Kyle Chandler's Return To TV Is Finally Here

Kyle Chandler is one of the most consistent actors in Hollywood — even in a thankless supporting role, he always does something memorable — and he gets consistent work because of it. Ever since the Emmy-winning role of Coach Taylor in Friday Night Lights made him an icon, Chandler has been a staple of film and television. The old industry wisdom goes that the dream of a TV actor is to transcend television and graduate to the movies, just like George Clooney did after getting his start on ER, and Chandler has pulled off one of the most successful TV-to-film transitions.

Chandler has a long-running role in the Monsterverse, he showed off his impressive comedic chops in Game Night, and he gave a standout turn as the FBI agent determined to bring down Jordan Belfort in The Wolf of Wall Street. He’s a rare actor who’s just as adept at giving a grizzled dramatic performance as he is at giving a zany comic performance, and he’s more than earned his flowers over the years.

But TV is no longer the place an actor’s career goes to die. Ever since Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey partnered up in the first season of True Detective, the stigma around film actors doing television has been eradicated. Chandler has carved out a great movie career, but now, he’s coming back to TV.

Lanterns Is Kyle Chandler's First TV Role Since 2022

Tomorrow night, HBO will premiere Lanterns, the latest installment in James Gunn’s DC Universe. After the critical and commercial disappointment of Supergirl, it’s looking like Lanterns will be a much-needed course-correction for the DCU. When a gritty Earth-bound cop drama about the Green Lantern Corps was first announced, fans of the colorful, intergalactic, alien-infested comic books were a little miffed, and the colorless first trailer only amplified those concerns.

But ever since the release of the second trailer, Lanterns has been one of the most highly anticipated comic book adaptations of the year. That second trailer made it clear that the producers aren’t shying away from the cosmic side of the story, or the color green. Lanterns is being dressed up as a grisly HBO murder mystery, like True Detective or Mare of Easttown, but it’s still a superhero show at heart.

Lanterns is a “buddy cop” series in which veteran Green Lantern Hal Jordan, played by Chandler, mentors the new recruit, John Stewart, played by Rebel Ridge’s Aaron Pierre. This will be Chandler’s first TV role since 2022, when he played Bill Gurley in Super Pumped, a miniseries about the origins of Uber, and guest-starred as Ranger Safety Binkerton in an episode of The Boss Baby: Back in the Crib. Suffice to say, seeing him as a superhero will be a lot more exciting than either of those.

Despite His Movie Roles, Kyle Chandler Will Always Be Known For His Work On TV

Much like Timothy Olyphant, no matter how many movies he stars in, Chandler will always be renowned for his TV work. Coach Taylor is the defining role of his career, and Friday Night Lights still holds up to a rewatch after all these years. Like Olyphant, even after graduating to the big screen, Chandler has continued to go back to the small screen and play roles on television.

He starred as John Rayburn in Netflix’s criminally underappreciated crime thriller Bloodline. He played Colonel Cathcart in Clooney’s all-star adaptation of Catch-22. He had a recurring role as Dylan Young on Grey’s Anatomy. Chandler is also a reliable guest star, having appeared in episodes of Family Guy, American Dad!, King of the Hill, Star Wars: Visions (the English dub, that is), and Mayor of Kingstown. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, either; his daughter, Sydney Chandler, now has her own starring role in a TV show, Alien Earth.