Friday Night Lights

Grantland does an oral history. Well worth the read. I love this, none of what I knew:

Berg: Linda Lowy did a really good search. She brought in girls like Minka Kelly, who, prior to doing the show, was working at a plastic surgery clinic, prepping girls for lip jobs and boob jobs.

Minka Kelly (Lyla Garrity): I was working as a scrub nurse. I was an actor — I was auditioning — but I was always embarrassed to say I was an actor because that's not how I was paying my bills.

Scott Porter (Jason Street): Before Friday Night Lights, I was singing and beat-boxing in an off-Broadway show and sleeping on my buddy's couch. I had auditioned for a Disney musical and their casting director asked me to be an understudy for the lead. I didn't want to do it unless I had an out in my contract for TV. He said, "We're not going to do that for you. You don't want to TV anyway. As green as you are, you'll just be the fourth handsome boy from the left on some WB show for a couple of episodes."

Zach Gilford (Matt Saracen): I was working at [a sporting goods store], folding clothes. I'd been out of school for a little under a year, and it was my first pilot season. My manager and agent said, "There's this project, and this project, and this Friday Night Lights one, but we don't know if you'd be into that." I was like, "Wait, Friday Night Lights the movie? The book, Friday Night Lights? You don't think I'd be into that? Do you know me?"

Something is pretty unimpressive about Hollywood that they hadn't discovered Minka Kelly prior to FNL. Yowza. One look at her and it's like - write her a part.