Photo by Jim Wright

 

By now Kyle Chandler has figured a few things out — billiards, barbecue, how to keep a rewarding career in Hollywood while staying true to self and family in the Texas Hill Country. But this summer — thanks to J.J. Abrams’s Super 8 — the Friday Night Lights star could face something truly perplexing: movie stardom.

 

by Josh Eells

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A couple of years ago, Kyle Chandler — Emmy-nominated actor, fictional football coach, would-be movie star, dad, husband, and cougar-crush object — was taking a road trip from his home in Los Angeles to Austin, Texas, to film the fourth season of his TV show, Friday Night Lights. He’d made the drive a few times before, sometimes in his Porsche Boxster, once on his motorcycle. This time, he brought his wife. The two of them were happy to be on the road, enjoying a break from the grind of PTA obligations and L.A. traffic, when, somewhere in the desert between Palm Springs and El Paso, Kathryn Chandler turned to her husband with a question.

“Babe,” she said. “Are you happy where we’re at?”

“You gotta be kidding me,” answered Chandler, with a look of exasperation familiar to anyone who’s seen Friday Night Lights’s Coach Eric Taylor deal with his guidance-counselor wife. “Are we really having this conversation right now?” But they were — and, to be honest, he wasn’t. By the time they pulled into Austin a few days later, the Chandlers had decided to put their Topanga home (which they’d “just finished remodeling”) on the market and move their two girls to the Lone Star State. “And now,” he says, “here we are.” 

It’s a gorgeous spring day in Central Texas, the sky a cloudless Dillon Panther blue. Chandler is on the patio of an Austin oyster bar, a cold drink sweating in his hand, sporty sunglasses hooked around his neck, his motorcycle helmet on the bench next to him. (He rode his Yamaha here.) Chandler is so completely Coach Taylor that you half expect him to be wearing a windbreaker, Oakleys, and a headset, but instead he’s country-casual in motorcycle boots and illicit Wranglers. (“No Wranglers” was one of Kathryn’s only rules about their new life in Texas.)

“It’s nice to meet someone and have them be exactly the guy you hoped they’d be,” says J.J. Abrams, who directed Chandler in this summer’s top-secret sci-fi action flick Super 8. And indeed, Chandler exudes solid regular dude–ness. Onscreen he specializes in the kind of competent good guys — athletes, cowboys, soldiers, cops — who handle their business and don’t make a big fuss, and he comports himself with the kind of decency and honor that men aspire to but rarely achieve. 

Chandler spent 21 years living in L.A., but it never really suited him. He’s too self-effacing, too genuinely earnest — all “yes, ma’am” and “no, ma’am” in his easy Georgia drawl. “Everything moves a little quicker in Los Angeles,” he says. (He never calls it L.A.) “A lot of times you don’t know your next-door neighbor.” He’s much happier in Austin. They’ve got a 33-acre spread half an hour southwest of town, where he can busy himself with the horses and donkeys or survey the fence line on his big orange tractor, which Kathryn calls “his happy place.” He’s a volunteer fireman. He hangs out at the Seed & Feed. Sometimes he gets on his bike and just cruises the Hill Country. 

Chandler’s résumé is a case study in how to make it in show business without being a superstar. Colleagues compare him to square-jawed greats like Gary Cooper and Cary Grant, but his career never quite caught fire like it seems it could have. He’s filmed three TV pilots that never made it to the air. He starred opposite Joan Cusack in a sub–Dharma & Greg sitcom called What About Joan? (canceled after a season) and with Rob Lowe in a courtroom drama called The Lyon’s Den (which lasted half that long). He played a country-music roadie (in Pure Country) and a convict cowboy (in Convict Cowboy); three times, he’s been blown up. He was nominated for an Emmy for his guest spot on Grey’s Anatomy, but the closest he’s come to being a leading man was in 2005’s King Kong, in which he played a preening ’30s matinee idol — a character that was mainly just a send-up of leading men.  

“I do wonder how hard he tried to make it,” says Friday Night Lights creator Peter Berg. “He does it on his own terms. I think he’s more concerned with raising his daughters and being a husband and having a life.” 

Chandler would agree. “Pete said to me once, ‘No one knows who you are, but you’re always working.’ I don’t mind that. I own my own time. I work six months and get three or four with the family. I’ve stopped racing to get to the red light.”

But you also don’t make a living in show business for as long as he has without being a little bit of an operator. He’s just about to dive into some crab cakes when a middle-aged lady in a pantsuit and teacher glasses approaches. “I’m sorry to interrupt,” she says. “But my business partner and I, we’re launching a website.” She tells him it’s a green version of the yellow pages, all environmentally friendly local businesses, and that they’re doing some promotion soon, and they’d love it if he could help. She says she’ll get in touch through his agent, but she wanted to give him her card now, as a reminder. Chandler smiles and nods. 

“Anyway,” she says, “we’re gonna be launching around Earth Day…”

“When’s Earth Day?” he jumps in.

“April 22.” 

“April, wow, what a coincidence. Because on May 13, we’re doing a charity golf tournament out at Wolfdancer.” It’s a fund-raiser for football players with spinal-cord injuries — he does it every year. “If you wanna advertise and be a sponsor out there,” he says, “get your word out, you’d be more than welcome.” 

The woman’s a little thrown. “Huh, yeah, that sounds cool…” 

“Seems like a real good opportunity for you,” he says, smiling. “Maybe you rub my back, I’ll rub yours?” 

“I’ll check it out,” she says, befuddled by the do-gooder jujitsu just executed on her. “Thanks.”

She heads off, and Chandler gives a little wave. Then he turns back with a grin. “Didn’t see that coming, did she?” 

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