McCan, Richardson hope Texas Legacy in Lights inspires others to ‘Come and Film It’

Kelby C. McCan and Johnny “Chops” Richardson said they loved being part of an “All-Texan” cast and crew for the Texas Legacy in Lights project, inspiring them to “Come and Film It” in Gonzales.

“I think the cast, being from Texas, is everything,” said McCan, who plays militia leader and provocateur John Henry Moore — the man history credits with telling the Mexican Army if they wanted the old cannon Gonzales was using to defend itself, it needed to “come and take it.”

“It's nothing personal to any other actors out there, but there's blood here, there's history here, there's ancestry here, and it's also a chance for Texas to step in and say, ‘We can punch above our weight class. We have ‘the chops’ — if you will — to hang and do a production like this.

“This is just the beginning. This battle of Gonzales was a spark. It sparked the Texas Revolution, right? I'm hoping, I'm betting, this is a spark that helps light the film industry in Texas that they say, ‘Hey, you can do some big films, some nice films in Texas!’” McCan added.

“I can't top that answer. That was awesome. That's great. I’m feeling the passion. I'm feeling it,” said Richardson, who plays Irish immigrant and Immortal 32 member Thomas Jackson. “He’s getting his character down. I love it. I’m inspired. Let’s go! Come and Film It!

“I'm happy to be here. It's an exciting role to play. It's an exciting cast. It's great to get to know everybody, speaking of the Texas crew and cast — one of our best strengths as a community, as actors, is each other, so it's always great to get to know more people and be around more talented people. I think those things are contagious and tend to rub off.”

“I'm not impressed by reputation, because once you've been on set a couple times with a couple people, you know that some people with great reputations aren't that great,” McCan added. “What I will say is that this cast, when we were doing a Zoom, makes me feel something, and if you can feel something on Zoom, then what they're going to bring to the screen — or even what I love more, is when you're doing it and you're in it — you're going to feel it then.

“The cast, I can tell, is top notch, just from our cold reads. Doing the table reads, you feel the quality of the cast. You can't fake that through Zoom. It cannot be done.”

The actors spoke with the Inquirer during a break in filming at the Pioneer Village in Gonzales last month. For McCan, it was his first day on set, while it was the second on set for Richardson. Filming wrapped up and the project has now moved into post-production as it gears up for an Oct. 2, 2025 premiere — coinciding with the 190^th anniversary of the Battle of Gonzales — at the Gonzales Memorial Museum.

The two men come from differing backgrounds. McCan is a Houston native and U.S. Air Force veteran who works as a real estate agent in Port Aransas when he’s not acting, while Richardson is known best as the bass player for the Randy Rogers Band, but he also studied filmmaking at Texas State University and has done acting and directing of the band’s videos and in other projects as well.

The roles they are playing seem tailor-made for them. McCan is outspoken and extroverted and exudes the confidence and energy required to play a man who Santa Anna personally wanted arrested and who was in the right place at the right time to “stir the pot” for independence from Mexico.

Richardson gives off the essence of the background player who simply wants to do what’s right for his family and whose selfless sacrifice makes him and the other 31 Alamo defenders from Gonzales worthy of immortality.

McCan said it was a little more difficult to research for his character because “we have no written records from John Henry Moore.”

“Even though he has this really significant and pivotal piece in the Battle of Gonzales, he wasn't like a Sam Houston who went on to a political career,” McCan said. “He went on to be a colonel fighting the Comanches so we don't have a lot from him. Digging in on him and who he was, it's pretty difficult, but that also affords me an opportunity to impute what I can into this character and kind of create who John Henry Moore was. I have a little more freedom than some of the cast here to create this legend, because that's what he is. He's a legend.

“I'm excited to bring that to it, while still trying my best to hold on to what we do know and who he was that we know of. My preparation has been historical, but also imaginative. Like, what kind of guy comes from Tennessee as one of the original 300 (the first 300 colonists Stephen F. Austin brings to Texas) and within 10 years calls this place home when his whole family, his whole history, his whole bloodline, is somewhere else — that means he just really rooted here into Texas. That means he's an intense guy, you know? That means he does everything 100% — if he moves here, this is home.”

McCan said in this film Moore asks the DeWitt family “for a favor to make this flag up — that’s what we’re insinuating.”

“He's theatrical, you know, to have that imagination to say, ‘Now we're gonna create a flag about this, and you're gonna see your cannon across the field and ‘Come and Take It,’” McCan said. “It's like he's a vision person. He can see the battle happening, so ‘How do I intimidate them? How do I show I am more serious? How do I do these things?’ He's a strategist as well. He's complex. He's not just some guy with a gun on a horse saying, ‘Let's go fight them!’ He's a real leader who sees the different aspects that need to be led.”

He acknowledges that the view Moore takes is “almost a Spartan view” as he recalls the famous line by Leonidas at Thermopylae to the Persians — “Molon labe” or “Come and Take It.”

“He's like, ‘We'll hold them. We may not do it. We're outnumbered. The whole Mexican army will come, but we'll hold them,’” McCan said. “There's this grit that is in him. Part of the Battle of Thermopylae wasn't just one person believing it. (Leonidas) had to get multiple people to believe it, because the men could leave. He even offered, ‘If you want to stay, then stay, but if you want to leave, leave.’ He's given them an opportunity to step into history and say, ‘Today we may not win, but we will be remembered about how we stood up.’”

Richardson said he has prepared for his role by reading a book called “Texian Iliad” by Stephen L. Hardin, one of the foremost experts on Texas Revolution history and the historical advisor on the 2004 film “The Alamo.”

“I have done tons of internet searching and listened to some podcasts — pretty much anything I can get my hands on that will help me build the life of somebody,” Richardson said. “My character is from Ireland, so I did quite a bit of accent research. My wife is probably really tired of hearing me speak in an Irish accent at home all the time and I think my dog is actually afraid of me being someone else.

“One of the things that attracted me most of this project was the fact that I was going to get to play a person who actually lived, which has always been kind of an actor goal of mine. Most of the time, you're playing someone that's fictitious, but you can just kind of make up what you want about them or something that's in the script. This one actually entailed some research, a little bit of learning, a little bit of digging around. I really enjoyed that whole process. It was fun.

“I'm from Texas. I've grown up here,” Richardson said. “We learned about the story of the Come and Take It cannon in school in seventh grade, so it's something that's always been in the back of your imagination since you're a little kid. We get to live out some of those roles as we're telling the story ourselves.”

McCan was enthusiastic about what the production was trying to achieve in a quick turnaround in order to be ready for an October premiere.

“This is incredible when you think about what we're accomplishing in such a small period of time,” McCan said. “We have a love story. We have a battle at the Alamo. We have horseback cavalries charging against each other. We have cannons. We have muskets going off. We have just so much happening in such a short period of time in one small town.

“It's like Texas has so much more to offer too and there's tons of things we could be doing here. To film in Texas is getting better and better for producers, for companies, your actor pools are growing. Now, this movie, this film being done the way it is— on a building— like, who's doing that? EPCOT and that's it, you know? Like, this is incredible. It's something that belongs in the big city and it's here and Gonzales is saying, ‘No, we'll do it and we’ll do it well — we'll do the big stuff. You know, I love it!”

Both men said they plan to be at museum for the initial showing.

“I'd love to be a part of that. It's kind of rare that you get to do this because sometimes you don't even get to see your results,” Richardson said. “You film something and never get a copy of it. I would love to be a part of that and it'll be a really, really exciting moment to see everybody turn out for it, especially on the anniversary of so many events at the same time —a 200-year anniversary of the town and on the same date as the original battle. That's really cool how they have that timed out.”

“John Henry Moore here and I’ll be there to come and take him (pointing to Richardson),” McCan said. “The Oct. 2 bicentennial — the stars have aligned. The town's going to be there because they want to see it, too. They want to know where their hotel tax went and how it will put heads in beds. They want to see what this film looks like.

“I'm sure there's gonna be a lot of Texans in general, from state and political leaders that are here to support the film and support what we're doing. You should be here; if you're not, you need to make it that day. Governor Abbott, Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick and all of the others— you guys should all be here!”