A Former Dallas Cowboy’s Next Play: A Tubi Miniseries

It’s been nearly two decades since Kelvin Garmon played for the NFL, but the former offensive guard for the Dallas Cowboys is still using lessons he learned on the field for his latest run: a new television series.

Instead of touchdowns, Garmon is now focused on scoring views; as an executive producer with SRG Entertainment, his goal is to create compelling content that can find an audience. He’s found a great teammate in director, actor and producer Vernon “Snoop” Robinson, who directed their latest project, Frienemies. The three-part miniseries is set in the high-stakes world of fashion, and premiered on Tubi on Nov. 21.

“When I was performing in front of millions on TV, it was a different type of pressure,” says Garmon. “It’s instant. You make one mistake and somebody else is replacing you, or somebody on the national stage is condemning what you just messed up in football.”

Producing a scripted drama, he says, is a little different. Rather than remain in the spotlight, Garmon sees himself as more of a GM, bringing the right people and resources together to execute a vision.

“Snoop, you know, he’s the talent,” says Garmon. “I’m just kind of behind him, making sure everything is in place, and the right people are acquired so everything else runs smoothly.”

The pair became aware of one another early in Garmon’s football career. Although he grew up playing football in North Texas, Garmon developed a passion for attending shows at Fort Worth’s Jubilee Theatre with his family, and he maintained that fondness for theater into adulthood. In college, he played football with Robinson’s nephew at Baylor, who then put the actor’s work on Garmon’s radar. When the time came to move out of sports into a different type of entertainment, Garmon reached out to Robinson to learn more about his career. They hit it off, began working on projects together, and have been collaborating for about a decade now.

In 2016, Frienemies was first realized as a stage play. Robinson says the inspiration came from a universal concept of reflection. With the benefit of hindsight, you can look back on your life and see that people you thought were your friends actually had an agenda and may not have had your best interests in mind. 

From that seed sprouted the story of a character reflecting on the events that landed her in prison when she served as the “right-hand woman in a bustling fashion boutique” run by a talented and demanding designer. The stage show did well – well enough, Robinson recalls, for them to have scheduled an encore performance – and they ultimately decided to bring writer Julian Blake in to help them convert the stage play into a screenplay. 

Though the duo was initially focused on producing full-length films, Garmon and Robinson saw miniseries having success in the broader culture and wanted to try the format out for themselves with Frienemies.

Pink Lucy in Addison provided the ideal setting for the shoot, as it was already infused with the fashion, creativity and color they wanted to realize onscreen. They gathered a cast (some of whom had actually participated in the original stage production) and got to work.

And though Frienemies landed at a brief three-episode run, Garmon and Robinson plan to continue capitalizing on their creative chemistry with more projects in the works. They have an upcoming improvised thriller called Deranged Lover, directed by Rock White and co-starring Robinson, that they hope will push the boundaries of their experimentation.

And while they do that, the pair still makes time to keep up with the Cowboys, naturally.

“I think they’re heading in the right direction now that they fixed some holes on the defense side,” says Garmon. “They can score with anybody. So I think they’re heading in the right direction. I think it’s been a shaky start because of that defensive side. They start fixing that… they got better days in front of them.”

“I let him [say it] the political way,” laughs Robinson. “Man, I’m wearied.”

Win or lose, Garmon says he sees the work he and Robinson do as an extension of what happens on the field with the NFL.

“Entertainment is entertainment,” says Garmon. “We’re here to make people have a good time [and] forget real things that’s going on in the world for just a little bit of time.”