Connie Britton’s show is ‘Friday Night Lights’ reunion
PASADENA: Connie Briton’s new series “Dear Edward” gave her the opportunity to revisit a past project that she holds dear, “Friday Night Lights.” Developed and executive produced by Jason Katims, the series “Friday Night Lights” was ratings-challenged but also had a passionate fan base among critics and viewers. Briton played Tami Taylor, a high school guidance counsellor in a small Texas town who is married to the school’s football coach (Kyle Chandler.) The show also put its cast — including Briton, Chandler, Jesse Plemons and Taylor Kitsch — on a different career trajectory. “Friday Night Lights’ set the bar for me in a lot of ways around what I want, what I want creatively and how I want to work and people that I want to work with,” shared Briton in a recent Zoom interview.
“Dear Edward” which streams from Feb. 3 on Apple TV+ reunites her with Katims, who admits he had been waiting since “Friday Night Lights” aired its series finale in 2011 to find another project with Briton. “When you work with an actor like Connie, you want to work with her again, like it’s always in the back of your mind. But I felt like I waited until I had a role that was the right role.
I wanted to bring her a role that really had a chance of her wanting to do (it),” he said. That role in “Dear Edward” is of Dee Dee, a wealthy Manhatan socialite who is living the good life until her husband dies in a plane crash. Briton admits to prepare for the role she watched episodes of “The Real Housewives of New Jersey,” where some of the cast seems to enjoy flaunting their material possessions. “Dee Dee just made me laugh,” said Briton. “She made me smile all the time so I really, really had so much fun playing her... It was like the gorgeous clothes and the jewels and the things, it’s fun to be able to do that stuff. And then equally as an actor, (it’s) fun to have all that stuff taken away.” The reunion between Briton and Katims lived up to the anticipation, says the actor, and there were also crew members present who she worked with on “Friday Night Lights.”
“Jason’s set was everything I remembered, everything I imagined it might be. Straight from the top down... We had directors come in who were from ‘Friday Night Lights.’ We had crew members. It was just like old home week, and it was really fun... I’m geting to the point in my life now, in my career, where I want to work with people that I love.”
“Dear Edward” also follows the titular character, Edward, a 12-year-old boy (played by Colin O’brien) who is the only survivor of a plane crash and goes to live with his aunt and uncle ater his parents and brother are killed. Viewers see Edward adjust to this catastrophic loss and experience magical thinking, where he pretends to himself that his older brother also survived the crash. “When Edward loses his family, he kind of has a looming presence over him,” said O’brien. “He has to learn to cope with that and to trust others around him, to help him move on from that and to help him kind of redefine himself.”
The story is based on a novel of the same name by Ann Napolitano. For his adaptation, Katims chose to add more characters to the story (including Dee Dee) and have them interact during grief counselling. “I really wanted to look at the present-tense story of what would happen ater this tragic accident occurred, and I needed to see people mesh with each other, which was where the idea of the grief group came from,” said Katims.
Another character added to the story is Adriana Washington, played by Anna Uzele. Washington’s grandmother,alongtimecongresswomanfromnew York, also was killed in the crash. She’s inherited her grandmother’s desire to serve but also finds politics frustrating and must reconcile the two.