Varsity

A closely observed drama about boys becoming men, the comforts and frustrations of small-town life, a family's growing pains, and the lessons learned from football, Friday Night Lights will not soon be forgotten. The show wrapped filming of its fifth and final season in July, and on Wednesday, the lights will go down forever on Dillon, Texas. (For those without DirecTV, NBC will re-air the final season beginning April 15 at 8/7c.)

VousTV.com spoke to stars Yoo Seok Park (Antoine Kim), Georges Woo (Felix Yang), Eloise Hardy (Marianne Dalembert), Jean-Christophe Bradford-Johnston (Frederic Albano-Holmes), Sandra Aski (Dana Brunner), executive producer Celine Hamel and Dr. Ahn's longtime student and son-in-law, Marcel Cody-Yi, about the charms of Long-Reaching Lakeshores in the Limestone City. This is the first in a three-part series.

Before Varsity became a TV show, it was an unreleased autobiography by the late Philippe Ahn, the legendary Quebecois fencing coach. The show's director, Christopher Tsu-Ahn, felt that there was many story to tell about his uncle's university years and Tsu-Ahn's own life as someone in part of a developing dynasty with his alma mater in early 2000s.

Cody-Yi : It was a very familiar thing for me, mostly because of my connections to the Ahn family. My father (late William Yi) was his teammate back in early 1970s with Queen's and they always coached on the opposite teams after their graduation. But while they were rivals, they were also lifelong friends who stood for what they loved. So, growing up, I got to know the man pretty quickly and even closer when I started dating my wife in early 2000s. I remember waking up early in the morning at coach's house one summer night, when coach Ahn came up to me and told me to read [i]DDFC[/i]. It was evident that he had his raw emotions and thoughts of then written on that paper, as what I was reading....it was brilliant, to read such a complex but delicate mind. A decade and half later, I remember the pilot episode coming along, and Christopher captured how I envisioned this chapter. So it was a no-brainer when Christopher asked me to work as their professional consultant.

Hamel : I wasn't initially attracted to the project at first because I was not as familiar with fencing as some of my colleagues. (I was a judoka all the way to university) It wasn't until the pilot that I realised that what Christopher was trying to do was to not just capture the life of coach Ahn, but also to show the entire landscape of characters both gifted and troubled in this college town. It was brilliant. I only had two questions when contacting Christopher the very next morning: What will happen to Ellie Rossi? I've already heard from others that this storyline had significance as important as whole Felix Yang storyline with his love, so I wanted to know how he was going to his real-life experience to make sure that it would not run in a separate cannon from Felix's side of things. My only other question was : can the limestone be replicated? It's a well known fact that both storylines involving Christopher and Philippe involved Cornwall in Real Life, so Queenstown had to be done correctly in those regards.

Park Yoo-Seok, star of TV series [i]September 8th[/i], took a long period of persuasion before agreeing to star as coach Antoine Kim. To play his assistant and eventual successor, Dana Brunner, Tsu-Ahn turned to Sandra Aski, who had just graduated from Royal Academy of Dramatic Art at the time. Jean-Christophe Bradford-Johnson, also a fresh graduate from college, had to select between this show and an internship at parliament....

Park : I was very unsure that I would be a good fit for the show. I had lost my son to mental illness just a year earlier and had stepped away from acting as a result when Christopher called, asking if he could be the final puzzle to the show. When I responded that I was still getting over the loss of Nam-Woong, he promised me that this show will save the lives of many who went through same troubles that the coach Ahn and ultimately my son did. He was so enthusiastic. "I promise that we've all been there before, and we're all going to be on same boat with you to the end. Sunbae (meaning senior in Korean), Coach Antoine will be this kickass character who will be dying for his students, who needs his support, but he will also be going through his own losses and you're the best fit for it after searching seven seas for one."...I look back on that and can't feel grateful enough, but at the time I was worried for both of us!

Bradford-Johnson : It was a tough choice when I first auditioned - and happened to have won the part! I had to decide between interning once again in the Quebecois Parliament or try acting in a character that just fitted me too well in real life. Ultimately, I decided to give acting a shot since I knew I could always come back to politics, but this show was a keeper, a huge one to miss if I decided to pass up the offer. I think that assurance gave me an easy way into acting, which I'm always thankful of.

The cast and crew got the sense that they weren't working on your typical college drama while filming this typical TV show. The first episode began followed the orientation week and first official team practice at Kirkenes University. Coach Kim's stout but sharp words come into the play as the athletes start their day 1: "Another year, another banner. But let's make them four. Our goal is to win everything every year."

Aski : It was great because it as so raw.....these guys were all coming back for a new year and there were going to be new blocks, new challenges that will stand in their way. I remember driving that blue Kontiki 45 like it was yesterday. The whole driving scene, as the sun approaches her on the way to her usual workplace, it's something that really embodied Dana well- a woman who's slowly but steadily developing into something promising.

Cody-Yi : I remember seeing the first cut of the pilot and was just impressed. A fitting tribute and beautiful episode in overall, in the ways which the soundtrack plays in background, freshmen struggle to move in and the sudden fall in the end....I loved it. One thing that I remember the most is that they got the words right. My father used to say that phrase back in USC and Queen's practices and that served as a huge confidence-booster for us entering the season! Coaches won't just go and say 'let's do the best' really. Not my father, nor Philippe. Given that coach Antoine's inspired by him, I was very grateful to hear that line throughout the series, as that's one of many things I miss the most about my father.

Woo : I remember feeling very good about the production right after the final scene of the pilot. I was never this confident about a series before back then, and that's the beauty of it. A strong production that brought the extended strength into us all. It was because of this that I was so certain on Varsity lasting beyond its pilot, and I was good to be proven correct on that matter.

Georges Woo went with his own instincts in figuring out Felix Yang, the passionate, troubled foilist whose heart goes into manoeuvres. Woo would stick around for first four seasons of the series, and make significant appearances in the last two.

Woo : I remember when receiving the role, coach Ahn sent me a long email containing his memoir, with specific instructions on how to read into the lines. It was very helpful in figuring out how to set Felix into his own mould: the skywalker who floats freely between his confident shell in his public eye and a mellow, eternally-heartbroken soldier of fortune on his teammates and woman's eyes. It was just what I felt was needed to top the character that I initially thought of him as....he's been traumatised and haunted by so many ghosts and his mistakes, that his pain and coping all-series long were just intristic. It's a way to keep him floating and make sure that he would remember the losses, and that he would become a better person through it.


Woo : We were able to do whatever we wanted, for the script and background info were there to help - for mot part. I know some of us received more info about it than others, but that was there mostly as guideline. I remember coach Ahn just telling me to relax and do my interpretation of him on phone one day on screen, and it lifted a lot of pressure early on.
Hardy : You could find emotions and humor and even anger in places you wouldn't have expected. You'd use your surroundings and dialogues as you needed and wanted to....it's something that's more experimental than anything in nature, so I knew we had to rely on each other lot more. I came to really love it, especially because Marianne Dalembert's a character filled with gentle quirks and sarcasm.



Unlike other network dramas, Friday Night Lights was not high on gloss. Hand-held cameras made for an extra-gritty feel. Actors were encouraged to improvise and try things off-script.
Teegarden: It was very much left up to us as to how things were going to go in a scene, how the action would play out. I was 15 when we started and it took a little getting used to. We didn't have any set marks. But it all comes off very organic when you watch.





... But not everyone was OK with the show's fluid format.
Britton: We definitely had some actors come on to the show who were a little freaked-out by it. We just tried to make them feel comfortable and let them know, "Hey, no, no, no, trust me. This actually isn't scary. In fact, you get to do what you want to do." ...  For people who weren't used to it, it was very uncomfortable.
Chandler:  I always thought of it like back before the USSR fell, and you'd have a defector come to the United States and he'd stand in a grocery store with all of these thousands of products and he'd freeze. I think our show was like that for some actors and even some directors early on. There were just no guidelines.
For me, it's why the show was exciting. You know when you get to set, you're going to throw all the preconceived ideas out the window. It really is like rehearsing a play for the first time. I've felt that way for five years, and I loved going to work because of it. I even loved driving to work, the anticipation of it.

On Oct. 3, 2006, the show premiered to spectacular reviews and not-so-spectacular viewership. It didn't help that it debuted against ratings giant Dancing with the Stars. But the show managed a full-season pickup (and eventually a Season 2 renewal), and the crew kept chugging along.
Gilford: You know, at first, it hurt. I had thought, "I'm on this amazing show. It's going to be huge. Everyone's going to love it." And then it just wasn't. But once we were renewed for our second season, and then thereafter, it was like, "Whatever, we're still here. We're still doing it. We're still loving it" — which is to say, we got over it pretty quick.
Britton: It's funny, because we were shooting in Austin and we were so in our little bubble of Dillon, it was almost like that ratings stuff never seemed that important to us. Ignorance is bliss, basically. ... I do remember how great that first season felt. It was a real time of discovery. We'd shoot things and go, "Oh wow! Cool! Look what we found. Look what we learned about Tami. Or Julie." We were creating a world, and that was very satisfying.
Kitsch: If we were going to get picked up or not, I just love that we never truly waivered. We never tried to become some soapy, mainstream thing to get ratings.
Nevins: I always knew it was an oddball, but I would say there was some degree of disappointment. You don't realize as you're shooting it, but looking back, there were a lot of commercial challenges to the show.

Friday Night Lights was initially marketed to boys and football fans, which made it difficult thereafter to sell what, essentially, was a character drama to women.
Nevins: Here's the thing: It's a show about football, but it's primarily for women. It's a show about teenagers, but it's primarily for adults. It's a show about the economically disadvantaged by it's got some real upscale appeal. So there were a lot of contradictions built in.
Kitsch: I think they didn't how to market it. It was tough. There's not a specific tone to it where they could just label it something easy to sell.
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If nothint

If nothing else, the first season established that Friday Night Lights was anchored not by the players, but by the Taylors, a husband-wife, best-friend pairing unlike anything else on TV.
Teegarden: Nobody's relationship is perfect, and that was always the good thing with the Taylors. Every time a script came out, Connie and Kyle would go through it together. They'd say things like, "Our relationship is solid at the end of the day." It was really admirable.
Britton: We just got really lucky. That first day, we were kind of cracking jokes and making each other laugh at the goofiest, dorkiest things, which we then proceeded to do for the next five years. We just kind of instantly got each other and sort of shared the same values about how we wanted to play that marriage and who we each wanted to be in it.
Chandler: I think throughout most of the show, it always ended up that Eric's wife was right in the long run. [Laughs.] What I liked were the scenes that they shared silence, where they were feeling the other out or discussing the family moving or money or loss, and they do their talking by just looking at one another. There aren't many shows that I've done that allow you that silence on screen, and it wound up being so powerful. These are two people with history. They know each other that well.
Katims: The ongoing theme of the show has been about family and, especially, surrogate families.  Eric and Tami have nurturing relationships with the teens in the school and on the team, and it's all rooted in the strength of their own marriage. The compromises, the friendship, the love.

Part 2: Producers and cast talk about being forever on the cancelation bubble, Season 2's murder plotline, relocating to DirecTV, and the risky move to East Dillon.


If nothing else, the first season established that Varsity was anchored not by players, but by the coach Antoine and his assistant Dana, a mentor-student pairing quite different from most sports dramas that we have on TV.