<\/p>\n
The same night Kyle Chandler<\/a> won an Emmy for the final season of \u201cFriday Night Lights,\u201d<\/a> he shut the door on its future.<\/p>\n Speaking at the ATX Television Festival<\/a> during a panel honoring the 20th anniversary of the acclaimed drama\u2019s premiere, the man forever known as Coach Taylor shared a story he said he\u2019d \u201cnever mentioned before.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThat night when I did win the award, it only serves as credit to the way you guys ended the show,\u201d Chandler said. \u201cIt was so obvious that it was the best way to end the show. It was the perfect way to end the show\u2026 And it was just so intrinsically obvious that we had gotten away with murder. They tried to shut us down, they\u2019d done this, they\u2019d tried that, blah blah blah, all this crap, right?\u201d<\/p>\n He continued: \u201cSo that night when I won the award, no more than 10 seconds after I sit in my seat back at my table, after walking back and doing the pictures \u2014 I\u2019m so proud, I\u2019m so happy, and this and that \u2014 I won\u2019t mention who it was, but somebody came up to me and said, \u2018Do you want to do a movie?\u2019 I had an offer to do \u2018Friday Night Lights: The Movie,\u2019 and I just immediately said, \u2018No.\u2019 We really did something. I knew it was something great\u2026 It was damn hard work\u2026Now, 20 years later, people are still watching the show. Anyway, I\u2019m just saying, y\u2019all did a great job, we all did a great job, it was just once in a lifetime \u2014 period.\u201d<\/p>\n The crowd, filling every seat on both levels of the Paramount Theater in Austin, TX, agreed. The 90-minute panel was filled with steady applause, loud cheers, and overt enthusiasm for the NBC series inspired by Buzz Bissinger\u2019s nonfiction book and the subsequent film of the same name.<\/p>\n The evening kicked off with a special performance from Crucifictorious<\/a>, the band from the show led by Jesse Plemons and Stephanie Hunt. Plemons also revived the group for the show\u2019s 10th anniversary in 2016<\/a> at the same festival, with Kirsten Dunst in attendance.<\/p>\n Once Plemons left the mic after playing \u201cWalking in a TV\u201d and covering Tony Lucca\u2019s \u201cDevil Town,\u201d the ATX TV Festival co-founders made way for Jason Katims (showrunner), David Hudgins (executive producer and writer), Jeffrey Reiner (E.P. and writer), Kerry Ehrin (consulting producer and writer), and cast members including Plemons, Chandler, Connie Britton, Gaius Charles, Brad Leland, Adrianne Palicki, Derek Phillips, Scott Porter, Stacey Oristano, Louanne Stephens, and Aimee Teegarden.<\/p>\n The ensuing conversation ranged from casting rumors, like how creator Peter Berg initially pursued Dwight Yoakam to play Coach Taylor, to protecting the Taylor marriage, who soon blossomed into one of television\u2019s best couples.<\/p>\n \u201cWe don\u2019t want our characters to have affairs,\u201d Britton said, remembering her first conversation with Chandler about their roles. \u201cWe don\u2019t want it to be about pitting the two of them against each other. Most marriages, the couples are just trying to make it work with each other, and get through life with each other. We really wanted to show a picture of that kind of marriage, as opposed to the very over-dramatized, fraught [TV marriages]. So we did say to the writers, \u2018Don\u2019t do that.\u2019 Right?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYes, you made it very clear,\u201d Katims said.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd you were so nice about it,\u201d Britton added with a smile.<\/p>\n