When you think about Friday Night Lights, you think of Connie Britton — end of story. Britton’s Tami Taylor is an icon, plain and simple, which made it all the more surprising when we learned that Britton’s character was almost cut out of a Friday Night Lights movie back in 2004. Luckily, the series producers were able to spot a shining star when they saw one, and Britton landed the role of Tami Taylor shortly thereafter.
Here’s how Britton told us things went down at the #BlogHer19 Creators Summit: “I did a movie of Friday Night Lights where I basically ended up on the cutting room floor,” the actress shared. “When I was watching it, I thought they had made my character mute.” Ouch!
“When they came to me and said, ‘We’re going to make a TV show, why don’t you do that part on the TV show?’ I was like, ‘Why would I do that?'” Britton continued. “We had a long conversation about it.” Ultimately, Britton and the Friday Night Lights team agreed on a vision for her character: “We saw it as a great opportunity to give the women of that community a voice,” Britton explained, before joking: “Which, of course, they have.”
Britton’s portrayal of Tami Taylor also struck a personal chord for the actress. “Tami Taylor in Friday Night Lights was somebody who lived in a very traditional world,” she said. “I grew up in the South and I grew up in an environment similar to that.” Britton’s means of empowering Tami’s character came from many of her childhood experiences: “The women I grew up around — [I loved] watching how creative they were with empowering themselves, using sense of humor, and gracefulness — and at the same time, learning that this is how, as a woman, I hold on to power.”
We speak for all Friday Night Lights fans when we say that however Britton was finding Tami’s empowerment, it worked.
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