Former “Friday Night Lights” star Minka Kelly is heading over to ABC, where she’s playing the troubled Eve French on the “Charlie’s Angels” reboot, and she credited her difficult childhood for helping her bring depth to her character.
“The thing about Eve, is because she’s an orphan and because she was on her own her entire life and she had to fight for herself, and fend for herself and sort of survive, I think I have a lot in common with her on that aspect,” Minka told reporters on Sunday at ABC’s “Charlie’s Angels” presentation at the Television Critics Association Summer Session in Beverly Hills. “I am an only child and I was raised by a single mother, and we moved around a lot and I understand what that’s about.”
Minka said she hopes her character will be relatable to television watchers who have had tough childhoods.
“I also understand what it is to create your own family and I’m really attracted to that aspect of the show in terms of making these girls (Rachael Taylor as Abby Sampson and Annie Ilonzeh as Kate Prince) and Bosley (Ramon Rodriguez) my family. And I think that I’m not alone in that. I think there’s a lot of people in the world, there’s a lot of girls and guys out there that have that in common with myself and Eve,” the actress said. “It’s just one of the many things that I find to be very relatable to people, and very enjoyable to watch. Along with the eye candy, along with it being so beautiful to watch, there’s also a lot of depth and emotion as well.”
When asked how moving around as a youngster affected her, Minka said it helped make her more open.
“I think it’s made me very adaptable… I’m very proud of the fact that I think you could put me in any room and I would be OK… I’m very touched by this subject,” Minka said, getting a little emotional on stage in front of the critics, as she answered the question. “I think it’s made me a great person; I think I’ve lived a lot more than maybe [some] people my age have and seen a lot more and I think hopefully that will help bring a lot of depth to this character.”
“Charlie’s Angels” premieres on ABC on Thursday, September 22 at 8 PM.
Before dating Yankee slugger Derek Jeter, Minka Kelly struck out when it came to her knowledge of baseball.
“When I met Derek, I didn’t know anything about baseball at all,” Kelly says in a new HBO documentary, Derek Jeter 3K, which premiered last week.
“I didn’t know the difference between a run and a homerun,” the actress, who’s been dating Jeter since 2008, continues. “I thought if you made a connection with the ball, that was an automatic hit.”
In the film, about Jeter’s quest for 3,000 career hits, the private couple joke about bonding over baseball.
“She’s lying,” Jeter, 37, kids. “She had a poster of me on her wall when she was in high school.”
Later, though, the New York Yankees star confirms that Kelly, “really didn’t know a thing about baseball. … I’d come home and she’d be happy and say, ‘You got four hits!’ ”
Nowadays, Kelly, 31, is often seen at Yankee games, cheering from the friends and family luxury box, and Jeter says it was his father who brought her up to speed on the rules of the game.
Says the baseball star: “Now, she knows what’s going on.”