ATX TV Festival Celebrates Texas Television with ‘Friday Night Lights’ Reunion

AUSTIN (June 1, 2026) — Clear-eyed, full-hearted fans of “Friday Night Lights” packed the Paramount Theater on May 29 for a reunion panel hosted by the ATX TV Festival and NBC Universal.

Fittingly held on a hot Friday night, the celebration of Texas-made television marked the 20th anniversary of the beloved series about a small-town high school football team, adapted from the book and film of the same name.

Eleven cast members and four producers (including David Hudgins, Kerry Ehrin and Jeffrey Reiner) took the stage to reflect on the show’s authenticity and impact on television history. Emmy winners Kyle Chandler (Coach Eric Taylor) and Jason Katims (Executive Producer) attended along with Connie Britton (Tami Taylor), Adrianne Palicki (Tyra Collette), Aimee Teegarden (Julie Taylor), Gaius Charles (Smash Williams), Scott Porter (Jason Street), Stacey Oristano (Mindy Riggins) and Derek Phillips (Billy Riggins). Texas natives Brad Leland (Buddy Garrity), Louanne Stephens (Grandma Seracen) and Jesse Plemons (Landry Clarke) also returned to celebrate two decades of “Friday Night Lights.”

“It’s hard to describe this show - it was so magical. Not just for the audience, but for the actors,” said Kyle Chandler, who won an Emmy award in 2011 after five seasons playing Dillon Panthers head coach Eric Taylor. “It’s not Shakespearean, but it’s freedom. It’s play. It’s called play for a reason. This gave us the ultimate ability to play.”

Showrunner Katims said “the spirit of how we wrote and shot was like nothing else I’ve ever been a part of. That’s reflected in why the show feels so visceral when you watch it - you can’t help but connect to it.”

Connection and authenticity were running themes throughout the two-hour panel moderated by Texas Monthly writer Sean O’Neal, who called “Friday Night Lights” the “greatest TV drama that the state of Texas has ever produced…it was about Texas in a way that no series before or since has ever really captured. Most importantly, it was made right here in this town.”



Filming locally was important to Katims, who believes the setting added to the show’s success: “Authenticity was literally what we talked about everywhere - the writers’ room, on set, the editing room. What would really happen? What would these people really say? The idea that we were going for is: imagine you were just dropped down into this world. You’re living with these people, you’re sort of falling in love with them. You get it, you understand it.”

The series also let the story lead the way, without
"proselytizing" to the audience, Katims said. “We’re not trying to tell you what to think. That was different from a lot of shows at the time. We were trying to put it out there as honestly as we could.”



“That’s the amazing thing about this show - the writing is so good, literally everyone in the cast,” said Plemons, who kicked off the evening with a performance from his character's fictional band Crucifictorious (alongside Stephanie Hunt). “It’s impossible for me to imagine any other actor on the planet playing these parts.”

The cast briefly shared where they believe their characters would be in 2026: Gaius Charles suggested Smash made the NFL Hall of Fame and bought his mother a house; Britton hoped Tami would be the president of a university and “trying to teach young people how to talk to each other.” Aimee Teegarden believes Julie and Matt are emulating the “beautiful bond” displayed in Eric and Tami’s marriage, which is lauded by television fans and critics as one of the most admirable on-screen portrayals of a long-term partnership.

“We agreed very early on that we didn’t want our characters to have affairs - we didn’t want it to be about pitting the two of them against each other,” Britton said. “Because in most marriages, the couple’s just trying to make it work and get through life with each other. We really wanted to show a picture of that kind of marriage as opposed to a very over-dramatized fraught [relationship].”

For executive producer Jeffrey Reiner, the show also transcended geography and background: “Jason and I are two Jews from New York and suddenly we were in Texas. But so much about the social class and economic class is universal.”

Nonprofit organization and festival partner Media for Texas presented the cast and creators with the Texas Made Award, celebrating “people and productions that are made in the state and tell Texans’ stories.” The event was also supported by the Austin Film Commission.

O’Neal thanked Katims and company for “making a TV show about Texans as characters, not caricatures - not to mention all the work you brought to the Texas film industry. I don’t know if you realize how much it meant to people who live here, who grew up here, to see ourselves represented onscreen with such nuance, with such grace.”

Stephens, who played Grandma Seracen on the series, agreed: “We really showed Texas. It didn’t make Texans look dumb.”

It was a bookend of sorts for the fest, which launched in 2011 with a “Friday Night Lights” celebration after the series concluded in a blaze of Emmy-winning glory, launching the careers of Academy Award nominees like Plemons and Michael B. Jordan.

“We say that we built the festival on the back of ‘Friday Night Lights,’” festival co-founder Emily Gipson said. “It really set the stage for every reunion we’ve ever done.”

Past fest programming also included a 2016 anniversary celebration on the Dillon Panther football field, and outdoor “tailgates” with screenings and meet-and-greets across the event’s 15 seasons.

“It speaks to how much [the cast and creators] loved the show, how much they loved one another, how special it was,” festival co-founder Caitlin McFarland agreed. “We are honored that they choose to spend their time with us…Austin is their home.”

In true coach fashion, Chandler likened the cast reunion and the creative process to a team sport: “We were all a team, every one of us. And I don’t mean the actors and the writers and the directors - I mean everyone, from the guy sweeping up at night to the guy up in the top office. You won’t capture that again. You can’t recreate that. It was these people, these directors, these writers, the time - it was special. We did something great - 20 years later, people are still watching the show. It was history. Once in a lifetime, period.”