Friday Night Fever!

This happened a few months ago, but for those of you following our Friday Night Lights obsession, this was too good not to share. Earlier this year, J signed up to be an extra on Friday Night Lights. With his baby face youthful good looks, he was actually contacted several times to appear in the show. (Side note: he was also selected to be an extra in ABC's ill-fated My Generation, and wound up being featured pretty heavily in a party scene in what would have been in episode 7, but it got cancelled after only two episodes were aired. Bummer.) Anyway, he was contacted several times to appear in Friday Night Lights, but was never able to make it due to his school schedule.

At the beginning of the summer, he received a notice that they were casting extras for the final episode of the show to be filmed in Austin (the end of season 5, which will air on NBC next spring/summer.) Again, he was unable to do it because it required a 3 day commitment. It was going to be a big football scene-- the East Dillon Lions' last home game. Although he couldn't participate, we thought we'd just drive out to see if we could catch any of it being filmed. Since it was the last game, we thought it must be some kind of championship, and therefore that it must be being filmed at UT's Memorial Stadium (where they played their championship game in season 3.) So we drove out to the stadium on the first night we knew they were filming. No dice. No lights, no trucks, nothing.

The next night, on a whim, we decided to drive out to the old Del Valle High School field near the airport, which we knew was the setting for Panthers' home field. We had no idea where the Lions' field was, but thought we'd give it a shot. Bingo! Before we could even see the field, we saw the lights. As we approached, we saw tons of vans and trailers everywhere. We parked at a nearby Days Inn and strategized ways to sneak into (or at least walk by) the action. Unfortunately, the shrubs between the Days Inn parking lot and the stadium were too high to see over, and I was not willing to wade through knee-high grass, in the dark, on a hot Texas night, in sandals, to get to the other side of the stadium for a peek. (Just thinking about what might have been in that grass makes me shiver.) J was adamant that we couldn't just drive down the street where they were filming because someone would surely catch us and he didn't want to get busted for trespassing. I, on the other hand, was a feeling a little more reckless. So I took the wheel and we just drove right up to the stadium.

Instead of security patrolling the block, as J had expected, we found a row of trailer homes situated directly across from the field, and the 'hood was out in full force watching the show being filmed. People were parked in camping chairs, in little kiddie plastic pools, or on the roofs of their trailer drinking beer, taking pictures, and generally just enjoying the show. Clearly security was not a concern. So we parked our car and just walked right up to the edge of the stadium.

I couldn't see a lot of action on the field with out blatantly sneaking into the shot, but I saw stadium full of fans in red and white (Lions' colors), and then the best part... I saw someone leave the stadium and start walking towards me. As she got closer, I saw that it was Connie Britton in all of her Tami Taylor glory. I'm talking short black dress, cowboy boots, and those flowing locks. She seriously has the best hair. She walked right next to me as I walked back to the car. Like, literally, 2-3 feet away from me. Then we started our car and drove slowly down the street (due to the aforementioned neighbors' antics) and she was literally walking right next to our car for about a block as she walked to her trailer. She was texting or checking something on her phone, so we didn't interact at all, but still... pretty cool. We also ran into her this past spring across the street from our apartment at the Hotel San Jose's pool bar, and, ladies, let me tell you... I will be thrilled to look half as good as her when I'm in my mid-40s. She looks pretty fit and attractive on TV, but she looks amazing in real life.

So we missed out on being extras in Friday Night Lights, but we still got in on a little piece of the action of the final episode ever. When you're watching season 5 next summer, keep an eye out for Tami at a Lion's game in a black dress, and think of us.