Scott Porter and Zach Gilford reunite to discuss their experience on Friday Night Lights. FNL was the fifth pilot Scott auditioned for and the first thing he did that made it to air. Everyone who played football in the pilot got to attend football camp in preparation. Scott and Zach had both played football (as had many of the cast members) but they said that luckily the helmets were great when they needed to use a double.
Lots more under the cut!
Zach didn’t have anywhere to live when shooting began so he slept on Scott’s sofa for a month. Most of the cast lived in the same housing complex and Zach said there was “plenty of drama” (which he had nothing to do with) so he found a place to live on the other side of town. Scott moved into Zach’s place for S2 and S3. When Scott met his future wife she had a rabbit that chewed up Zach’s remote controls and pooped all over their place.
Zach said filming on location helped the cast and crew become a big family. They had a weekly flag football game every Saturday morning that the cast and crew participated in. They also had a lot of fun outings together like paintball and floating down the river.
When the cast initially arrived in Texas, Zach was the only one who had a car (he “borrowed” his dad’s Subaru Outback and never gave it back) so people constantly asked to borrow his car or get rides.
The cast spent a lot of time throwing footballs to each other between takes and after someone got hit in the head, one of the line producers tried to put a moratorium on people throwing footballs if they weren’t shooting.
Usually before a show is cast, the network will bring the main contenders for a role together and have them read, which means you see who you’re competing against, but for FNL they brought together the finalists for several of the roles. Zach gave Scott a ride home and they shared who they hoped would get cast in each role, and those were the people who ended up being cast. Zach was not the first choice for Matt Saracen but they couldn’t make the dates work for the person they originally wanted to cast.
Zach said one of the assistant directors called him to let him know he was going to send him an early draft of The Son because it was so heavy. He and Scott talk about how they would film a scene a few times as written and then the director would let them film a few more where they could be more creative. They said because they each knew their characters so well, it was easy to do really big or emotional scenes because they knew how to stay true to the characters.
Scott’s favorite scene to film was the one with Jason, Matt, Tim, and Smash on the football field at night. He said they shot all night and then laid on the P in the middle of the field and watched the sun come up.
For Scott’s final episode when Jason and Tim go to New York, they had permits to film certain things but they did not have a permit to film in Times Square on a Saturday night. Two of the people visible in the scene are a pair of twins who were used as stand ins and background actors on the show. They were talking behind Jason to try to block the random people who were walking by while they were filming. When they filmed Scott’s final scene on the show (where Tim and Jason say goodbye to each other), Taylor and Scott could not stop crying.
One of the interview producers asked about storylines that the fans didn’t like, Zach admitted that Matt and Julie were young to be getting engaged/married, but they’re also from Texas. He said they were lucky that Jesse Plemons and Adrianne Palicki were the ones involved in the Murdergate storyline because while he was watching it happen, he thought, “This story is terrible but their acting is so good.”
Scott said that the show had low ratings the first season and the network brought them back but wanted to shake things up with something different. He said the writers were good and Zach said “they tried” with the murder storyline. Scott pointed out that when you something foisted off on you (like a murder plot), you just do the best you can.
Zach said he had a great relationship with Louanne Stephens, the actress who played his grandmother. Whenever she drove in from Dallas to shoot episodes, she would bring newspaper clippings that mentioned him. He said he hasn’t seen her in person for a few years but she still sends birthday gifts to his kids. The last time he saw her was at a hotel in Austin for a FNL event. He said the elevator doors opened and when they saw each other, they just started crying.
Scott said the last time he saw Louanne, it was at a memorial for Michael Waxman (a FNL producer/director) earlier this year and when he arrived, he remembered every cast and crew member’s name, which isn’t always the case. He said Louanne brought a 400 page scrapbook she had made about FNL.
Scott said that the blessing and curse is that just about everyone associated with the show is still working in the business but that means they’re all busy and in different places so they don’t get to see each other often.
Zach said he still gets called Matt Saracen by random people he meets and on tv sets. They talk about their FNL rewatch podcast, cohosted by FNL superfan Mae Whitman. Neither of them had watched the show since it originally aired so they were both happy to see that the show still holds up. Zach tried to show FNL to his very young kids and they said it was boring. Scott said he is waiting until his son is in middle school to watch FNL with him (his kids are currently 8 and 10). He said he might start with Hart of Dixie as the first of his shows to watch because it’s lighter.
When asked what they think their characters are doing now, Zach says Matt is not an artist because “have you seen his art?” Scott said Jason is probably super excited about the NIL contracts.
Both said they are open to reprising their FNL roles. Zach said as long as they could find an authentic reason for Matt to be around, he would be interested. Scott said he would selfishly want to work with that team again.
