November 8, 2009
By JOE O'CONNELL
Special Contributor to The Dallas Morning News
The camera doesn't see this: David Hemingson, creator of new ABC television series The Deep End , slaps a pink Post-it on his forehead. Visible through the glass of the law-office conference room, his arms flap wildly and a grin creeps across his face. The five sharply dressed actors – including Tina Majorino ( the ponytailed Deb of Napoleon Dynamite ), Austin native Mehcad Brooks ( True Blood ) and Matt Long (Jack of Jack & Bobby) – huddle around a conference table littered with pizza remnants and soda bottles and intently watch him before breaking into laughter.
The Deep End was taping its fourth episode last Tuesday in a positive sign of life for what recently has been a slow time for Texas' film and television industry. The series is about five newly minted lawyers trying to survive in a powerful law firm; it mirrors the early experiences of Hemingson, an attorney turned comedy writer for shows including How I Met Your Mother and Family Guy . Our scene is on an upper floor of the Arco Tower in downtown Los Angeles , only it isn't. The pilot for the ABC series produced by 20th Century Fox was shot in Los Angeles. This is a reproduction created in the Studios at Las Colinas, complete with " Star Trek doors," Hemingson says as he touches a button that magically zips open a massive wooden gateway.
Outside the windows, the Los Angeles cityscape twinkles, except it's a series of photos taken from the windows of the real office building. Inside, the offices are polished marble, massive abstract paintings and glimmering wood that reek of money and power. But above, one can see scaffolding and lights through the ceiling, and the reality sinks in. We are in North Texas shooting six episodes of the "dramedy" series that Hemingson describes as L.A. Law with "the back-stabbing of The Devil Wears Prada and the sun-drenched bed-hopping of Entourage." Perhaps there's a bit of Grey's Anatomy as well.
"Our job is to move you, hopefully to move you to tears and to get you to laugh out loud," Hemingson says. In a few weeks, after ABC executives look at the first episodes, a decision will be made on expanding the number of episodes.
"It's significantly less expensive to shoot here in Dallas just because of the cost of doing business here" as opposed to Los Angeles, says Garry Brown, the show's co-executive producer and a driving force in both persuading the Texas Legislature to recently increase the size of financial incentives for filming in the Lone Star State and Fox to shoot in Dallas.
The irony of Dallas stepping in for Los Angeles is that films portraying Texas have lately been shot out of state. The Dallas Film Commission fought to have a film based on the television series Dallas shoot in North Texas (the film has never materialized), and rumors are now rampant of a modern-day version of the Dallas series that may or may not shoot in its title town.
Brown first came to Dallas to work for a year on Chuck Norris' Walker, Texas Ranger . That year stretched to six. After a few subsequent years back in LA, he found himself in Chicago shooting Prison Break. Brown persuaded that show's producers to move it to Dallas, where they would have no trouble finding an experienced film crew and diverse locations. That experience led The Deep End to Texas.
"I believe in them," Brown says of North Texas crews. "The film community we have here in Dallas deserves to work here."
Enter suave Billy Zane (Titanic), clad in a natty gray suit and shiny gold tie, from stage left. He portrays Cliff Huddle, one of the law firm's leaders, a seminefarious character with his eye always on the bottom line.
"David discusses Cliff as a three-dimensional chess player," Zane says. "There's always a clear motive behind his actions. He believes in tough love. He's the coach you love in retrospect but hate in the day."
Zane loves Dallas and spends time with castmates hanging out at the Havana Social Club in Victory Plaza, or screening classic films such as His Girl Friday and Road to Bali that include the snappy dialogue the show hopes to emulate. Consider Zane's recent itinerary: Watching the Dallas Cowboys play from Jerry Jones' private box; rocking to AC/DC from a front-row seat at American Airlines Center; and watching the Dallas Mavericks from courtside. "I am smitten with your fair city," says Zane, who has flirted with television work (Charmed) but is now jumping in head first.
"It's nice to actually originate a character," he says. "These days television is the medium that has proven itself to be where the best writers live."
Back in the conference room, Timothy Busfield, the Emmy Award-winning Thirtysomething actor turned frequent episodic TV director, enters from stage right, singing "You're just too good to be true." He surveys the scene and notices the soft-drink bottles on the table. "Wouldn't we have beers?" Busfield asks Hemingson. Two beer bottles quickly appear on the table.
Busfield follows Adam Arkin as an episodic director, and he says he enjoys helping to steer a new series. "There's a certain responsibility in the first 13 [episodes] to help find the voice of the show," he says. "When you come in during year two and three, it is what it is."
During a break, the actors step away. Blond beauty Leah Pipes (Sorority Row) spends the free time knitting, while North Texas resident and costuming crew member Tina Lawler shoots photos of the actors' outfits to make sure they match each time the cameras roll. Cameramen roll into place, while other crew members scurry about.
Stand-ins fill the actors' seats at the conference table. Dallas actress and model April Barnett takes Pipes' chair. She is also portraying a law-office secretary. "I love it," Barnett says. "It's long hours, but you don't realize it. They clip away, and you start to get to know everyone as a family."
The camera does see this: The actors return to their seats. The five young lawyers slap colorful Post-its on their foreheads and bond as they try to guess what one word their colleagues used to describe them. Australian actor Ben Lawson's word is "sensitive." Soon, the party breaks up. The other actors abscond with the pizza but leave the mess. Majorino is left sitting alone, a Post-it still prominent on her forehead. "I paid for that, you guys," she says of the pizza, and pouts. "Thanks for all of the fun. I'll clean all of this up." Cut. Print it.
Showing posts with label Dallas Morning News. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dallas Morning News. Show all posts
Friday, November 12, 2010
'Friday Night Lights' cast relieved to play second season
TV: With one season behind it, 'Friday Night Lights' keeps same lineup but adjusts game plan
October 4, 2007
By JOE O'CONNELL / Special Contributor to The Dallas Morning News
AUSTIN – Brian "Smash" Williams takes the handoff. Crack! A defender immediately levels him. A confused and angry Smash shakes off the hit and looks around the practice field in defiance. Nearby an assistant coach chants, "Hit squad! Hit squad!" and high-fives players. Cut.
A scene at the old Del Valle High School stadium, just southeast of Austin, catches series star Kyle Chandler studying game clips.
Actor Gaius Charles, a.k.a. Smash, has fake sweat applied to his arm and then does it all again.
The tackle is as close to real as it comes on television's Friday Night Lights. And the added layer of sweat is downright unnecessary while intense heat radiates on the Austin set this September day as the critically acclaimed show fights its way into a second season, which premieres Friday on NBC.
Nothing has come easily for the show that suffered through high expectations and so-so ratings its first season. Cast and crew were left hanging as network officials waited seemingly until the last minute to pick up the series.
"All of us expected to come back," says Scott Porter, who portrays Jason Street, a former player now in a wheelchair. "We knew what we'd done qualitywise. We try not to pay attention to ratings, but we know we live in a fast-food world."
Street faces bigger challenges in Friday Night Lights' second season as some feeling returns to his hands. "The new coach calls him the mascot," Mr. Porter says of his character. "He looks at him as handicapped and not as a real person. [Street] has recurring dreams of walking, and that sends him on a soul-searching journey."
More changes
The second-season pickup comes with other changes. Producers say the show will focus more on character relationships and less on football. And six days are allotted to shoot each episode, rather than the eight days allowed during the first season.
"The style still has not changed. We're still on the fly," says Brad Leland, the Dallas actor who plays sleazy booster Buddy Garrity. "It's like we never left."
Indeed, the show has spread its roots at the site of the former Del Valle High School, which was closed and moved when a former Air Force base was transformed into Austin's airport a few years ago. Action on Hermann Field slows as another airplane dips toward the nearby runway.
An end zone sign brags of the fictional 2006 state championship and 55 consecutive games won, following on the tradition of state titles in '68, '78, '81, '82 and '98. Ads tout businesses in fictional Dillon such as Lucky Tie Cleaners. The plastic smell of the squishy artificial turf, which is interspersed with blades of dead grass and dirt, radiates in the blaring sun.
The crew hides from the sun whenever possible under a few umbrellas on rolling carts as a standing Mr. Porter escorts his wheelchair to the field. "I told you he was faking," jokes Kyle Chandler, the coach who leaves his team for a college job at the start of the season.
Nearby, Zack Gilford, who plays quarterback Matt Saracen, tosses the football to Jesse Plemons. Yes, the Dallas native's quirky character, Landry Clarke, is suited up for football this year.
Drink up
"Is there water down there?" a crew member asks.
"That's the question of the day," another replies.
The camera tracks Benny Ciaramello as he runs back and forth on the field. Mr. Ciaramello is Santiago, a troubled kid trying out for the team. The exertion got to him earlier in the day and Raigen Thornton, the set's paramedic, had to be called in.
"Every day there's someone who won't drink for 30 minutes and they get in trouble," Mr. Thornton says. "The biggest thing is to keep up with the rehydration."
Mr. Thornton is an example of what Friday Night Lights has meant to the Austin film industry, much as Prison Break has made an impact in North Texas.
He was working on an offshore oil rig in 1994 when he first noticed the listing in a movie's credits for a paramedic. The former Odessa police officer, who also fought fires in Kuwait with Red Adair, has since worked on 72 projects, including 53 films.
"I'm sleeping in my own bed," he says of working on Friday Night Lights. "I get to see my wife and my kids growing up."
Cut to the field house.
Signs on the wall read "Tradition never graduates" and "Your opponent got better today, did you?" In the head coach's office, game tape plays on a television screen. Issues of Texas Football magazine are scattered on the coffee table. In the next room the season football schedule lists imaginary games against imaginary cities Harp, Brickhouser, Chicon. On the wall is again the listing of Dillon's state championships with – oops – a couple more added for '58 and '62.
Coaches and players gather around the weight room as bad boy Mr. Ciaramello easily bench-presses 275 pounds. An assistant coach attempts to add more weight but fumbles with the latch.
"Coach, I don't believe you spend enough time in here," Mr. Chandler says with a grin. The added weight in place, Mr. Ciaramello huffs and puffs and hoists the barbell aloft. "Let's see if he can paint a house," Mr. Chandler says.
The weights are made of plastic, and the assistant coach is Charles Green, whose real-world job is in an Austin restaurant. He answered an online Craigslist ad last year for extras and ended up as Mr. Chandler's stand-in and with occasional stints as an assistant coach roaming the background.
"Almost everybody you see here was here last year," Mr. Green says, pointing at the other assistants, including shoe salesman Pablo Flores, who wears a bandage on his arm to cover a tattoo that came in handy when he portrayed a thug at a Dillon neighborhood party in season one.
"My goal is for this to be full time," says Mr. Green, who is trying to hire an agent. "I joke that I'm working on the show until my bartending career takes off."
The show's actual stars remain tight-knit. Mr. Porter shares a home with Mr. Gilford, and the cast is apt to spend downtime together at Lake Travis or playing basketball. "We're from all parts of the country, but we are a family here," Mr. Porter says.
Joe O'Connell is an Austin-based freelance writer.
October 4, 2007
By JOE O'CONNELL / Special Contributor to The Dallas Morning News
AUSTIN – Brian "Smash" Williams takes the handoff. Crack! A defender immediately levels him. A confused and angry Smash shakes off the hit and looks around the practice field in defiance. Nearby an assistant coach chants, "Hit squad! Hit squad!" and high-fives players. Cut.
A scene at the old Del Valle High School stadium, just southeast of Austin, catches series star Kyle Chandler studying game clips.
Actor Gaius Charles, a.k.a. Smash, has fake sweat applied to his arm and then does it all again.
The tackle is as close to real as it comes on television's Friday Night Lights. And the added layer of sweat is downright unnecessary while intense heat radiates on the Austin set this September day as the critically acclaimed show fights its way into a second season, which premieres Friday on NBC.
Nothing has come easily for the show that suffered through high expectations and so-so ratings its first season. Cast and crew were left hanging as network officials waited seemingly until the last minute to pick up the series.
"All of us expected to come back," says Scott Porter, who portrays Jason Street, a former player now in a wheelchair. "We knew what we'd done qualitywise. We try not to pay attention to ratings, but we know we live in a fast-food world."
Street faces bigger challenges in Friday Night Lights' second season as some feeling returns to his hands. "The new coach calls him the mascot," Mr. Porter says of his character. "He looks at him as handicapped and not as a real person. [Street] has recurring dreams of walking, and that sends him on a soul-searching journey."
More changes
The second-season pickup comes with other changes. Producers say the show will focus more on character relationships and less on football. And six days are allotted to shoot each episode, rather than the eight days allowed during the first season.
"The style still has not changed. We're still on the fly," says Brad Leland, the Dallas actor who plays sleazy booster Buddy Garrity. "It's like we never left."
Indeed, the show has spread its roots at the site of the former Del Valle High School, which was closed and moved when a former Air Force base was transformed into Austin's airport a few years ago. Action on Hermann Field slows as another airplane dips toward the nearby runway.
An end zone sign brags of the fictional 2006 state championship and 55 consecutive games won, following on the tradition of state titles in '68, '78, '81, '82 and '98. Ads tout businesses in fictional Dillon such as Lucky Tie Cleaners. The plastic smell of the squishy artificial turf, which is interspersed with blades of dead grass and dirt, radiates in the blaring sun.
The crew hides from the sun whenever possible under a few umbrellas on rolling carts as a standing Mr. Porter escorts his wheelchair to the field. "I told you he was faking," jokes Kyle Chandler, the coach who leaves his team for a college job at the start of the season.
Nearby, Zack Gilford, who plays quarterback Matt Saracen, tosses the football to Jesse Plemons. Yes, the Dallas native's quirky character, Landry Clarke, is suited up for football this year.
Drink up
"Is there water down there?" a crew member asks.
"That's the question of the day," another replies.
The camera tracks Benny Ciaramello as he runs back and forth on the field. Mr. Ciaramello is Santiago, a troubled kid trying out for the team. The exertion got to him earlier in the day and Raigen Thornton, the set's paramedic, had to be called in.
"Every day there's someone who won't drink for 30 minutes and they get in trouble," Mr. Thornton says. "The biggest thing is to keep up with the rehydration."
Mr. Thornton is an example of what Friday Night Lights has meant to the Austin film industry, much as Prison Break has made an impact in North Texas.
He was working on an offshore oil rig in 1994 when he first noticed the listing in a movie's credits for a paramedic. The former Odessa police officer, who also fought fires in Kuwait with Red Adair, has since worked on 72 projects, including 53 films.
"I'm sleeping in my own bed," he says of working on Friday Night Lights. "I get to see my wife and my kids growing up."
Cut to the field house.
Signs on the wall read "Tradition never graduates" and "Your opponent got better today, did you?" In the head coach's office, game tape plays on a television screen. Issues of Texas Football magazine are scattered on the coffee table. In the next room the season football schedule lists imaginary games against imaginary cities Harp, Brickhouser, Chicon. On the wall is again the listing of Dillon's state championships with – oops – a couple more added for '58 and '62.
Coaches and players gather around the weight room as bad boy Mr. Ciaramello easily bench-presses 275 pounds. An assistant coach attempts to add more weight but fumbles with the latch.
"Coach, I don't believe you spend enough time in here," Mr. Chandler says with a grin. The added weight in place, Mr. Ciaramello huffs and puffs and hoists the barbell aloft. "Let's see if he can paint a house," Mr. Chandler says.
The weights are made of plastic, and the assistant coach is Charles Green, whose real-world job is in an Austin restaurant. He answered an online Craigslist ad last year for extras and ended up as Mr. Chandler's stand-in and with occasional stints as an assistant coach roaming the background.
"Almost everybody you see here was here last year," Mr. Green says, pointing at the other assistants, including shoe salesman Pablo Flores, who wears a bandage on his arm to cover a tattoo that came in handy when he portrayed a thug at a Dillon neighborhood party in season one.
"My goal is for this to be full time," says Mr. Green, who is trying to hire an agent. "I joke that I'm working on the show until my bartending career takes off."
The show's actual stars remain tight-knit. Mr. Porter shares a home with Mr. Gilford, and the cast is apt to spend downtime together at Lake Travis or playing basketball. "We're from all parts of the country, but we are a family here," Mr. Porter says.
Joe O'Connell is an Austin-based freelance writer.
On the Pflugerville set, 'Friday Night' actors and crew get ready for the season
Printed August 2006
By JOE O'CONNELL
Special Contributor to The Dallas Morning News
PFLUGERVILLE, Texas – The stand-in quarterback tosses a perfect spiral toward the end zone to an anxious receiver. Touchdown. Cut. Send in actor Aldous Hodge, who lets fly a wobbly dying-duck of a pass that falls a few feet away. "I'm not James Brown," he offers to his fellow players in explanation.
Welcome to Friday Night Lights, the television series spawned by the film that was based on the book, which was based on real, honest-to-God Odessa Permian High School football. Oh, and for the record, the stand-in quarterback is indeed James Brown, the former University of Texas star who is helping bring reality to the make-believe tale set in fictional Dillon, Texas.
Friday Night Lights
"We run a four-second play, wait five minutes, run a four-second play, wait 10 minutes, then go to lunch," Mr. Brown explains during a Sunday break on the sidelines at Pflugerville High School's stadium. "My job is to show the actor all the fundamental points of football, just to trick the camera. I'm proud of him."
Indeed, Mr. Hodge, who admits he's more adept at playing the violin, looks closer to perfect on his next toss.
The NBC series, which is set to premiere in October, began filming early in August using handheld cameras, with minimal lighting and without rehearsals. And it clearly adheres to a model set down by Peter Berg, who directed both the pilot and the big-screen film. That means lots of on-set improvising by actors and bringing in nonactors to play smaller roles.
"Our goal is to make it as real as possible and as honest as possible," said Jeff Reiner, who has directed the other two completed episodes. "It's liberating not to have the typical constraints of filmmakers."
It also makes it quicker, reducing a usual 14- to 15-hour day to as little as nine hours. That's a plus for the series, which is expected to pump $20 million into the Austin area economy before its 12-episode run ends in November. That's when NBC will decide whether Lights gets "back nine" episodes to complete the season. A former high school field near Austin's airport is being prepped just in case the series has legs.
Words of wisdom
"You don't force excellence; it's just something that comes," Taylor Kitsch, whose character, Tim Riggins, is the brooding bad boy from a troubled family, tells fellow actor Gaius Charles in a break from filming.
"Who said that?" asks Mr. Charles, who portrays confident running back Smash Williams.
"I just came up with it for you," says Mr. Kitsch of his ad-lib dialogue. "I told the director it's what Smash would say."
A group of relatively unknown actors makes up the cast. Mr. Kitsch is a hockey-loving Canadian with a small part in Snakes on a Plane.
"It's an actor's dream to play a kid like this," he said. "Tim's an introverted guy off the field who comes from a poor socioeconomic background and struggles with any relationships he has. On the field he has a sense of purpose. I believe there's a piece of him in everyone."
Meanwhile, Mr. Charles, a recent Carnegie Mellon University grad from New York City, is not much like the confident guy he portrays.
"I don't know if I'd be cool enough to hang out with him," he says.
Mr. Charles prepares by listening to Texas rap artists, playing football video games and tossing the pigskin around.
Hot and heavy
Aimee Teegarden, a perky blond 16-year-old who plays the head coach's daughter, leans over and raps on Mr. Charles' football helmet.
"Don't be so glum," she tells him.
"I don't blame him," a nearby crew member says. "It's only 100 degrees."
The heat has been a major factor for the cast and crew. A first aid cart is a sideline fixture with signs on it announcing "cold, wet towels," "ice and cold packs" and "electrolyte drinks." A small cot next to it awaits the fallen.
"It only clicked into me after about a week that this isn't breaking," Mr. Charles says of the weather. "I stay inside."
The mostly twentysomething actors have become a team, said Scott Porter, whose Jason Street is the saintly Dillon High quarterback who can do no wrong as the series opens. (The name is an apparent homage to University of Texas quarterback James Street from the 1969 national champs.) The cast members go to the movies, bowl, barbecue and play tricks on each other.
The cement that holds them together is unlikely father figure Kyle Chandler, who looks much younger than his 40 years.
"I pass on words of wisdom," he said. "I'm a father to some, a parole officer to others."
A plum guest role on Grey's Anatomy last spring earned Mr. Chandler an Emmy nomination and caught the eye of Mr. Berg, who originally had someone else in mind to take on the head coach role that garnered solid reviews for Billy Bob Thornton in the film.
It's also the first time Mr. Chandler has fully drawn on his own background as a husband and father to enrich a character.
"I'm an actor, and I love actors," he said. "Now I'm a football coach, and I love my players."
"Nobody on our cast in any way, shape or form is a diva," said Mr. Porter, who hews more closely to his character than most in the cast. He caught the game-winning ball that sent his real-life high school team to the Florida state playoffs.
"I miss playing," he said. "We all have something to prove. We keep hearing that sports shows can't succeed. We think America is going to love it."
By JOE O'CONNELL
Special Contributor to The Dallas Morning News
PFLUGERVILLE, Texas – The stand-in quarterback tosses a perfect spiral toward the end zone to an anxious receiver. Touchdown. Cut. Send in actor Aldous Hodge, who lets fly a wobbly dying-duck of a pass that falls a few feet away. "I'm not James Brown," he offers to his fellow players in explanation.
Welcome to Friday Night Lights, the television series spawned by the film that was based on the book, which was based on real, honest-to-God Odessa Permian High School football. Oh, and for the record, the stand-in quarterback is indeed James Brown, the former University of Texas star who is helping bring reality to the make-believe tale set in fictional Dillon, Texas.
Friday Night Lights
"We run a four-second play, wait five minutes, run a four-second play, wait 10 minutes, then go to lunch," Mr. Brown explains during a Sunday break on the sidelines at Pflugerville High School's stadium. "My job is to show the actor all the fundamental points of football, just to trick the camera. I'm proud of him."
Indeed, Mr. Hodge, who admits he's more adept at playing the violin, looks closer to perfect on his next toss.
The NBC series, which is set to premiere in October, began filming early in August using handheld cameras, with minimal lighting and without rehearsals. And it clearly adheres to a model set down by Peter Berg, who directed both the pilot and the big-screen film. That means lots of on-set improvising by actors and bringing in nonactors to play smaller roles.
"Our goal is to make it as real as possible and as honest as possible," said Jeff Reiner, who has directed the other two completed episodes. "It's liberating not to have the typical constraints of filmmakers."
It also makes it quicker, reducing a usual 14- to 15-hour day to as little as nine hours. That's a plus for the series, which is expected to pump $20 million into the Austin area economy before its 12-episode run ends in November. That's when NBC will decide whether Lights gets "back nine" episodes to complete the season. A former high school field near Austin's airport is being prepped just in case the series has legs.
Words of wisdom
"You don't force excellence; it's just something that comes," Taylor Kitsch, whose character, Tim Riggins, is the brooding bad boy from a troubled family, tells fellow actor Gaius Charles in a break from filming.
"Who said that?" asks Mr. Charles, who portrays confident running back Smash Williams.
"I just came up with it for you," says Mr. Kitsch of his ad-lib dialogue. "I told the director it's what Smash would say."
A group of relatively unknown actors makes up the cast. Mr. Kitsch is a hockey-loving Canadian with a small part in Snakes on a Plane.
"It's an actor's dream to play a kid like this," he said. "Tim's an introverted guy off the field who comes from a poor socioeconomic background and struggles with any relationships he has. On the field he has a sense of purpose. I believe there's a piece of him in everyone."
Meanwhile, Mr. Charles, a recent Carnegie Mellon University grad from New York City, is not much like the confident guy he portrays.
"I don't know if I'd be cool enough to hang out with him," he says.
Mr. Charles prepares by listening to Texas rap artists, playing football video games and tossing the pigskin around.
Hot and heavy
Aimee Teegarden, a perky blond 16-year-old who plays the head coach's daughter, leans over and raps on Mr. Charles' football helmet.
"Don't be so glum," she tells him.
"I don't blame him," a nearby crew member says. "It's only 100 degrees."
The heat has been a major factor for the cast and crew. A first aid cart is a sideline fixture with signs on it announcing "cold, wet towels," "ice and cold packs" and "electrolyte drinks." A small cot next to it awaits the fallen.
"It only clicked into me after about a week that this isn't breaking," Mr. Charles says of the weather. "I stay inside."
The mostly twentysomething actors have become a team, said Scott Porter, whose Jason Street is the saintly Dillon High quarterback who can do no wrong as the series opens. (The name is an apparent homage to University of Texas quarterback James Street from the 1969 national champs.) The cast members go to the movies, bowl, barbecue and play tricks on each other.
The cement that holds them together is unlikely father figure Kyle Chandler, who looks much younger than his 40 years.
"I pass on words of wisdom," he said. "I'm a father to some, a parole officer to others."
A plum guest role on Grey's Anatomy last spring earned Mr. Chandler an Emmy nomination and caught the eye of Mr. Berg, who originally had someone else in mind to take on the head coach role that garnered solid reviews for Billy Bob Thornton in the film.
It's also the first time Mr. Chandler has fully drawn on his own background as a husband and father to enrich a character.
"I'm an actor, and I love actors," he said. "Now I'm a football coach, and I love my players."
"Nobody on our cast in any way, shape or form is a diva," said Mr. Porter, who hews more closely to his character than most in the cast. He caught the game-winning ball that sent his real-life high school team to the Florida state playoffs.
"I miss playing," he said. "We all have something to prove. We keep hearing that sports shows can't succeed. We think America is going to love it."
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