On Bravo’s Dirty John, an adaptation of the true-crime podcast, Connie Britton falls for the wrong guy. As Newport Beach interior designer Debra Newell, Britton flirts and frolics with John (Eric Bana), an odd duck doctor with a shady personal history. They hit it off after one date, and suddenly their relationships shifts to high-speed. Despite her daughters’ misgivings, Debra rents a house to live in with John, and soon they elope in Las Vegas during a business trip. During Vulture Festival L.A. Saturday afternoon, after a screening of the show, an audience member asked Britton what advice her famous Friday Night Lights character Tami Taylor would have for Dirty John’s Debra. “That just made me feel really schizophrenic,†Britton began. Then she put on her Dillon, Texas, accent: “Girlfriend, you deserve better!â€
There weren’t a lot of parallels between Tami and Debra, but Britton said she sat down with the real-life Debra before she played the character, and they hit it off. “We went to lunch at the Ivy. I thought that seemed like a good idea. She brought Terra, her daughter, so it was sort of like a double whammy. It was really, really amazing to meet both of them and see them interact with each other. And also to see how they remembered things differently.â€