My favorite show is Friday Night Lights. It just has a similar tone of being really honest and straightforward and raw. You really see the real stuff coming out and that’s invaluable for me as an actor. I love to be able to watch people doing stuff like that. 

AVC: At what point in the process of making Parenthood did you start watching Friday Night Lights? How did you tell Jason Katims that you had started?

MW: Oh my God, such a good question. Most of my other castmates had watched it already or were in the middle of watching it while we were shooting, and I couldn’t do it because I knew from the reaction—Dax Shepard is one of my best friends, and he just couldn’t stop talking about it. It was a huge deal. Occasionally he’ll wear a Panthers shirt he loved it so much, and I just knew that I didn’t have it in me. I don’t even watch that much TV because I have an addictive personality as far as movies and stories and that stuff is concerned. I just give everything I have to it. I knew that I didn’t have the emotional capacity to get so invested that all I would want to do is come home every single second and watch Friday Night Lights. I was like, “I’m not ready to give that part of myself yet.” I probably I started watching it last year, I guess, and have tried to go super slowly because it’s my biggest fear. I still have four episodes left, and I’m riddled with anxiety. I need to start therapy afterward because I don’t know how I’m going to deal with it when there aren’t any more. So I’ve been really trying to dole them out slowly. And I held off for the longest time waiting for all the East Dillon stuff to happen because Matt Lauria was on [Parenthood] and I was like, “I think the second that I see Matt Lauria on this show, I’m going to become even more obsessed with him than I am now and it’s going to be terrible. I won’t even be able to look at him. I’ll just be blinded with excitement about it.” So I waited to start that until we finished this last season. That can’t be right—it must have been close to the finish. I thought that it was just so good. And I did become unhealthily obsessed with Matt. “I can’t believe I was kissing Luke Cafferty this whole time, and I didn’t even know it!” [Laughs.] I love it so much. It is my favorite show in the entire world. No doubt about it.

AVC: With the final episode hanging out there, you’ll have no idea how those emotions could have affected your performance in this season’s Parenthood finale.

MW: It’s true. It’s probably for the best. I probably would have gone blank being that close to him. Like, “I have nothing to say to you. Get out of here.” So I’m glad I held off.

(Source: The A.V. Club)