If Lieutenant Nathan Boone on the hit CBS show “Sheriff Country” looks familiar to you, it might be because you’re a “Friday Night Lights” fan.
Boone is played by 44-year-old American actor Matt Lauria, who landed his first TV role in Season 2 of the NBC sitcom “30 Rock.” In the 2007 episode “Jack Gets in the Game,” Lauria plays the minor role of Winthrop, a character whose sole purpose is to be attractive and shirtless, and to wrestle a closeted male side character as part of Jack Donaghy’s (Alec Baldwin’s) latest power play. In an interview with Backstage, Lauria recalled how there’d been only a few days’ gap between his audition and filming, and that the decision to have his character be shirtless was a last-minute script change. Lauria also recalled flubbing one of his early lines, only for Baldwin to take him aside and tell him, “Come on, kid, you got a long career ahead of you. You gotta get this!”
Baldwin’s prediction proved correct: Just a couple of years after “30 Rock,” Lauria landed his breakout role in Season 4 of “Friday Night Lights” as high school football player Luke Cafferty, a character who sticks around until the “Friday Night Lights” series finale. “I just felt like it was my mission in life to be on this show,” he told Today. He recalled watching the series’ pilot as a college student and thinking to himself, “I should have been in this show.”
Matt Lauria has starred in films and theater as well as TV
After “Friday Night Lights,” Matt Lauria landed a major recurring role in “Parenthood,” playing a troubled veteran struggling to adjust to civilian life. “This feels like the most important role that I’ve ever played,” Lauria told The Hollywood Reporter about Ryan in 2012. He explained about researching the role, “I’ve been in touch with all these veterans from Afghanistan who have been extremely generous with their time.”
Lauria also appeared in a handful of films over the past decade, including the 2019 action thriller “Miss Bala” and the 2023 comedy “80 for Brady.” In 2013 he also starred in the off-Broadway play “Really Really” in a role he described to Gothamist as “very demanding physically and emotionally.” He explained further, “I can’t let go of the play. When I’m not there I’m constantly thinking about it. ‘Did it go well? How can I tweak it? What can I dig deeper on?'”
Despite his forays into film and theater, TV definitely seems to be where Lauria is most at home. In recent years, Lauria has starred as a lead on “CSI: Vegas” for three seasons and on Season 2 of “Tell Me a Story.” Of all his shows, however, he’s pointed to “Friday Night Lights” and “Parenthood” as the clear standouts. “‘Friday Night Lights’ has a very special place in so many people’s hearts,” he said to Today. “That and ‘Parenthood’ — they’re both can’t-miss shows — are the ones that people tell me that they’re rewatching and rewatching.”
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