\u201cKristen Bell and Dax Shepard both [came up to] me,” she says. “Their daughter was with them and they were like, \u2018Oh my God, we’re watching it and we’re all obsessed as a family.’ But it’s funny. My son has given me so much crap over the years. He’s like, ‘Oh Mom, you never do anything that I can watch.\u2019 And I’m like, ‘Well, now you’re old enough.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Friday Night Lights, which ran on NBC and DirecTV from 2006-2011, followed a small-town high school football team and the surrounding community of Dillon, Texas. Britton played Tami Taylor, high school guidance counselor\/principal and wife to the team\u2019s head coach (played by Kyle Chandler).<\/p>\n
As for Rooster, Britton says that when she was approached by her former Spin City boss Bill Lawrence to appear opposite Steve Carell on the series, the new character fit right into what she looks for in a role. <\/p>\n
\u201cFor me, it’s important that any character that I play is going to be reflective to the audience [of] who we are,\u201d Britton says. \u201cI’m particularly interested in the female experience and exploring that through these characters. And honestly, it really was playing Tami Taylor that made me realize that we do have that capacity.<\/p>\n \u201cI was incredibly privileged to have the experience [of Friday Night Lights]. It set a bar. [With] every character I play, I want to have women see themselves in some way in it and have men see the women they know in some way.”<\/p>\n In Rooster, Britton plays Elizabeth, the ex-wife of Carell\u2019s character, Greg Russo. In Episode 5, Elizabeth returns to Greg\u2019s life for the grand opening of a building that has been named in her honor. Britton says that, although the shows are tonally different, working on Rooster was similar to her time on Friday Night Lights. <\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s an environment where there’s room to discover all the time,\u201d Britton says. \u201cWe did it on Friday Night Lights, that sort of improvisational background. You discover so much about relationships and character in doing that. And that\u2019s Steve Carell too.<\/p>\n “[He] is the best. We were cracking up all the time, like 100% of the time. It\u2019s a joyous environment, it’s a joyous group of people, but I think the freedom to be able to do that comes from the fact that there’s all of this life going on underneath. And specifically with Steve, it’s all alive and percolating underneath there, and he can access it at any time.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/a>Charlie Clive and Connie Britton in Rooster. Courtesy Katrina Marcinowski\/HBO<\/p>\n