Connie Britton Reveals the One Thing Tami Taylor & Her Dear Edward Character Dee Dee Have in Common

Connie Britton has played a fair share of legendary characters throughout her career. But, bear with me, what made them legendary was Britton herself. She has this way of making her characters, whether it’s Friday Night Lights‘ fierce Tami Taylor or the powerful Nicole Mossbacher in White Lotus, human and relatable, in addition to entertaining, of course.

Talking to SheKnows’ Reshma Gopaldas about her newest show, Dear Edward on Apple TV+, Britton talked about her iconic characters and what makes this most recent project, and her character Dee Dee, stand out.

“Every character that I play I really want to look at from a very universal female standpoint,” she says. “I always want to have that sense of every woman in a way.” Fellow actors reading this, take notes!

In Dear Edward, Dee Dee is a mother to a teenager daughter and becomes a widow following her husband’s passing in a deadly plane crash. “Dee Dee’s experience is so specific, so 1%, like all the fancy clothes and the jewels and the wealth, all that,” she says, admitting she watched “some Real Housewives of New Jersey” to get inspired for the role. “I really wanted to understand what was behind all that for her.”

Britton continues, adding that we all already “have our own vision of women like that but then to see a woman like that lose everything and to be forced to kind of unpack who she really is and open her eyes to who she really is, it’s a great journey to be able to play.” As for the loss Dee Dee undergoes in the show, “We all go through some version of that,” she adds.

Speaking of her legendary characters, we asked Britton what would happen if Tami, Nicole and Dee Dee all went to a White Lotus resort together. “Which one doesn’t survive?” Gopaldas asks. “I’ll tell you who does survive, Tami,” she says. “I mean, I don’t know, it might be Nicole because she’s so perplexed by Dee Dee that she’s like, ‘I can’t,’ I don’t know how she goes down but she might go down.”

As for Tami’s reaction, Britton thinks she would love the luxury. “She’d be like ‘I’m not going anywhere I love it here,'” she says.

Lastly, we asked what advice Tami would give to Dee Dee. “I think she’d just give her a big ol’ hug,” she says. “Tami Taylor and Dee Dee don’t have a lot in common, but they’re both huggers.” We couldn’t agree more! Everybody needs a Tami Taylor hug. Check out Britton’s latest show Dear Edward on Apple TV+, available on Feb 3.

Before you go, click here to see our favorite movies and TV shows about imperfect, complicated women.