Rising star Charles ‘Lights’ up Friday nights on NBC

Gaius Charles is certain that if he had gone to high school with Brian “Smash” Williams, the arrogant, brash star running back he portrays on the NBC drama “Friday Night Lights,” they probably wouldn’t have been friends.

“Smash is the über-jock and Gaius is the über-focused guy. Back in school, I was so bent on acting and I just knew I wanted it,” says Charles of growing up in New Jersey, far from the kind of football-mad dusty Texas town of the show’s setting. “I was in the fall plays, the spring plays. I would take classes and workshops, so I don’t know if we’d even see each other in the hallway. But at the same time, going back to high school and playing the total opposite of what you grew up as is so creatively rewarding because you get to walk in somebody else’s shoes.”

And to walk in the shoes of someone who had a lot more confidence than Charles did when he was a teenager. Now in possession of what he calls “high school hindsight mentality,” Charles says he often thinks, “Why did I let my fear inhibit me?”

“So going back to be able to live fearlessly as Smash is pretty exciting,” he says.

Charles gets to slip Smash’s cleats on again as “Friday Night Lights” kicks off its second season tomorrow night at 9 p.m. on NBC (WHDH, Ch. 7).

By far last year’s best new show, “FNL” suffered from low ratings that some chalked up to a lack of national interest in high school football. Charles hopes that in the second season, viewers will have gotten the message that the show is about so much more than that, depicting life in a certain kind of small town America with stunning honesty, heart and humor.

Critics certainly have gotten it, heaping praise on the cast, writers and directors for their handling of issues like racism, teenage sexuality, divorce, the push and pull of marriage and even the paralysis of a major character.

Charles, a magna cum laude graduate of the Carnegie Mellon University drama program, was able to take Smash through several different story arcs in the opening season, including one involving steroid use while trying to impress college scouts and dealing with a bipolar girlfriend. He’s been able to show dramatic and comedic chops and knows even if the audiences aren’t huge, who is watching is what matters, as Hollywood casting agents and directors take note.

“It’s definitely a launching pad,” he says. “Hopefully, it’s a springboard into a large, wonderful career.”

Charles, whose first name is pronounced “Guy-us,” says he was also surprised to discover how many minority viewers the show had. As the show’s lone African American regular, he feels a responsibility to that audience and was glad to discover that black and Hispanic viewers were watching.

“I was in church once and a young African American man came up to me and said, ‘I just want you to know you are playing me in high school,’” he says. “He had this great look on his face and it was so rewarding.”

He hopes to see more minority faces on the show.
“To do a drama in Texas about high school football and not see characters of color is not realistic,” says Charles. “So I think we’re going to see a lot more characters of color — not just walk-on parts, but people who are significant to the story.”

As much as Charles is enjoying his spot in primetime, he is itching to get back to the stage where he began.

“I was recently at the American Shakespeare Center in Stanton, Va., and I saw ‘Romeo and Juliet’ and ‘The Winter’s Tale.’ It was just so inspirational, because I haven’t done any theater in two-and-a-half years because I’m trying to stick to the TV thing, and it’s worked out so far,” he says. “But there’s something about the stage that cannot be substituted. The ability to communicate, the ability to do a performance in real time, it’s something that I don’t think any true actor would ever be able to walk away from, so I hope to get back to it at some point.”

In the meantime, he hopes to keep Smash under those “Lights” for as long as possible.

Sarah Rodman is a staff music critic for the Boston Globe.