Interview: The Four Things I Learned from of Friday Night Lights actress Stacey Oristano

The first thing you should know about Stacey Oristano, the young actress with the small, but significant role of Mindy Collette (married name: Mindy Riggins) on NBC’s Friday Night Lights (which, if you’re not watching, you’re dead to me) is that she has a great laugh.  It’s engaging and sweet, and sporadically pops up during our conversation about her childhood in Arlington, Texas, what it’s like to work with Taylor Kitsch, and her love of reality TV.  During our brief phone conversation, I learned the following things about my favorite current TV show:

1) Friday Night Lights is not making this stuff up:

Now, I went to high school in an urban metropolitan area in the middle of Middle America.  Yet, my high school was so small we didn’t even bother with a football team.  The teenagers on Friday Night Lights, while fully realized and three dimensional (the other day I caught myself saying a silent prayer that Julie and Matt can one day find their way back to each other) are, nonetheless, foreign souls to me due to their football obsession and desperation to grow up and get out of dodge.  Is this what it’s really like for the residents of small towns in Texas?

Apparently, yes.  Although Stacey cannot relate to some of the crazier aspects of Mindy (the stripper job comes to mind), as someone who grew up in Texas herself, Stacey personally testified that the importance of football to a small town in Texas is very, very real.  She also could relate to the needs of people like Matt or Lyla to leave Dillon.  Stacey herself left Arlington, Texas, following high school to attend college in London, where she studied acting at the Rose Bruford School of Speech and Drama.

Still, I wouldn’t take the fancy overseas education to heart.  As Stacy put it herself, “I’m a Texas Girl!”

2) Mindy and Billy are having a boy!

When asked directly about the sex of Mindy and Billy’s offspring, Stacey demurred.  But I’ve got the tape folks, and when Stacy was asked how she relates to Mindy Collette, Stacey said that Mindy loves really hard, including her sister, her mother, her husband and her son.  So you heard it here first (unless, of course, you have DirecTV and/or internet spoilers, in which case, do not, I repeat DO NOT let me know the outcome of the West Dillon v. Dillon showdown that Stacey told me would definitely happen this season), Tim Riggins is going to have a little nephew.  Which, I hope, he will hold shirtless in future episodes to come.  Actually, scratch the nephew – can we just get Tim Riggins holding things shirtless?  Or not holding anything at all, but shirtless?

3) Tim and Billy act like that in real life, too.

You know all that roughhousing Tim and Billy do, because they are brothers, and men who are brothers often show their affection towards each other by causing one another physical pain (or so I’m told – and I believe, cause boys are silly)?  According to Stacey, that’s pretty much how Taylor Kitsch (Tim) and Derek Phillips (Billy) behave towards each other in real life. [Sadly, I neglected to ask her if Taylor roughhouses shirtless.  Sorry, it was my first interview, and I totally choked on this.  I swear, if I get another chance, I’ll ask more shirtless Taylor Kitsch questions, including a request for any and all video samples because that’s just how much I love my readers.]

Additionally, Stacey also said that Taylor and Derek, as well as Adrienne Palicki (who plays her sister Tyra) are wonderful to work with.  I’m completely inclined to believe her, too, because Stacey and Adrienne do have great chemistry together and are completely believable as sisters.  In fact, Stacey calls Adrienne her “best friend in the entire world” which is great to hear, because I always hope that the actresses on TV shows I’m obsessed with are more Courtney Cox/Jennifer Aniston (I hear Courtney still doesn’t speak to Jennifer’s ex, Brad) than Sarah Jessica Parker/Kim Cattrall or Cynthia Nixon or Kristin Davis (have you ever seen one of those actresses-of-Sex and the City interviews? I swear, those women look like they’d rather lick the oil off this pelican than endure each others’ presence off-camera).

4) Stacey and I should totally hang out more.

A couple of facts: 1) Stacey loves Billy Joel and 2) Stacey is completely obsessed with The Real Housewives of New York City and The Real Housewives of New Jersey.  A little fact about myself: the most significant relationships of my life formed have been formed as a result of a mutual love of the objects of either 1) or 2).

Coincidence?  I think not.

Additionally, Stacey and I both agree that the Emmys have tragically overlooked the work of Connie Britton, Kyle Chandler and the entire cast and crew of Friday Night Lights for entirely too long and, further, if the American public continues to ignore this show, they each deserve to be strapped down to a folding chair and forced to watch entire seasons of Gossip Girl, One Tree Hill, and Private Practice, until, so dejected are they at the lack of real people and relationships on TV that a viewer would actually want to root for, they immediately write Peter Berg and beg him to write everything on network TV for the foreseeable future.

Okay, so maybe that last part was just me. But, seriously, Emmy voters?  Take note.

Read more coverage of Friday Night Lights here.

Fridays at 8/7c on NBC

Photographs courtesy of Nathaniel Taylor Photography.