Did You Miss Taylor Kitsch? You Know You Did

Oh, Riggins. How we've missed you so. Taylor Kitsch (formerly Tim Riggins of Greatest Show of Our Time Friday Night Lights) has been out of the limelight in recent months, leaving us with a criminal lack of his tall Canadianess. He's inching his way back into the media, though, thanks to his new comedy The Grand Seduction, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival.

Kitsch — whose Tim Riggins and "Texas Forever" slogan were two of the stand-out stars of Friday Night Lights — hit a couple bumps in his career a few years back with the flops of John Carter and Battleship, both of which had big budgets that did not pay off and both of which he starred in.

It seems like, for now, Kitsch is taking a break from gigantic alien-fighting blockbusters and going back to the small-town feel that made FNL so real. "This one was just a lot of fun," says Kitsch of Grand Seduction. "To be in Newfoundland for six weeks. I had a great schedule. I learned to fly fish. I'm terrible. It's no joke to catch salmon on a fly rod."

He's also working with FNL executive producer Peter Berg on Navy SEAL story Lone Survivor, which Kitsch is already touting. ""I saw Lone three weeks ago," says Kitsch. "Oh my god. It's so good. It's so tough to watch. It's ridiculously emotional. I broke three times watching it."

The failure of John Carter and Battleship were — in my hypothesis, at least — due in no way to the undying charms of Kitsch. He is now flexing those beloved Riggins muscles in Grand Seduction

, the English remake of a 2003 Quebecois film about a struggling harbor town in Newfoundland. Kitsch plays Dr. Lewis (the original film was called Seducing Dr. Lewis), who grapples with the town and whether or not to play a part in saving it. "It is refreshing, to be blunt," he says of working slightly smaller films. "I went back to why I do what I do. It's nice not to have a 200-foot green screen in front of me. And it's going to be a long time before I do. [My team and I have] been offered another huge, crazy-big movie but we're not doing it."Kitsch seems to have hit his own personal stride when it comes to once again feeling satisfied with his work. He's also in the upcoming HBO film The Normal Heart, which also stars Mark Ruffalo, Julia Roberts, Matthew Bomer, Jim Parsons, and Jonathan Groff.As he noted, "It''s nice to have just set in and worked again and got into why you do what you do. It's just been incredibly fulfilling these last few."Wherever these films land up, it'll at least be good to see Kitsch back making the media rounds, reminiscing about Friday Night Lights, and charging forward with those famously clear eyes.