Actor Taylor Kitsch doesn’t credit his talent or luck for his success. The star of such projects as “Friday Night Lights,” “The Terminal List,” “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” and “True Detective” says it’s just the fact that he’s relentlessly stubborn.
His family felt that “one day he’d get a real job.” But he just kept plugging away. As a young hopeful, the Canada native trekked off to New York City to try his luck.
“I was too naïve to get scared,” he said. “I kind of just dove into it headfirst and I loved it. I loved working with other actors, especially as green as I was.”
Not that it was easy.
“My best friend Mike, I was sleeping on his girlfriend’s blow-up mattress. He subletted a bedroom, and I was sleeping on his floor — only for a couple weeks — and then you kind of sleep from couch-to-couch. And some nights you had nowhere to go, so you sleep on the subway car until you get kicked off,” he said.
“I lived in Spanish Harlem for a bit with no electricity, no hot water. But when you’re that young you’re never, ‘Woe is me.’ Yeah, it was tough at the time, but it’s part of the process. Maybe it’s just because I’m so stubborn I kept driving forward.”
That incessant drive eventually landed him the pivotal role of the troubled Tim Riggins in “Friday Night Lights.” And people began to notice. The show was produced by Peter Berk, with whom Kitsch has worked since, including on the upcoming “American Primeval” premiering on Netflix Thursday.
It is a gritty retelling of the battle to settle the West and the factions that usurped the land to accomplish it. The part was a dream role, Kitsch said.
