Taylor Kitsch is happy he never became a megastar

When Taylor Kitsch finally shows up onscreen in his new Netflix show "American Primeval" about 10 minutes into its premiere, one of the first things the audience sees is his bare butt.

Those who know Kitsch from his breakout role as Tim Riggins in the mid-2000s NBC series "Friday Night Lights" would be forgiven for assuming this shot is playing into Kitsch's former teen heartthrob status. But in "American Primeval," Kitsch is far more interested in nakedly depicting the roughness of life in the 19th century American West than in providing eye candy to nostalgic millennials.

The streamer's gritty miniseries is blood, dirt, and warfare on an epic (and expensive) scale, chronicling the brutal 1857 clashes between the US Army, Native Americans, Mormons, and settlers in Utah Territory, with a cinematic yet deliberately unsentimental eye ("Yellowstone," this is not.)

As the troubled Isaac Reed, a white man raised by the Shoshone tribe who begrudgingly agrees to guide Sara Rowell (Betty Gilpin) and her son across treacherous territory, Kitsch is all lumbering physicality and intense stares. So much so that when he's first introduced to Sara while climbing out of a river, he hardly notices or cares about the impropriety of his nude body being exposed to a stranger.

With a wardrobe comprised mostly of tattered rags and a scraggly beard obscuring the clean-cut good looks that once landed him in a 2000s-era Abercombie ad, this is not a role one might expect from Taylor Kitsch. That's exactly the way he likes it.

"I take a lot of pride in taking very, very different roles," Kitsch, 43, told Business Insider, adding that being uncomfortable helps him do his best work.

"I try and chase fear and things where when you first read it, you're like, 'Oh, fuck. How am I even going to do this?'"

'American Primeval' re-teams Kitsch with the man who helped make his career

Kitsch was a struggling model-turned-actor who'd endured periods of homelessness when he first met "American Primeval" director and executive producer Peter Berg while screen-testing for "Friday Night Lights" in 2006.

Berg, who developed the football series based on his hit film of the same name, said he knew Kitsch had to be Riggins from the moment he saw him step out of his manager's car on the NBC lot. Though the studio had already shortlisted several hot young stars to play the Panthers' troubled running back, Berg managed to sell the unknown Canadian actor to the show's producers, and the rest is history.

The series would mark the start of Kitsch and Berg's fruitful creative partnership, which has endured for almost two decades, as the two have gone on to work together on movies like "Lone Survivor" and "Battleship" and other television shows like "American Primeval" and the 2023 Netflix series "Painkiller."

Kitsch said his symbiotic relationship with Berg has allowed him to grow exponentially as an actor.

"I hope I challenge him as much as he challenges me for authenticity, to keep each other on our toes," Kitsch said. "I think that's why he comes and brings me along these rides. I think he knows that I will try and make him look incredible and make him look right every time he casts me."

Berg's buy-in kickstarted Kitsch's career. But six years and five seasons on the "Friday Night Lights" set ironically left him unprepared for the very thing he was expected to chase after next: movie stardom.

"'Friday Night Lights' was no marks, no rehearsal, natural light, a lot of improv, which I love," said Kitsch, who was known for sometimes scrapping Riggins' lines entirely and replacing them with just a look. "[Berg] wants you to take risks, because that's where you're going to uncover something. And I love that."

While Kitsch was able to "learn and fail" many times on "FNL," he encountered far more rigidity on the set of his first big-budget blockbuster, 2009's "X-Men Origins: Wolverine."

"My first fucking day on 'X-Men' was like, 'Hit the mark, find the light, say your line, and don't say it like that,'" Kitsch recalled. "I've never been told this, and then it's like, 'Whoa, whoa, whoa. You guys are actually using lights and marks and this and that?' So it was a huge switch for me."

Kitsch was on the brink of movie stardom after 'Friday Night Lights,' but it all fell apart

It was the first of many obstacles in Kitsch's ill-fated pursuit of a career as a blockbuster leading man.

Much has been made of the infamous critical and commercial flop that was "John Carter," the 2012 Disney movie about an American Civil War veteran transported to Mars. But at the time, the decision to star in a movie based on a seminal sci-fi book series with major franchise potential seemed like a no-brainer.

Kitsch still stands by his choice: "When Andrew Stanton, who just won a couple Oscars, knocks at your door and he blows your mind in prep…"

He noted that at the time, the title character was a coveted role. "No one knows the people I beat out, but I can't believe at the time I beat them out."

"John Carter," along with "Battleship," a 2012 military sci-fi action flick based on the board game and directed by Berg, became the proving ground for Kitsch's post-"FNL" career. Expectations for both were high: Kitsch's contracts reportedly would have locked him into franchises for both if they performed well at the box office. Magazine profiles of Kitsch at the time anointed him the next big action hero, predicting he was poised to take over Hollywood's new A-list alongside the likes of Ryan Reynolds and Chris Pine.

He was on the brink of something major — or at least, that's what he was told.

'John Carter' was a flop, freeing Kitsch up for more interesting work

Ultimately, it didn't pan out that way. Both movies underperformed at the box office and garnered largely negative reviews. It changed the course of Kitsch's career, though it may have been kismet.

In reality, becoming the next blockbuster action star was never actually what Kitsch wanted for himself; he simply thought it would open doors.

"It's the cliché: one for them, one for you," he recalled. "You're told, 'You do this, you'll be able to do anything you want.'"

In an alternate universe where "John Carter" was a box-office smash that led to that slew of sequels, Kitsch may not have had the time to explore the character-driven stories he finds the most fulfilling, like "True Detective" season two, or the biggest challenge of his career: playing cult leader David Koresh in the 2018 limited series "Waco." Kitsch credits the latter with helping him define the kind of actor he wants to be.

"'Waco' scared the shit out of me," said Kitsch. "I had no idea how I was going to do that." He spent six months intensively preparing to inhabit the role, losing 30 pounds, learning to play guitar, and watching every clip and sermon of Koresh's he could find.

He brought a similar ethos to "American Primeval," losing 20 pounds, learning some Shoshone, and working with a medicine man to prepare to play Isaac. Doing the most is a nonnegotiable for Kitsch, who previously told The New York Times that this kind of prep is "the only thing that eliminates self-doubt."

While he had to start from scratch to build out both the charismatic cult leader and the rugged frontiersman, Kitsch already had a personal connection to Glen Kryger, the opioid-addicted car mechanic he played in "Painkiller."

"That one was so fucking important to me," Kitsch said. The subject matter hit close to home; his sister has struggled with opioid addiction.

"She's eight years clean now," he said. "She was my advisor on the show, so it doesn't get more full circle than that, to have her with me, and me ironically playing the addict and her telling me how."

Despite the rabid fandom Kitsch inspired on "Friday Night Lights," he said more people have reached out to say they were touched by his performance in "Painkiller" than about any other job he's done.

"To humanize and hopefully bring up a conversation of that and to normalize it, not put shame towards that, meant the world to me," Kitsch said.

Kitsch wants to keep telling stories he cares about

Up next for Kitsch is a return to one of his most popular roles (no, not that one). He'll be reprising his role as former Navy SEAL Ben Edwards on Amazon's "The Terminal List" prequel "Dark Wolf" opposite Chris Pratt, who plays the lead character in the flagship series.

He also wants to prioritize getting his own project off the ground: telling his sister's story.

"Her story is just, it's insane and very empowering and inspiring," Kitsch said. "I'd love to direct that and keep it at a crazy low budget so I have creative control."

Not on the agenda? Stressing over things like viewership numbers or ticket sales.

"Here's a good story," Kitsch recalled. "I was living in Austin doing 'Friday Night Lights,' and it had just been the opening weekend of 'X-Men Origins: Wolverine.' And it was Monday and I was going to a different movie, and all of a sudden, all these texts came in like, 'Oh, congratulations. Oh my God, the box office. BO is at $70-something million!' and all this," he said.

"I was with my girlfriend at the time and I was like, 'I have no idea what this means,'" he continued. "All these congrats were coming in. And I'm like, 'What are we celebrating?'"

Years later, Kitsch has held onto that desire to ignore outside expectations. He's keeping that in mind when it comes to how his new projects, like "American Primeval," are received.

Still, he's hopeful the show will lead to more opportunities to immerse himself so fully in a character that he disappears — the work he loves best.

"We'll see what happens," he said. "I'll just keep swinging regardless."