas town where football means everything will still have its place in television history because of its social resonance.

Few small-screen relationships have come close to “Friday Night Lights”‘ most noteworthy achievement — capturing the intimate push and pull of relationships, with the Taylor marriage as the anchor. Joe and Allison DuBois of “Medium” also successfully portrayed the ordinary beauty of domestic life, but the psychic wife was less relatable. NBC’s “Parenthood,” also produced by Katims, and ABC’s “Modern Family” depict contemporary ordinary family life without sinking into clichés, but none of the couples can compete with the warm authenticity of the Taylors.

“‘Friday Night Lights’ stands out because it takes relationships very seriously and it takes feelings very seriously on both sides — men and women,” said Elayne Rapping, a critic of popular culture and author of several books, including “Media-tions: Forays into the Culture and Gender Wars.” “It’s a good family show, and I think it’s a role model for how you handle normal life. It’s very realistic because it’s very grounded. It’s not like a soap where crazy things happen.”

In fact, if there’s anything wild about “Friday Night Lights,” it’s in how the show was made. Created by Peter Berg, who directed the film and also wrote and directed several episodes of the TV series, “Friday Night Lights” was filmed documentary style with three cameras running all of the time on location in Austin, Texas. Although other TV series have used hand-held cameras to achieve a similar cinematic style, “Friday Night Lights” departed from all production norms. The actors, who never rehearsed and were not given marks, had the freedom to change dialogue and influence the story, which gave way to real conversations — not banter — and sometimes overlapping dialogue. Camera operators, in turn, were trained to pay attention and follow the actors wherever they moved, giving the audience a fly-on-the-wall point of view.

When NBC ordered the series and hired Katims as the show runner, he decided to follow Berg’s artistic bent, even though it meant that sometimes Chandler would throw out entire monologues in favor of long silences. “I watched the pilot and thought it was amazing,” said Katims, who also ran “Roswell” and “Boston Public.” “I felt like my job was to try to emulate what [Berg] did and ultimately expand on what he did. As opposed to getting defensive about that, I got very excited that we were able to capture moments that felt more real and therefore more emotional than what episodic television usually is.”

“Eighteen years” was one of those moments. The unexpected guests at the Taylor house were football boosters who were trying to lure the coach into staying in Dillon, Texas, to lead a new high school football All-Star team. As scripted, the Taylors were supposed to exchange heated words in the hallway, but Britton and Chandler decided that less was more.

We created that moment together,” Britton said. “That was supposed to be a big speech that I gave off to the side. Kyle and I wanted it to be more concise. I wanted that moment to be about her demonstrating how she’d been the quintessential football wife. She’s so mad at him and they’ve interrupted them and she says, ’18 years,’ and with a smile on her face offers them tea. It’s rote, and it’s so cool.”

Their success as an on-screen couple, the actors think, is in large part because of their early agreement about the Taylor marriage. Chandler and Britton wanted the Taylors to have a strong union that would be challenged but not destroyed by life’s turns, and together they made that request of the producers.

“My grandmother who died at 99 used to say that marriage was a business,” Chandler said. “That’s not to say that it doesn’t come with all the other trappings. But it’s a business and a friendship, and Connie and I didn’t want them to get divorced or have alcohol problems or sleep with other people because when that happens in the story of a marriage, you’re limited. Once that trust and faith is broken, the magic is gone, and the audience doesn’t care.”

That magic created many memorable moments. Remember when Eric romantically held his wife, as they faced a mirror, in the first season and told her how he was madly in love with her, and she responded just as sweetly that she was not moving to Austin with him? Or also in the first season when Tami surprised Eric with the news that she was pregnant and he went from silence to laughter to kissing her?

“Friday Night Lights” kicked off with a poignant sports story — star quarterback Jason Street (Scott Porter) was paralyzed from a game injury and relieved by the scrawny second stringer Matt Saracen (Zach Gilford) — but the show zeroed in on daily life in Dillon and made exploring relationships its cornerstone.

“It was about being able to watch it and feeling those emotions as you go through different characters and scenes — getting married or having a kid or breaking up,” said Aimee Teegarden, 21, who played Julie, the Taylors’ elder daughter, who falls in love with Matt. “The most poignant moments on that show were when there was no dialogue. A lot happened in those quiet moments.”

On “Friday Night Lights” and “Parenthood,” Katims says he asks his writers to follow one simple mantra: “Everybody’s best foot forward,” which means the executive producer who had two children and built a life with his high school girlfriend isn’t interested in creating false conflicts or high drama. His characters, like him, are trying their best.

Tami and Eric compromised and did the long-distance marriage thing for a while so that he could accept a college coaching job, she could keep her job as a guidance counselor and their teenage daughter’s life would not be disrupted again. But the birth of their second daughter proved to be too much to juggle and Eric returned to Dillon. Young Matt was saddled with taking care of his grandmother, who has Alzheimer’s, after his father left to serve in Iraq and his mother skipped town. Star running back “Smash” Williams’ (Gaius Charles) college football dreams were dashed when he lost his scholarship because he got into a fight at a movie theater with some racist kids.

“I find that most people if they’re acting mean, they’re coming from a place of fear, so to me these people of Dillon, Texas, are people who are trying to make their lives better, and even when they make mistakes, they are trying so hard,” Katims said. “I think most people are trying very hard, and I find that compelling in life, and I find it compelling in my shows. I guess there’s room for all kinds of different shows, and there’s room for a more cynical perspective. But I’m proud to not be the voice of that.”

Chandler and Britton are too. But when asked how they feel when viewers hail the Taylor partnership as the best representation of marriage on television, their brotherly-sisterly bandying begins, reminding us why we’re going to miss them. (Chandler is starring in a J.J Abrams’ flick, “Super 8.” Britton said she hadn’t booked a new job.)

Chandler: It’s a lie. The best portrayal of a marriage on TV, after I’ve gone through this entire diatribe about marriage, is “All in the Family.” When Edith goes “Archie!” — that was the best marriage ever.

Britton: I would have to disagree with you. I think [the reporter] means something different.

Chandler: That’s the way marriage should be! That’s the way mine is.

Britton: When people say to us it’s the best portrayal of a marriage, I think they feel it’s resonant with them. I don’t think there are a ton of people who feel that marriage resonated, Kyle.

Chandler: It’s the best marriage ever.

Britton: They feel guided by our marriage. Was that show entertaining to watch? Yes.

Chandler: You don’t see my lounge chair in the Smithsonian, do you?

Britton: What’s really flattering and astonishing is when people come up and say, “You make me want to be a better wife and a better mother.” I think that’s kind of astounding.

Chandler: No one has ever said that to me.

Britton: I certainly would hope not.

Source: LA Times

Beyond the series’ numerous emotional triumphs, the constant highlight of FNL has been the way marriage is portrayed by leads Kyle Chandler and Connie Britton as Coach and Tami Taylor. “The relationship between the Taylors reminds many of the best parts of marriage,” David Carr wrote in The New York Times, “In which the injury to the one is felt by both, and victories, sweet and fleeting, are held in common.” It’s a direct result of the actors behind the relationship; Britton has gone on record saying she and Chandler “agreed that we did not want this to be a marriage where we ultimately were addressing infidelity or whatever” because “we really wanted to deal with the authenticity of what it is to try to make a marriage work.”

Now that the series is airing its swan song, Chandler and Britton are making the press rounds to promote it. The topic journalists keep coming back to: What goes in to creating the most daringly realistic portrait of a marriage on television? Here, they recall their initial chemistry:

Britton: We just got really lucky. That first day, we were kind of cracking jokes and making each other laugh at the goofiest, dorkiest things, which we then proceeded to do for the next five years. We just kind of instantly got each other and sort of shared the same values about how we wanted to play that marriage and who we each wanted to be in it.

Chandler: I think throughout most of the show, it always ended up that Eric’s wife was right in the long run. [Laughs.] What I liked were the scenes that they shared silence, where they were feeling the other out or discussing the family moving or money or loss, and they do their talking by just looking at one another. There aren’t many shows that I’ve done that allow you that silence on screen, and it wound up being so powerful. These are two people with history. They know each other that well.

Chandler claims his inspiration for the Taylor’s rock-solid marriage is his grandmother:

“My grandmother who died at 99 used to say that marriage was a business,” Chandler said. “That’s not to say that it doesn’t come with all the other trappings. But it’s a business and a friendship, and Connie and I didn’t want them to get divorced or have alcohol problems or sleep with other people because when that happens in the story of a marriage, you’re limited. Once that trust and faith is broken, the magic is gone, and the audience doesn’t care.”

It also takes work. Britton recounts how after receiving each script, she and Chandler would dissect each line over coffee at an Austin diner:

It’s a great combination of both. Kyle and I would typically get our script and we’d get together at our favorite coffee place and talk it over and go through every scene, and say “Okay, here’s what we want to be happening in this scene.” And so we’d do that, and sort of get a sense for how we wanted it to be. Then once we’d get on the set, we would know what the idea of the scene was, and then we’d get into the situation on the set—we don’t really usually rehearse, we’d kind of just drop into it—and then we’d let the scene happen and see what ended up happening. Sometimes we would do the scene verbatim, and sometimes we would say, “Here’s what’s really happening, here’s what needs to be communicated in this scene,” and we would just let it roll and see what happened.

Source: The Atlantic

Highlights: a relationship-rocking decision faces coach Eric Taylor and his wife, Tami (Kyle Chandler and Connie Britton); some hot reunions happen, including a marriage proposal; and there’s an almost religious-feeling state championship game filmed at the Cotton Bowl.

Other goodies to look forward to: As Christmas comes to Dillon, three of the show’s beloved originals — Tim Riggins (Taylor Kitsch), Matt Saracen (Zach Gilford) and Tyra Collette (Adrianne Palicki) – return for the tearful ending.

The downside: Only DirecTV subscribers can watch these last episodes at 8 tonight and on Feb. 9 on Channel 101.

The final and fifth season of the Austin-filmed drama doesn’t bow on NBC until May. If you can’t wait, the DVD is scheduled for release a month earlier, April 5.

Why is this show so special? There are too many reasons to count. But one stands out: In the midst of so many shows about teenagers that portray parents as one-dimensional boobs – including the new Skins on MTV – Lights shines as one of the few that depict moms and dads as complex and interesting humans. Best of all, the kids don’t just tolerate their parents here, they offer them respect. They actually listen to what they have to say.

Source: The Houston Chronicle