QB 1

There are no words--for how great, how subtle, how real a character Matt Saracen was; for how wonderfully Zach Gilford played him.

So I'll let the experts do the talking.


"Every character on "Friday Night Lights" gets a raw deal in some ways...but Matt Saracen has consistently been the universe's punching bag, in part because the writers recognize how well Gilford plays Matt's pain and confusion every time life comes in to mock him again."

For over three seasons, his quiet consistency has been underappreciated on a show that itself has pretty much rewritten the definition of “underappreciated.” Matt Saracen isn’t the pretty-boy superstar bound for the NFL, nor is he the brash trash-talking RB from the wrong side of the tracks. Heck, he’s not even a funny-looking dude with a Christian rock band and a thing for willowy blondes. He’s simply a good guy, a dependable if slightly mumbly rock of politeness and good intentions. From the character’s beginnings as an in-over-his-head backup QB through his sweetly awkward courtship of Julie Taylor, his championship season, and his current situation as pizza deliveryboy with dreams of being a capital-A artist, Gilford has embodied Matt so effortlessly that it’s hard to believe that there’s any capital-A acting going on at all.

Except, of course, there is.

"Either way, what Gilford showed us was a boy, who had to be his own father for so long, accepting what it meant to truly be fatherless. What a good kid. What a good actor."