Scott Porter Talks ‘Friday Night Lights,’ ‘Hart of Dixie,’ and More [Exclusive Interview]

Scott Porter’s career has certainly evolved since his early days beatboxing in Disney World.

Porter has gone from playing an altar boy, to a football star, to a singing lawyer, and now he finds himself playing, “a real bad guy,” on the Robert Kirkman’s new Cinemax thriller, Outcast.

I sat down with Porter at the ATX Television Festival, where he was celebrating the 10 Year Reunion of Friday Night Lights, a series that he landed in his first pilot season in Los Angeles.

What many don’t know is that Porter came very close to landing a series regular role as ‘Guy’ on another show being celebrated at the festival this year, Ugly Betty.

“It was actually ‘Guy’ (pronounced ‘Yee’) He was a gay french clothing designer. And I booked that and Friday Night Lights on the same day. And I was in first position with FNL, and Ugly Betty had the second position, which means if both shows go, Friday Night Lights owns me, basically,” Porter said.

“So my lines were taken from me and given to Vanessa Williams, and my big scene. And now all you do is see me clicking a slideshow, a Power Point presentation, as [Eric] Mabius gets ripped to shreds by Vanessa Williams, and I’m just in the corner going, ‘Click! Click! Click!’”

Porter went on to say, “It’s the worst, because it really is ‘Yee’ but it’s spelled ‘Guy’ and when you look it up on IMDB I’m just ‘Guy’…’Guy…Ugly Betty.’”

While we may not remember Guy, Porter’s performances as Friday Night Lights‘ Jason Street and Hart of Dixie‘s George Tucker certainly earned him a place in our memories – and in television history.

Porter also discussed what it feels like to celebrate Friday Night Lights‘ 10th anniversary in Austin, where the show was filmed. “We’d never have it any other way. We have to celebrate in Austin. This is a second home to me, and all of us really. We’ve gone on to work everywhere else: New York, LA, Nashville, Vancouver, whatever…it always feels like you’re coming back home because of the experience we had on Friday Night Lights.”

Porter isn’t the only Dillon High alumni who went on to great things. Matt Lauria can be seen on Kingdom, Kyle Chandler has found success on Bloodline, Connie Britton went on to star on Nashville, and fan-favorite Crucifictorius singer Jesse Plemons…

“Jesse’s gone on this amazing journey of like, film and television shows that are just the top… I mean, Breaking Bad, Fargo, The Master, Black Mass,” Porter said. “I mean, to see him as an 18-year-old when I met him, to be where he is now, and who he is now, and the list goes on and on, you know? It’s incredible.”

With the cast moving on to new eras in their careers, it seems like it may be a challenge for them to reunite again…at least for the foreseeable future.

“I feel like this might be the last time we all get together in a room for a while. We’re all busy. This cast is so incredibly talented that everyone is working constantly and we’re all over the four corners of the earth. So to travel down here and see everybody sit in the field house, of all places, that was the real special moment. Just talking about where we are now,” Porter explained.

Following Friday Night Lights, Porter joined the cast of The Good Wife, playing Blake Calamar, an investigator hired by Lockhart Gardner. The role allowed Porter to show off his dark side, but many fans weren’t on board with it.

“I don’t get more hate for any other role than Blake Calamar…The fans are brutal with the Blake Calamar hate. And it’s because Archie [Panjabi] was so good as Kalinda, and I was messing with their Kalinda. And they feel like, that’s THEIR Kalinda and I need to back off, and they need to protect her…She can protect herself, guys.”

The Calamar hate doesn’t end there, according to Porter. “Buzzfeed or Huffington Post, or whatever, will do ‘Best Characters from The Good Wife‘ and I’ll be 74 out of 75. They call me ‘fish-face,’ and they say all these things!”

“But the interesting thing about Blake is that’s exactly what he was supposed to be,” Porter continued. “He was a blunt object in a room that had scalpels everywhere. He was the hammer. And he was supposed to be that. He was supposed to come in like a wrecking ball and just start breaking all the glass panels in the offices of Lockhart Gardner. And he did it. He came in, and he left a wake of destruction behind him. I did my job, he did his job.”

Porter was fortunate that the right people DID enjoy his turn on The Good Wife. “The people that will put me on another television show enjoyed that storyline. So in this instance, fans, you’re wrong…Yeah, I said it.” Porter said, with a smile.

Porter went from Blake to Bluebell, where he starred for four seasons as George Tucker on Hart of Dixie. While he was initially set up to be a potential love interest for Rachel Bilson’s character, Zoe Hart, George’s role on the series took a different turn.

“It never quite got there for us, for Zoe and George, and you can just imagine what might have been. But when the Wade and Zoe thing took off, it was a rocket, and you couldn’t stop it. The fans were yelling, and kicking, and screaming, saying, ‘That’s what we want!’” Porter said.

Porter expanded on Zoe and George’s could-be romance, one that he admitted to being “bummed” about not playing out on-screen.

“I think there is something to opposites attracting and too much of the same not leading to happiness. I think, ultimately, [Zoe and George] weren’t going to end up together. I’m completely fine with them not ending up together…I think when you get the two of them together, they’re both very driven, self-starters; she’s a doctor, he’s a lawyer, they’re both intelligent,” Porter explained.

“But I don’t know that they challenge each other in the way that Wade and Zoe challenge each other. And I think that’s what you need. You need someone who’s going to challenge you, not intellectually all the time, not conversationally all the time, but emotionally, constantly and they push and pull and stretch each other in ways that George and Zoe never would.”

“That’s why Annabeth is such a great landing spot for George,” Porter continued. “I think the two of them are gonna challenge each other and be comfortable with each other.”

Continuing to champion George’s surprise romance with Annabeth (played by Kaitlyn Black) toward the end of the series, Porter said, “It had been built up since Season 1…Annabeth had a series of bad luck with guys. And George had bad luck with women, and both of them were a little resistant to trust…but they were both there to put a band-aid on for each other, and to help fix the bruises, so it was awesome.”

Porter was also really happy with the end of the series. “The way it ended, I think is perfect. Leila [Gerstein] and our entire crew of writers were so masterful in the last season of Hart of Dixie. It was such a joyous final season. You didn’t feel sadness. You were just smiling, and you wanted to sing along with us. And you bought it — that it happened, and that it works, and that Bluebell exists, and it’s lovely, and you just want to go there. So at the end of the day, I wouldn’t change a thing with how the show ended and who everybody ended up with.”

Porter has been fortunate to work on-screen with wonderful leading ladies like Panjabi, Bilson, and Black.

Off-screen, he is happily married to Kelsey Mayfield Porter, and the two have a one-year-old son, McCoy.

Porter’s wife was diagnosed with Huntington’s Disease shortly after their wedding in 2013, and the couple opened up to People magazine in 2015 about their brave battle with the disease that causes nerve cells in the brain to break down over time.

As the couple works to raise awareness about the disease, Porter told us that there is one thing he wants people to know about Huntington’s: “The thing I would say to people is, I want them to know that you don’t have to pass the gene down. We did something called PGD IVF. Go out look it up…it’s pretty involved. It’s genetic testing for embryos, and you can make sure that you don’t pass it down any longer. McCoy, my son, is clean…that Huntington’s gene will end with my wife. It will never be passed down from my kids to anyone else.”

He continued, “And you know, that PGD IVF, we really need the government to step in. We really need insurance companies to step up. Because if we can raise awareness and we can get that covered by insurance, in some way shape or form, then we can eradicate this genetic disease. We could end it, as long as everybody is getting tested for it. And then if they’re having children, then you know, take these steps.”

“But it’s expensive,” Porter said. “That’s where we need the government and insurance companies to step in, step up, and it’s gonna be a long fight. That’s what I think people should know. It’s not impossible to have kids. You don’t have to give them Huntington’s, it doesn’t have to get passed down. You can end it right now, this generation. So that’s what we did with our son, and hopefully others will be able to do that.”

Speaking of his son, Porter talked about what he’s looking forward to sharing with McCoy from his career. “While he’s young, it’s gonna be Aquaman and Superboy, and the Lego Batman game. And then when he gets a little bit older, it’s gonna be the music video from Music & Lyrics, ‘Pop Goes My Heart.’ I can teach him those sweet ’80s dance moves…I think then when he hits his teens, it’s Friday Night Lights.”

“His future, it makes me smile,” Porter said. “The times I’m gonna get to spend with him and the things we’re gonna get to watch, and the things we’re gonna get to play together, so…it’s not about me. It’s about him and what he wants to do.”

Looking ahead, Porter has a few projects coming down the pipe.

“We’re exploring the possibility of maybe Tim Armstrong coming back on Scorpion…I’ve got Outcast, and I’m currently voicing a character for Telltale, which does episodic video gaming. I did The Walking Dead Season 2 for them, and I’m currently in their Minecraft story-mode. It’s a very Goonies-esque style game, set in the Minecraft universe. It’s me, Patton Oswalt, Martha Plimpton, Brian Posehn, Paul Ruebens, Cory Feldman, Ashley Johnson, the list goes on and on. Super talented cast, and it’s a lot of fun.”

Also on Porter’s radar? A Friday Night Lights Musical, where he would star as Coach Taylor.

“I think it’s still happening. I was just talking with Jordan Ross the other day. It’s not what people think it is. It’s not an hour and a half long song and dance…what the Friday Night Lights Concert Musical will be is actors cast in roles, reading off a page, small vignette scenes, and then singing, as a cast, the music that was just so important to help set that scene.”

He started as a Disney World beatboxer, and now he’s revisiting his days at Dillon for a musical. Would Porter ever consider a music career? “I’ve got my hands full trying to be an actor, ’cause I’m not really one. I just keep on waiting for someone to figure it out.”

My interview with Scott Porter didn’t stop there. I also asked him some “lightning round” questions. Does he prefer Marvel or DC? Who would win at Monopoly, George Tucker or Jason Street? If he were trapped on a desert island with any three television characters, who would he choose?

Find out those answers and more in the video below!

You can check out all of our coverage of the ATX Television Festival right here. (There is still more to come!)