TV Tattler: Celebrity Interviews

Related Links 'Friday Night Lights' Listings More About Zach Gilford

Oct. 4 -- In Texas, highschool football is like a religion. NBC's new drama, 'Friday Night Lights,' follows the obsession and hero worship in the small, rural town of Dillon, Texas. It's a town fueled on the success of the local Panthers football team.

Zach Gilford stars as Matt Saracen, a third-string highschool quarterback, thrown into the spotlight after an unexpected turn of events. In an interview with AOL Television editor Geoff Bennett, Gilford talked about his new series, the finer points of Southern hospitality and how he's handling his newfound stardom.

So tell me about the show and your character.
The show is about this small town in Texas and the lives of these kids and how football just puts this insane amount of pressure on them. The city kind of lives and dies on the success or failure of this team. My character lives with his grandmother while his father is in Iraq, and he's basically the man of the house. He's got to cook, clean, pay the bills and then he still has to go to school and football practice.

With the book came backlash from some in the town, who thought they weren't portrayed fairly. Are the cast and crew conscious of those sensitivities while working on the show?
Well, we're conscious of it. I think Pete Berg -- the guy who wrote and directed the movie and then wrote and directed the pilot and is now the executive producer of the show -- when he made the movie, he had to make a decision because he had an hour and a half to tell one story. So he concentrated more on the football and the story of the team. But the really cool part of the book is when it talks about the people and how the community works. But you can't fit all that into a movie. The reason why he came up with doing it as a TV show is because TV shows are more character driven. It's those stories that keep a series going and keep you interested. Just one football
game -- that might not keep you hooked.

You grew up in Chicago and spent a couple years in New York. How was living and working in Austin? Like culture shock?
I haven't been around all of Texas, but I definitely had my preconceived notions, thinking it would be culture shock. But Austin is very liberal, almost like a hippie town. There's a huge music scene there. South by Southwest (SXSW) is there. They just had the Austin City Limits Festival, which is like 140 bands playing in three days. So it's really cool, and the people down there are so nice and just welcome you with open arms.

Right. Southern hospitality.
I think, with the book, that's why there were some harsh feelings once it came out because they welcomed this guy [H. G. Bissinger] into their homes and lives and didn't censor anything. And they kind of expected to be painted in this very positive way. And I think the good sides were shown, but he gave a very unbiased description of what he saw. And I think they were hurt by that.

So can you really play football? Did you have to prove it before you got the role?
I played football for a year and then broke my leg. So by the time I rehabbed, I wasn't able to play anymore. But I'd always play on weekends and stuff like that. But during the audition process, they'd ask, "Have you ever played football?" And you'd tell them yes or no. Once they cast it, we found out people's real skill level. (Laughs) I didn't play quarterback, and I was open about that. But we have our football coordinators, who know a lot about the sport. So we've got a ton of coaching and, personally, I've come a long way since we started shooting the pilot.

I imagine it hasn't been easy.
Whatever bad habits I've developed over the course of my life of throwing a football, I'm having to break those. Anytime I make a throw, I'm having to think about keeping my shoulders the right way and my feet right. And I want to make sure I get the ball to the receiver. At the end, you add in a couple thousand extras watching you and the whole football team is there, and you don't want to look like an idiot. (Laughs) I've gained so much respect for real quarterbacks. Even when we're doing scripted plays, it's still hard.

Does every show end with a big game?
So far, every other episode ends with a game. A big worry was that people who weren't into football wouldn't want to watch the show if it was all football all the time. And they really wanted to concentrate on the characters.

Since a lot of the cast is around the same age, and you guys are out on location, what's it like on set?
It's a good time. We all got really tight during the pilot. We love to go out and see some music. Right now, it's the best situation ever. I feel really lucky. I call it a "lottery job" because everything from the quality of the project, to the people I work with, to the place I'm working -- I couldn't ask for more.

After all this intense football playing, do you have any plans for your hiatus?
It's kind of a Catch-22. You want to hang out and relax, but at the same time you want to forge a career. Especially in TV, there's a trap of getting comfortable in just playing that character you play on the show. And if you do that, that's who you are going to be for the rest of your life. So you really have to make an effort to get yourself out there and be seen in a different way so you don't get pigeonholed as an actor.

You just graduated from Northwestern University a couple years ago, right? A lot of actors toil in obscurity and never get their break, and here you are already on this big new show. How has it changed your life?
I'm hoping it doesn't. I enjoy my life the way it is. It's kind of fun to see a big billboard with your picture on it, but at the same time, in big party situations I always kind of migrate to the corner if I don't know anyone. And I'm very into backpacking and stuff, so I've always either loved to be in the middle of the mountains where no one knows who or where I am -- or I've lived in New York City or Chicago, big cities where no one knows who I am. I've always like to have my own thing going on. It might be a little bit of an adjustment, so we'll play that one out as it happens.