Ep. 96 – Almost Famous: Taylor Kitsch (feat. Valerie Ettenhofer)

Welcome to The B-Side, from The Film Stage. Here we talk about movie stars! Not the movies that made them famous or kept them famous, but the ones that they made in between. Today we explore the agony and the ecstasy of the Almost Movie Star: young performers who found success early on and were given a few opportunities to establish themselves as bankable leading performers. Our subject on this episode: Taylor Kitsch. We focus on his full career, with a special investigation on his 2012 slate: John Carter, Battleship, and Savages. Our guest is Valerie Ettenhofer, TV critic at Film School Rejects and News writer at Slash Film. A longtime Tim Riggins fan and incredibly well-watched critic, she brings her insights to examine what about Kitsch works so well and what may have prevented him from breaking out as a worldwide movie star. Kitsch has been in the public consciousness for over a decade and a half, standing out among a stacked cast in the seminal show Friday Night Lights. For the young actor, the project was an early, creative windfall. An aspiring hockey player undone by injury, he enjoyed a short-lived stint as a model but struggled to find sustained work. At one point, he lived in his car in Los Angeles. He was couch-surfing in New York before that. Retreating back to Canada, he began getting cast as the one-scene himbo in a couple of movies (John Tucker Must Die, Snakes on a Plane) before landing a bigger part in the surprisingly-enduring The Covenant. Then came Tim Riggins. And the rest is history. Be sure to give us a follow on Twitter and Facebook at @TFSBSide. Also enter our giveaways, get access to our private Slack channel, and support new episodes by becoming a Patreon contributor. We are also now on Spotify and Stitcher. Enjoy!