KEY POINTS:
A horse whinnies in the background, drowning out Kyle Chandler's greeting. As the loud clip-clopping fades into the distance, the softly spoken Chandler tries again, revealing an Elvis-like, down home drawl.
The actor is not dissimilar to his character Eric Taylor, coach of the fictitious Dillon Panthers football
team in the Emmy Award-winning drama Friday Night Lights. Both are prone to silent pauses as they consider their next laconic sentence; both quietly passionate about what they do.
The series will premiere in New Zealand on August 1, as part of C4's new line up of long-format programming, and is set to become the most serious drama ever to screen on the youth-oriented channel.
Chandler, who viewers may recall from the sci-fi drama Early Edition and Peter Jackson's King Kong (he played Bruce Baxter, the matinee idol in Jack Black's Skull Island project), says he relates to Taylor - and the football-mad culture of small town America.
"Dillon is one of these small places where the older folk are relaxed and settled into their ways and the young folk just want to get out and kick the dirt off their shoes.
"Football is one way of doing that. That's their golden ticket - Willy Wonka's ticket to get out."
Chandler has first-hand experience of that small town mindset. After a childhood in New York and Illinois, his family moved when he was 11 years old to Loganville, Georgia. Population: less than 5000.
"It was a very rural, small town. You had to walk a while to get to your buddy's house," Chandler laughs slowly.
"That very distinctly gives me a personal insight into how these towns work and how people act. I've been where this thing takes place. I grew up there. There's a lot I can take from my past."
The actor also knows the pressure of being on the high school football team, competing for the state championship. Chandler joined the team in his freshman year of high school and was the smallest player on the squad.
"I really got the piss kicked out of me. But we won the state championship that year," he says, before another thoughtful pause.
"It was, no doubt, a very character-building experience. One that I haven't forgotten. That first season of football, it changed me, for sure."
Based on the non-fiction book by H.G. Bissinger, the series was created by Hancock director Peter Berg, who also directed the 2004 film version, starring Billy Bob Thornton.
The title refers to the football stadium floodlights, which illuminate the state of Texas every Friday night. "There's a saying down there, in these towns," explains Chandler, "Last one out of town, turn out the lights.
"On a Friday night, everyone goes to the game, so the last one out has to turn out the lights because the town's emptied out. Everyone's at these massive stadiums that hold thousands of people."
The series has earned widespread acclaim in America for its fly-on-the-wall style of filming and realistic approach to drama. Many of the game scenes are shot at actual high school football games, complete with brass bands, cheerleaders and roaring crowds.
"It's very voyeuristic," says Chandler. Part of that style comes from shooting with 16mm handheld cameras, which allow the cast and crew more freedom when filming scenes.
"When we get scenes and we realise that we're not getting everything out of them that we want to, we're able to deconstruct the scene on set and work it.
"Because of the way we shoot, things move quick, so we've got the time to do this. You can do it as written and then you can change it up."
This unusual approach to filming was established by Berg on the very first day the cast convened to make the series. "We were given these rules the day before we started shooting. Berg stood up in the room with everyone and said, 'The rules are: Know your lines 100 per cent. Know your character 110 per cent. And be prepared to throw it all out'."
But, Chandler points out, that doesn't happen as often as some have made out.
"Most of the time, it's off the page. We've got some tremendous writers, to say nothing of the editors who take all of that and put it together."
He is also full of praise for his young co-stars, who he jokes dryly, are more experienced actors than he is.
"None of those kids need my advice. They're working more than I am," he laughs. "They're all really fine actors. For whatever advice I might give to them, I've gotten just as much advice back. We're always learning."
Despite the high school setting, and largely teenage cast, the series stands apart from the glossy, polished melodrama of other teen series. Think One Tree Hill, The O.C and Gossip Girl.
That, Chandler says matter-of-factly, is because it is not a teen drama.
"I certainly don't look at it as a teen drama. There are a lot of teenagers and there is a lot of drama - it's a TV show. But I don't see it like that."
The naturalistic style of story-telling removes the angst and brooding qualities of other teen series, says Chandler, whose only hesitation about joining the cast was taking on the role previously played by the much older Thornton.
"I didn't like the idea of it at all. I still feel 16 at heart so I thought 'I'm too young to be a football coach. That's crazy.'
"Taking on someone else's position like that, it sort of stuck in my craw. But once I got to know the people involved, I thought it was a pretty good opportunity. The people involved are really what made me trust the project.
"It's turned out, I think, to be one of the best decisions of my career so far."
The scorecard - What the American reviewers have been saying about FNL
"Friday Night Lights is a wonder. It's a big drama, and even seasoned pilot sceptics - and their bookies, who rank shows based on the odds they'll be cancelled - will have a hard time not getting choked up at tonight's episode. At this rate, Friday Night Lights might just bring old NBC the state championship. It's been a long time."
Virginia Heffernan, New York Times
"Extraordinary in just about every conceivable way - but especially in the quality of its cast - NBC's Friday Night Lights expands upon and extends the 2004 movie of the same name about high school football in a Texas town where the game is only nominally a game.
"It's hard to recall a more powerful confrontation in a piece of episodic television, at least so far this century. Chandler and Gilford are electrifying."
Tom Shales, Washington Post
"In beautifully shot, faux-documentary fashion, Friday Night Lights traces the activities, large and small, that lead up to the season opener. The climax is a well-choreographed game that generates a fair share of excitement - despite an outcome that will seem pre-ordained to anyone who saw the Lights movie.
"The real joy of the show lies in its smaller moments. The show abounds with accurately observed, artfully rendered snippets of real life, from the obnoxious businessmen who cluster around the coach, to the nattering voices on radio, to the solidity of the churches and the faith they represent."
Robert Bianco, USA Today
"Friday Night Lights is more than a football drama for ESPN types about whether the Panthers' offence can score. It's a drama about small-town Texas, adolescence, adolescent adults, Americana, religion, racism, family, gender roles, and, oh yes, football, too."
Matthew Gilbert, Boston Globe
Gridiron - THE RULES
Although American Football comes across like a sport built around ad breaks, it's a highly skilled game based around strategy as well as brute strength.
Each team has 11 players on the field at a time, but the total numbers of players on a team can number up to 46, all with highly specialised roles.
A team is made up of a defensive unit and offensive unit.
The team that has the ball (the offence) has four attempts, called downs (similar to the six tackle rule in league), to advance the ball 9.1m (or 10 yards in American-speak) towards the defensive team's end zone.
The ball is put into play by a snap, where offensive players line up facing defensive players. The centre on the offensive side "snaps" the ball between his legs to a teammate, usually the quarterback. At this point all hell breaks loose as the hulking defensive line tries to overwhelm the quarterback, and other members of the offensive team, and tries to stop other players receiving the ball.
When the offence gains 10 yards, it gets a first down, which means the team has another set of four downs to gain yet another 10 yards, or score with. If the offence fails to gain a first down (10 yards) after 4 downs, possession is turned over.
Teams score by getting the ball into the end zone, either by carrying it (a running play) or passing it to a teammate (a passing play). Touchdown!
SCORING
Touchdown: 6 points
Conversion: 1 point for a kick, 2 points for running into end zone like a touchdown
Field goal: 3 points
LOWDOWN
Who: Kyle Chandler, born September 17, 1965 in Buffalo, New York
What: Friday Night Lights, premieres Friday, August 1, at 8.30pm on C4
Based on: The real-life story of the Odessa Panthers - a high school football team - and their 1988 season, as catalogued by author H. G. Bissinger in his non-fiction book Friday Night Lights: A Town, a Team, a Dream