By now it’s cocktail hour back in Austin, and Chandler is on a coffee-shop patio, nursing a beer. There’s a table of hipster girls in tank tops and cutoffs and a table of frat dudes in boots and pearl snaps. Clicking away on his laptop, there’s a guy in a kilt. Chandler leans back in his chair and stretches for the oak tree shade.

It’s time we got around to talking about Super 8, the film he’s supposed to be promoting. The problem is, he doesn’t know how. The movie’s whole marketing campaign is predicated on a Roswell-esque level of secrecy. Chandler says he wasn’t allowed to read the whole script until he got to the set and, even then, only when he was in his trailer. 

So what can he tell us about it? “Nothing!” he says. “Are you kidding? There’ll be black helicopters flying through here! I’ll get shot off my motorcycle!” 

Here’s what we do know. It was written and directed by Abrams and produced by Steven Spielberg. There’s a train crash, and possibly aliens. Chandler plays either a sheriff’s deputy or a guy wearing a deputy’s uniform. (“I’m the adult lead” is all he’ll say.) Is he fighting aliens? “It’s top secret.” Did he do any stunts? “You’ll just have to watch.” Come on, tell us something. Fine, he says. “Dakota Fanning’s in it.” 

Actually, it’s Elle Fanning, Dakota’s little sister. The fact that Chandler doesn’t know the difference is either an innocent slipup or a sign of how truly little a shit he gives about Hollywood. Maybe both.

Abrams says that, beneath all the extraterrestrial pyrotechnics, Chandler’s character is essentially a flawed but ultimately devoted dad who’s trying to mend his relationship with his son — basically, Chandler’s wheelhouse. Abrams says he was drawn to Chandler’s Everyman quality, to the way he balances strength and vulnerability. “He’s someone who can take the audience into any situation, and you just want to go with him because he’s so likable and familiar.”

In a way, Chandler’s likability is his blessing and his curse. It’s impossible not to root for him as a good, solid dude up against a superior force, be it an alien invasion or a teenage daughter. But it must get old, too, being so damn decent all the time. Even on Friday Night Lights, he says, “I tried to be as much of an asshole as I could.” Just once he’d like to play an honest-to-God villain — an evil madman, or a serial killer. “To do the research to get into those guys — those are fun, murky waters. But not many of those roles have come across my plate.”

Chandler doesn’t know what his next role will be (although he’s rumored to be in discussions about a superhero-cop show on FX). In the meantime, there’s always work to do. “Right now my project is picking up some of this wild seed,” he says. “The property we’re on is overgrazed a bit, so I found a seed company out in Junction and ordered seed that takes it back to its natural state — all the grasses that were here originally.” He also put in a tank and stocked it with catfish and bluegill. “The fingerlings just went in in October, so I’ve got a while to wait before we start frying them up. But my daughter goes out every once in a while and throws a hook in, just to see if anything’s biting.”

We sit for a while, drinking beer and shooting the shit. He talks about grilling recipes, how he knew he was in love, how it’s a shame kids don’t make phone calls anymore. I tell him I grew up nearby (the Friday Night Lights pilot was filmed at my high school), and we discover that we’re both fans of the same country cafe, a little place that serves Dr Pepper in plastic cups and a killer chicken-fried steak. I had gone there for lunch with my grandfather just two days earlier. 

“Oh,” Chandler says, “does he live out that way?” 

He doesn’t, I say, but it’s close to the nursing home where my grandmother is. She has Alzheimer’s. He visits her every day. I start to go on, but Chandler cuts me off. 

“Look, you don’t need to talk about that stuff,” he says brusquely. “My God. That’s one of the hardest things in the world. That’s grown-up shit.” 

It feels like some invisible boundary has been crossed. We sit for a minute in silence; his hands are tense. But soon he starts to soften. Almost inaudibly, he says, “Ma’s got the Alzheimer’s too.” 

It turns out she’s in a place not too far away. He asks that the rest of the conversation be off-the-record, so it is, but he probably won’t mind me saying that it involves sadness and laughter in equal amounts, which seems about right. 

Later, I’ll learn that Chandler goes to the nursing home a lot. That he knows all the residents by name. That he likes to bring them milk shakes from Sonic and remembers everyone’s favorite flavor. Sometimes he’ll spend hours there, going from wheelchair to wheelchair, talking to the old guys about the war. He comes out drained, but he loves it. 

But this afternoon, with the sun dipping low, Chandler doesn’t say any of that. He just leans forward and clinks his bottle with mine. “Anyway,” he says. “Cheers.”

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Super 8 is out now. Here’s the trailer:

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This article originally appeared in the June 2011 issue of Men’s Journal.

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