Based on the H.G. Bissinger novel "Friday Night Lights: A Town, a Team and a Dream," the movie was directed by Peter Berg and stars Billy Bob Thornton as Coach Gary Gaines, along with a cast of rising young stars.
In this interview, "Friday Night Lights" co-stars Jay Hernandez and Derek Luke talk about football, training, and their experience filming in Texas.
JAY HERNANDEZ AND DEREK LUKE INTERVIEW:
If you are not obsessed by football, how hard is it to get into a movie like this? Were you obsessed with football before filming this?
JAY HERNANDEZ: I wasn't obsessed with football before this. I was into the game. I grew up in LA. I sort of watched the Raiders play and that sort of thing. But in film you always watch situations or stories that you really have no relation to. A lot of times just because there's no personal connection doesn't mean you can't connect with the film or the characters in the film.
Does not being into the sport make it harder to play the game in front of cameras?
DEREK LUKE: I think it can make it further from the action. It can make the action more choreographed but less involved, less research can be less informative. [It can] handicap you.
Jay, can you compare the experience of working with this ensemble cast to working on “Ladder 49?”
JAY HERNANDEZ: Two very different experiences. For "Ladder 49" we went to the fire academy and stayed there for I don't even know how long. It was a good amount of time we spent training and doing everything that the firefighters do. And then after that we rode with the fire trucks and stayed overnight, went out on calls, and experienced how it is to be a firefighter. That was a very interesting experience. I gained an appreciation for firefighters
especially that they had a lot of the limelight after 9/11 and what happened to them. I gained a new appreciation, and this was a totally different thing. It was Texas football, something that I didn't really know how intense it was. I'd heard about Texas football and how much of a religion it is, but to go to Odessa and experience it first-hand is something different than just
hearing about it.
How do you think the 16 and 17 year old kids you portrayed in the film handled all that pressure?
JAY HERNANDEZ: I think Brian, my character, I think he's done pretty good with his life. He went to Harvard and studied and became a lawyer, [and] actually came back to Odessa. He left a small city and something about that city drew him back to his home town. Now has a law firm out there and he's doing pretty good for himself.
DEREK LUKE: My character, Boobie, that I portray, sometimes I get angry sometimes playing him because I felt like it wasn't fair. He had this God-given gift. But at the same time he had this gift, he was pushed out there to perform like a man but he really didn't have the ingredients to nurture his talent… You've got to nurture it with character. Without character it will burn a hole in your talent, eventually.
You were standing next to the real Boobie Miles in one scene. How did that impact you?
DEREK LUKE : [It was] awkward. What happened was that the real Boobie Miles lived [in Odessa] and was also on set almost every day. I’d look up and go, “Man, where is Denzel at?” The only reason why I said that is that Denzel played so many real-life characters and on “Antwone,” a lot of things he told me just kind of ran off my back. I didn't know why he was saying, “I’m going to give it to
you the first couple of weeks without Antwone Fisher present.” But when Boobie was there it was awkward. But at the same time, Coach Gaines - played by Billy Bob - he was giving those speeches. I was reacting to Boobie's reaction because the camera was panning back and forth. I saw him getting emotional and sometimes he would leave the room. So it made me look at the character in a new perspective. He's a big boy.
What was it like shooting in Texas?
JAY HERNANDEZ: It was hot at times, and it was cold at times - very cold. I remember when we were practicing, we trained for about six weeks, you know football camp, and getting there in the morning it was freezing cold and we had to throw the pads on. It was pretty uncomfortable at times, but it was good shooting in Texas. A lot of the people were very excited about the film. We had a great crew and I think going to Odessa was pretty important because you can read about it, I read the book, and you can hear about it, but to actually go there and to see how small the town is and then see how committed they are to the game of football. I think it helped all of us just to see the stadium itself. To go there and to see this multimillion dollar stadium in this tiny little town is pretty impressive.
