"Friday Night Lights" Comes to An End: Producers and Cast Remember Building Dillon

by Denise Martin
http://www.tvguide.com/
February 6, 2011

A closely observed drama about boys becoming men, the comforts and frustrations of small-town life, a family's growing pains, and the lessons learned from football, Friday Night Lights will not soon be forgotten. The show wrapped filming of its fifth and final season in July, and on Wednesday, the lights will go down forever on Dillon, Texas. (For those without DirecTV, NBC will re-air the final season beginning April 15 at 8/7c.)

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. This is the first in a three-part series.

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.


Friday Night Lights Comes to an End: Cast Talks Series-Saving Fans, Turning on the Panthers

by Denise Martin
http://www.tvguide.com/
Feb 8, 2011

In the second part of our farewell to Friday Night Lights, producers and cast talk about the show's controversial storylines (murder! abortion!), the show-saving fan campaigns, sending the Taylors to East Dillon and (unbelievably!) hating on the Panthers.

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.


Friday Night Lights Comes to an End: The Cast Says Good-Bye with Clear Eyes, Full Hearts

by Denise Martin
http://www.tvguide.com/
Feb 9, 2011

Friends, the end is here. The series finale of Friday Night Lights has aired, and it's time for us to bid our final fond farewell.

But first, a spoiler warning: What follows are reflections from the executive producers and cast about the events and outcomes of the fifth season. If you have not been watching on DirecTV, or are waiting for the NBC premiere, know that certain plotlines are discussed in some detail below.

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.

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.