Kyle Chandler News

Friday Night Lights is returning for a third season this fall, but under very unique circumstances, as the series will now debut episodes on DirecTV, before rebroadcasting them later in the season on NBC.

IGN recently spoke to star Kyle Chandler (Coach Eric Taylor) to find out his reaction to the new situation for the series.

IGN: You have a pretty unusual new deal with the show. What did you think when you heard about it?

Kyle Chandler: That it was very unusual. [Laughs]

IGN: Yes, it is!

Kyle Chandler: I'm just learning more about it. Anything to get us back on the air I'm excited about. I'm especially excited because it's a new situation for us and for both NBC and DirecTV. And of course, we're one of the first shows to venture into what they're doing. So it could represent all kinds of possible creative opportunities. So nothing is bad about it - it's all positive. I got the chance to meet the owner [of DirecTV] and the people running it, and they seem like young, creative and excited people. I don't think we could really do wrong.

Kyle Chandler is excited for the return of Friday Night Lights.

Black Eyed Peas frontman will.i.am has released a new music video aimed at boosting the hopes of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama.

Called "We Are The Ones," it features a pair of Friday Night Lights stars.

Backed by music and the vocal refrain of "O-BA-MA! O-BA-MA!," celebrities such as our own Adrianne Palicki and Jesse Plemons - along with Jessica Alba, Ryan Phillippe, Kerry Washington, George Lopez and many others - offer reasons why they support Barack Obama. The candidate's voice can also be heard.

It's very cool. Check it out here ...

TV's best series is all about America's favorite contact sport. While on the surface, Friday Night Lights seems focused firmly on football, it's really all about heart. In his role as Dillon Panthers Coach Eric Taylor, Kyle Chandler is the rallying point for the show's ensemble and its dramatic charge downfield.

Here are portion's of Kyle Chandler's recent interview with Hollywood.com...

Hollywood.com: Have you ever seen a better marriage on television or real life as good as the one on your show?

Kyle Chandler: Mine's a lot better than this one, I guarantee that. It's just fun. It's fun working with Connie Britton. Whenever we're on the set together, we have a good time. She's one of those people, we just get together good. We have the same technique on how you go about working. I've been married for 11 years, so I think a lot of what I bring to this thing is I steal from my own. I'm sort of doing a little bit of what I know. It's fun like that because I haven't had a role where I've played anyone where I've had a wife and kids and this and that. I've been married for 11 years and I've got two kids. I know how to be frustrated with a woman. I'm good at that. So it's fun to play all that stuff.

Hollywood.com: Do actors and coaches fight over the same things in marriage?

Kyle Chandler: Yeah, we have the issues that they write for us basically. We use different tools to get out of them. That's another thing, Connie Britton and I always look at the material. We're always constantly looking for something new. It's sort of a contact sport on our set, because everyone's trying to outdo the next person. It's really enjoyable. It's a fun atmosphere.

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Reports that Nielsen is widening viewer research samplings of this fall shows to span seven nights of TiVo recording in its ratings, rather than just a program's initial broadcast night, is encouraging to Friday Night Lights star Kyle Chandler.

Despite critical acclaim, Friday Night Lights has been plagued by low ratings since its inception. It's been blessed with such positive word of mouth that NBC has given it a renewal for a full 22 episodes in its second season.

And while its new Friday slot has its drawbacks - it's airing while many people are atactual football games, going on dates, etc. - and the show may be moving to Monday, Chandler is confident that when "all the TiVo responses are added up, we'll learn that a lot more people are watching the show than we've known."

He adds, "It just makes common sense." Then he quips, "I've been grabbing phone books wherever I am and telling people to record the show - and I give kids at my daughter's school a nickel to make five calls for me."

Friday Night Lights' laid-back, nice-guy football coach would like you to believe that "when my wife and I watch the show together, I might get an elbow in the ribs or one of those looks across the room, or the TV remote bouncing off my forehead. The thing is that sometimes in my household, I can't win an argument like I want, but on TV I can bring one of our small fights into my TV role."

But seriously, Kyle Chandler says that what you see is pretty much what he is at home with his wife and daughters, Sydney and Sawyer - and says they are the most important things in his life.

He credits wife Katherine with helping him craft Eric Taylor and for being so supportive. He says, "We'll watch the show together, and she'll make suggestions. 'What if you do this?' or, 'What if you do this another way?' She's a very good writer and has great insight into the characters on our show."

The second season of Friday Night Lights is underway, and Kyle Chandler, who plays Coach Eric Taylor, and Connie Britton, who plays Tami Taylor, stopped by the Today show on Friday to discuss. The pair sat also down with MSNBC to talk about their on-camera marriage, their off-camera relationship and their favorite characters on the acclaimed show. Here's the interview.

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MSNBC: One of the strengths of Friday Night Lights that everyone points to is your marriage... critics have called it the most realistic portrayal of marriage on television. So what's your relationship like off camera... and how do you reach the point where you can present this realistic portrait of marriage?

Connie Britton: [looking at Kyle] Be careful.

Kyle Chandler: This is one of the first roles I've had of being married and having children since I've been married and had children. So that's 12 years now. So I have a wealth of information to bring into this as a husband and father. One of my responsibilities I have is telling my wife what to do, so with Connie, I tell her what to do and everything works fine.

Connie Britton: [sarcastically] Yeah... you can believe that for sure. I, on the other hand, am not married and have never had children. So I'm obviously just an exceptional actress! [laughs]

Kyle Chandler: That was great! Oh my God! [high-fives Connie]

Connie Britton: I think we also got really lucky, because we wanted to play this marriage the same way. We both have the same ideas that we wanted a foundation, a partnership, a trust, and then the sky's the limit from there. We both agreed on that and have been very stalwart about that. And we just end up really having a good time together. So it works out.

MSNBC: What kind of things do you talk about off camera?

Connie Britton: You know, he complains about being away from his family. I never complain, I just listen.

Kyle Chandler: Connie almost always has her nose in a book. [laughs] If not, she's always jogging or going to the gym.

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Those of you used to seeing the amazing Kyle Chandler on Friday Night Lights probably already think of him as a wholesome, family-oriented guy.

Well, Coach Eric Taylor's TV family of wife Tami (Connie Britton), daughter Julie (Aimee Teegarden) and soon-to-be-born baby #2 (name revealed Friday) isn't far removed from the real thing for this handsome actor and father.

Kyle and his wife, Katherine, have two daughters, Sydney and Sawyer, ages 9 and 6. In the photos below, Kyle poses with them in Best Life Magazine earlier this year. The magazine is a few months old by now, but since our site is brand new, we figured you might like to see the scans. They're very sweet.

Kyle Chandler: The ultimate family man. 

In anticipation of Season Two of Friday Night Lights (which premieres this Friday), we're taking a look at each of its 10 terrific stars to help the show's growing legion of fans learn more about each of them.

Last week, we profiled Adrianne Palicki, who plays the sexy, surprisingly complex Tyra Collette. We've saved the best for last in Kyle Chandler, who plays Dillon Head Coach Eric Taylor and rounds out our Spotlight feature.

Kyle Martin Chandler was born September 17, 1965, in Buffalo, N.Y., the son of Sally, a dog breeder, and Edward, a farm owner and pharmaceutical sales rep. He was raised in Loganville, Ga., and went to the University of Georgia.

Kyle Chandler's first major TV role was as the Cleveland Indians right fielder Jeff Metcalf in the ABC show Homefront, a drama set in the late 1940s.

In his next TV role, Kyle played a man who had the ability to change future disasters as the central character in the CBS series Early Edition.

As bar owner Gary Hobson, a stockbroker turned hero who received tomorrow's paper today, Kyle received the Saturn Award for Best Actor on Television.

Subsequently, Chandler appeared opposite Joan Cusack as investment banker Jake Evans in the short-lived ABC comedy series What About Joan.

In what was an unlikely departure from his usual good guy roles, Chandler played scheming lawyer Grant Rashton in the short-lived series The Lyon's Den.

His older brother, Brian, is an attorney in Houston, Texas. In Kyle's brief stint on The Lyon's Den, Brian would offer tips on how to act like a lawyer and served as a model for some of Kyle Chandler's mannerisms on the show.

In February 2006, Chandler appeared as ill-fated bomb squad leader Dylan Young in "It's The End of The World..." & "... As We Know It," a two-part episode on the ABC series Grey's Anatomy that followed the Super Bowl.

Chandler received substantial notice and press for the appearance as a result and subsequently received a nomination in the Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series category for the 58th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards.

He appeared again on Grey's Anatomy as the same character in the following season, in which Meredith Grey sees him during a near-death experience, in "Drowning On Dry Land" and "Some Kind of Miracle."

Kyle and his wife of 12 years, Katherine, a television writer, live in Los Angeles with their daughters, Sydney and Sawyer, and their terriers, Buckley and Otis.

NBC has released promotional photos of the Friday Night Lights cast in advance of Season Two, which premieres October 5. We've got them all here!

Zach Gilford (Matt Saracen)

Follow the jump for the rest of these great Friday Night Lights cast pics ...

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Despite being snubbed in the Best Actor category, Friday Night Lights star Kyle Chandler joined Katherine Heigl Sunday to present at the Emmy Awards.

Kyle Chandler, of course, had a memorable guest starring turn as Dylan Young, an ill-fated bomb squad member, on Grey's Anatomy, the show which Katherine Heigl stars on - and won Best Supporting Actress for later in the evening!

It's almost Emmy Awards week, which is great, except that perhaps the four best shows all year — Friday Night Lights, Battlestar Galactica, The Wire and The Shield — accumulated a meager six nominations... total.

To correct this injustice, Entertainment Weekly presents The Gluttys, given to the most egregious Emmy snubs of the year. Let's take a look...

Best Series, Drama
The nominees: Battlestar Galactica, Friday Night Lights, The Shield, The Wire.
And the Glutty goes to... The Wire! It wasn't just the best drama of the year, it was perhaps the best drama of any year. An engrossing look at cops, crime, politics, and education, and how they intersect in ways we never imagined.

Best Actor, Drama
The nominees: Kyle Chandler (Friday Night Lights), Eddie Izzard (The Riches), Ian McShane (Deadwood).
And the Glutty goes to... Kyle Chandler! Clear eyes, full hearts, can't lose! Except, apparently, when it comes to the Emmys. Indeed, Kyle Chandler's snub is mind-boggling to many.

Best Actress, Drama
The nominees: Connie Britton (Friday Night Lights), Annabeth Gish (Brotherhood), Mary McDonnell (Battlestar Galactica).
And the Glutty goes to... Annabeth Gish! As a cheating addict-politician's wife, Gish was last summer's biggest surprise. Well, second biggest, if you include Tuesday Night Book Club making it onto a network schedule.

Best Supporting Actor, Drama
The nominees: Jack Coleman (Heroes), Walton Goggins (The Shield), Gerald McRaney (Deadwood).
And the Glutty goes to... Walton Goggins! In a naked and raw performance (literally and figuratively), Goggins mesmerized as a cop haunted by his past.

Best Supporting Actress, Drama
The nominees: Elizabeth Mitchell (Lost), CCH Pounder (The Shield), Sonja Sohn (The Wire).
And the Glutty goes to... Elizabeth Mitchell! Katherine Heigl over her? Really? As fertility doctor Juliet, Mitchell was savvy, intelligent and complex — all the things that Emmy succeeds so well in overlooking.