The “Terminal List” actor who famously portrayed Tim Riggins in beloved football drama series “Friday Night Lights” jokingly opened up to Esquire about what informs his roles: cold, hard cash. When addressing if he would ever want to be a parent, Kitsch said it “wouldn’t have been great” for his career. “You shut down and start doing shit for money,” Kitsch stated. As the Esquire reporter asked if an “Ice Age 12” would be on the table, Kitsch replied, “Oh, I’ll do voice-over shit. But do I want to do ‘Saw 9-14’? Probably not.” The “Painkiller” star continued to tease, “But I’m also for sale. If they want to give me $10 million a movie, I’ll go do ‘Saw fucking 9-14,’” before adding, “I just wanted to sound like I’m not that cheap.”
With Kitsch committing to performances like transforming into a Navy SEAL for “Lone Survivor” or diving deep into the psyche of cult leader David Koresh for the Netflix miniseries “Waco,” it doesn’t seem like an “Ice Age 12” would even be on his horizon.
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Kitsch spent six months studying the late Koresh to portray the leader of the Branch Davidians for the 2018 biopic. However, weeks before filming, Kitsch told his representatives to get him out of the contract. “Take a breath,” Kitsch’s team told him at the time. He explained, “I was like, ‘OK. But try and get me out.’”
Simply, as Kitsch added, after committing to a role, “it’s your life now.”
The actor previously told Variety that following “Waco,” which he also executive produced, he underwent a “bunch of therapy” and motorcycle rides to shed the character. “You just slowly integrate back into reality,” Kitsch said. “I know I’m going down this path, and I know I’m going to have these repercussions, and it will be the same process and it will sting but I’ll be OK. But I wasn’t. It kind of blindsided me, even though I thought I was ready for it. So I just kept telling my team, ‘I need time.’”
Next, Kitsch is helming “Pieces” which he also wrote and will star in. The drama follows three friends from Detroit whose lives are changed once they intercept a drug run.
“I’ve seen enough where I’m excited to take my own swing,” Kitsch told Variety, citing that Peter Berg is producing and “Yellowstone” creator Taylor Sheridan has “had his hand in it” behind the scenes. “I think creative control is big. And this story just won’t leave my brain, to be honest with you. I spent a while writing it, and I’m really proud of it.”
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