Photo illustration: Caroline Brehman/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock
If you’re a Scott Porter fan, you know he played a lot of nice guys. There was affable former quarterback Jason Street in Friday Night Lights, sweet detective Carol Corbett in Lucifer, and dreamy lawyer George Tucker in Hart of Dixie. Of course, there have been some exceptions – like when he had a small role as Hugh Grant’s bandmate-turned-nemesis in Music and Lyrics – but Porter currently returns as the charming mayor Paul Randolph in Ginny & Georgia, Netflix’s dramedy about a mother-daughter duo trying to escape their dark past and make a life for themselves in a small New England town. But is Paul really just another nice guy, or is there something more sinister about the man engaged to Georgia Miller?
The short answer, according to Porter, is yes. “I don’t know that Paul has a dark side and I don’t know if I want to see it,” he says. Paul is not sneaky; He’s smart and ambitious, and if his murderous fiancé is willing to break the law to help him, he won’t mind as long as he doesn’t know the details. “He understands that if he can’t, she’ll paint outside the lines,” he explains. “I think there’s an unspoken agreement where he’s like, ‘Look, you might get a little dirty, and I’ll protect you.'”
Not surprisingly, Porter wants Paul to be a nice guy. As anyone listening to his FNL Rewatch podcast, It’s Not Only Football — which is part episode depth, part porter squabbling with his co-hosts Zach Gilford and Mae Whitman — can tell you, he seems like a really nice guy himself being . In fact, the first thing he does when he signs up for our video interview after making a self-deprecating joke about his very long hair is to ask about my vacation. (It was very relaxing, thanks for asking.) He spent his free time in full father mode — Porter and his wife, Kelsey Mayfield Porter, have two children, McCoy, 7, and Clover Ash, 5. “I build Legos or we play air hockey ‘ he tells the cut. “That’s the fun stuff.” But now, during his vacation, the self-proclaimed “big kid” is taking time out to chat with the Cut about Ginny & Georgia season 2, the nostalgia of Friday Night Lights, his sneakerhead roots, and what it’s like to be the To be king of comfort television.
You are known for your work on Friday Night Lights, Hart of Dixie and Ginny & Georgia. What’s it like being the king of comfort television?
Comfort TV comes in all forms for many different people. For some, it’s genre television; for some it’s the scariest, scariest, scariest of all shows. But I think for a lot of people, television boils down to community. And I’ve been very fortunate to be part of three shows that have a very strong sense of community.
Friday Night Lights is big drama, and the romantic comedy aspect of Dixie is a complete 180 of it. Ginny & Georgia has so many characters doing so many questionable things that you would think it would put people off, but you start to get drawn to these characters. The other thing that makes Ginny & Georgia a comfort show is how many people are represented by the characters on the show. And in the midst of the pandemic, when people were just looking for someone like them, or someone they felt on par with on TV, you could come to Ginny & Georgia and find any number of those people.
What’s your comfort show?
My ultimate comfort show is Survivor.
Do you think you could survive?
When I was doing the CBS show Scorpion, I was picked by CBS to go down and do a crossover between their scripted and reality television. And I went to Fiji and interviewed all the participants in Survivor’s Game Changers season. I got to sleep on a Survivor Beach, complete a series of immunity challenges, and go to the first tribal council. I really have to worry about Jeff Probst and he and I both agree that I wouldn’t make it through a game as far as the voices go.
That being said, anything in the Marvel Universe is a comfort to me. And Abbott Elementary School.
The Friday Night Lights mantra “Clear Eyes, Full Hearts, Can’t Lose” has become a part of the culture outside of the show. What does the phrase mean to you?
That phrase is a reminder that you were incredibly lucky to get into this business on a show like Friday Night Lights. I think of creator Peter Berg telling us behind the scenes that nobody is pushing us around and really telling us if you’re struggling to make a show, there’s going to be a lot of people wanting to bring their opinions into the mix . And you have to be fully invested and it has to be a collaboration.
So when I think clear eyes, full hearts, can’t lose, I think nobody’s pushing us around. Every day when I go to work I feel happy because I understand how hard it is to make something special and I carry that with me. It’s a rallying cry for everyone else out there, but for me it’s a reminder that you can do really special things in this industry, but you have to put your heart into it.
You’re a well-known sneakerhead. What is your favorite pair of shoes and why?
My favorite pair of all time are the Gym Red Jordan 12s. When I was 16 at my first job I worked at Publix in Florida and these are the first Jordans I could buy. I’m originally from Nebraska and was living in Florida at the time and when these shoes came out they were red and white and I bought them for myself and it just reminded me a bit of home because I had the colors of Nebraska on my feet. It also showed me that if I worked, I could afford the things I wanted. It was the first luxury product I bought.
A lot of people ask me why I wear sneakers or why I’m a sneakerhead, and I haven’t bought myself shoes for a long time after school, but now, as an actor, people tell me what my hair can look like. People tell me if I can shave or not, people tell me what to wear every day. When I go to work I play different characters and my ability to express myself is limited in many ways. When you’re an actor, so much of your life is controlled by other people. So I’m a big fan of sneakers and a big fan of graphic t-shirts because it allows me to show the things I love and my style without having to change my look too much.
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