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Garrett Hedlund: “Tron” Star is “Country Strong”

We’re with hunky young actor Garrett Hedlund chatting in Beverly Hills. It’s been an amazing year for this talented fellow. Two of his films are in theaters and they couldn’t be more different. Garrett plays a guy sucked into a video gaming world in the Sci-Fi actioner Tron and a budding Country Music singer/songwriter in Country Strong. He’s just wrapped On the Road, co-starring with Kristen Stewart and is telling us, in this exclusive interview, that he is now “a big couch potato”, taking a well-earned break!

One of the questions asked by Country Strong is whether or not fame and true love can co-exist. We are getting Garrett’s heartfelt opinion on this subject as a young, single man in Hollywood and learning that his first exposure to Country Music was on his grandpa’s turkey farm where they would crank up the Johnny Cash. The birds seemed to groove to it and he did too!

We’re chatting Garrett’s hopes and dreams as a teen on the farm, love, fame, cowboy hats and a whirlwind year!

TeenHollywood: You’re a young single man in show biz. Do you think love and fame can co-exist? Or maybe only if one of the partners isn’t in the business?

Garrett: It’s a tug of war between levels of passion. I like to write and read as much as I can and I spend a lot of my time doing that. But with the fame angle, what people think is so glamorous isn’t. It can get quite cold and cruel at times. For me it’s all about the love of the art. Being fortunate enough to be on a lot of wonderful films this year was great but a lot of work. To put that work in, to do the research and not cease and not give up and put a thousand percent of your focus on your task at hand, and not cheat yourself, that’s where my love is.

TeenHollywood: So no real time for a true love relationship?

Garrett: If I meet somebody unbelievable, I would know it. But for me, it’s love before fame at least. If fame gets too invasive then, I’ll just dig a hole in the ground and hide. I’d do the exact same thing [my character] Beau did, go back and scale back.

TeenHollywood: Your love interest Chiles [played by Leighton Meester] is all about the fame.. stardom and your character Beau about the art of his songwriting and performing. When you were a kid or teen was having an acting career about

Garrett: I was big into sports as a kid. I always wanted to be a professional baseball player. I would write a lot of players hoping for an autograph in return. One day, Nolan Ryan sent me back his autograph. All my friends said it wasn’t real and I was eating cereal, spilled milk on it and the blue Sharpie smeared and I yelled ‘It’s real!’ So that encouraged me, when I watched film, to write to Universal or MGM and say ‘Can I be in one of your movies?’ Or ‘Can I be in one of your TV shows?’

At first it was just about wanting to be off the farm or going to California and the ocean. I’d see hay fields blowing in the wind and my dad would say ‘That’s our ocean’. When I was studying in Arizona I was studying dense stuff and any book I could get my hands on but the films that moved me the most were the ones that stirred up the most emotion. I just wanted to perform a role so well that I moved somebody in the way that it happened for me.

TeenHollywood: So, then it was always about the art and not longing to be on the red carpet with paparazzi chasing you?

Garrett: [laughs] Yeah. I guess so.

TeenHollywood: You were born in Minnesota, grew up in Scottsdale, Arizona. So what is your Country Music background?

Garrett: We had a turkey farm and my grandpa would play Johnny Cash for all the turkeys and they’d just bop their heads. We had to do our chores in the turkey shed so he’d click on Johnny Cash as we laid shavings down for them. That was the first I heard. Then, just growing up with Tim [McGraw’s] songs. I was singing Tim’s songs working on the tractor and Faith [Hill] played our country fair when I was ten years old and brought Tim up on stage.

TeenHollywood: So it must have been bizarre to meet your childhood music idols then?

Garrett: Yeah. Finally to be down in Austin The first day of shooting, the director said ‘Do you want to meet your father?’ [Tim played Garrett’s dad in the movie Friday Night Lights]I said ‘Yeah’ and it’s Tim McGraw. Ultimately my character was not supposed to like him.

Then we ended up hanging in his bus between scenes and he’d have me come up on stage and sing “I Like It I Love It” with him in Austin. I couldn’t sing that. He said ‘You’ll catch on. Just sing the chorus’. Today, me playing a country singer with Tim McGraw is amazing.

TeenHollywood: How did you perfect Beau’s accent?

Garrett: I think I’m in such a melting pot of accents at this moment because Tron was much different from Country Strong and being in Nashville for four months hanging out and playing that character, I developed it. I have an ear for it and just wanted to be genuine. In On the Road, playing Neal Cassady, you’ve got the tapes [of his voice] to listen to so, all of a sudden [he starts talking with a totally different accent] and the rhythms change. I’ll be back to myself soon [laughs]. When I first came to Arizona I was nicknamed “Minnesota” because I talked so slow and with a Northern accent.

TeenHollywood: Before going to Hollywood, you were a kid reading old screenplays and pretending to then try out for the parts? How did you get the screenplays?

Garrett: There used to be a website called “Drew’s Scriptorama” where you could get them [hey, Garrett, it’s still there!]. I’d read it from the computer and prep a scene for a week and pretend I was doing it. It was something I was just trying because acting classes are all about rules. ‘Do this and don’t do this’. If you chuck out the rules and learn that there are no rules and watch great actors and what they’ve done with the dialogue on page, you learn that these people really cut the cuffs on their wrists and flew. I learned from that.

TeenHollywood: Beau puts his personal soul into his songwriting and performing. Could you do that or would it be too personal?

Garrett: This movie was a whole new thing for me. There are a lot of qualities in Beau that I never expressed confidently. It took six months for me to get the guitar down and be able to sing to express poetry in that form. I think, undoubtedly, the more interesting you are as a person, the more knowledge you have, that radiates from the surface. But, ultimately I try to feed the traits of what he is in the script and try and build around it.

TeenHollywood: You were co-starring with Jeff Bridges in Tron and he plays a mean guitar and sings up a storm in real life. Could he help you with this role?

Garrett: On Tron, Jeff tried to show me how to play guitar. Not so good. Then, seven months later, I’m in my trailer playing Jeff’s songs from Crazy Heart. It’s wild. Now, finally we’re in the trailer jamming together.

TeenHollywood: Awesome! You look really natural in your cowboy hat in the film. Where does that come from?

Garrett: [laughs] My grandpa wore a cowboy hat every day till the day he died but not me. I found the perfect one on top of Neal Casal’s [his guitar coach for the film] fridge. His ex-bro-in-law from Texas had given it to him. He said, ‘I can’t wear this. It’s my ex-wife now’. So, he put it on top of my head and said ‘Dude, rock it!’ ‘Can I just borrow it?’ He said ‘take it’.

TeenHollywood: You also had a real Country style with the microphone, the way you stood and approached it. Did you learn that?

Garrett: I just jammed with the band. You work the mic like you have to lean down for a kiss. It’s about talking to the audience and telling them a story.

TeenHollywood: You have some great scenes with Gwyneth Paltrow. How was working with her?

Garrett: Let’s just say, it’s much easier working with an Oscar-winning actor than a Razzie winning one [we laugh]. Gwyneth is so phenomenal and so beautiful and a wonderful actress. We hit it off at the beginning. We’d only had a dinner before that and met once.

TeenHollywood: How do you hope teens will respond to Country Strong?

Garrett: It’s kind of a great time for Country music right now. There are a lot of great, young Country artists that have really gotten younger audiences from all over the globe into Country music. This film is an addition to that. It’s a wonderful movie that will turn non-Country fans into Country fans because you get to invest in a beautiful story with great characters that are filled with soul and, hopefully it moves you at the end of the day.

Garrett Hedlund is on his way to the top. The Minnesota native who made his feature film debut as a teenager alongside Brad Pitt in 2004’s Troy, has been quietly working ever since. He appeared in the football drama Friday Night Lights, the urban crime thriller Four Brothers, and most recently the long awaited Disney sequel Tron Legacy. This month he’s taking it down a notch as an old fashioned southern boy, who has an amazing voice. Hedlund stars in Country Strong, a drama that follows a music superstar who’s trying to redeem herself after a hard fall.

Last month we spoke to Hedlund about the shift from a tentpole like Tron to a simple redemption tale like Country Strong. The actor revealed the amount of training it took to pull off his performance scenes, and the amazing artists who helped meld his novice talent. It was a lot harder than he thought it would be. Check out our interview…

What made you take on this project?

Garrett Hedlund: I’d been sent the script and been told that if I responded to it, Shana[ Feste] would fly up to Vancouver where I was [I was filming Tron at the time], and meet with me over it. I remember reading the script and having tears in my eyes by the end of it. I really wanted her to come up and have this meeting. I felt honored that she would come all the way up to Vancouver to meet with me on it. It’s tricky you know, it’s like you read a tagline or a synopsis that says ‘triangular love affair that takes place on a 10 city tour’ your immediate thoughts are to set it aside or else they could have explained it a little bit differently. But Shana’s just so incredibly talented and wonderful and for her to write this and direct it the way she did and it being her second film I just feel so proud to be a part of it and proud for her.
Did you have any musical experience before this role?

GH: No. I couldn’t play at the beginning. The guy Neal Casal, who’s the lead guitarist for The Cardinals from Ryan Adams and The Cardinals had stopped by my place and four days a week we’d be playing all day, early Hank Senior songs and just things to play that had chord progression and we’d go to the studio and record to chart the progression. That was for four months and I moved out to Nashville a month and a half before and stayed at Tim’s [McGraw] ranch, a cabin. Just like anything it takes time to gain the abilities. You’ve gotta fall on your face so many times and you gotta look silly in front so many people before you finally start finding the ability and finding confidence within the approvals of others.
What do you like about your character Beau?

GH: I like just the soul of him. He’s kind of a young Kris Kristofferson. Sort of poetic and tender, and just happy to be playing for a bunch of hard working people that like to have a beer while they listen to good music. This was a happy home for him. I think I like the message of what he was about at the end of the day. Choosing love over fame. That was a big one. When that line comes up in the film I think the whole audience is going to be questioning this key line and formulate what their opinion is on it.

How does it feel to have played in dive bars and stadiums?

GH: I prefer the dive bars. It was great. I remember throughout the preparation for the guitar thinking in my mind alright, most of these guys I always see them cut in close to the fingers and obviously they have a hand double just going at it. They’re mocking chords when the camera’s further away and I was imagining this in fear that I would have to do this. Like I wanted to be able to do everything on my own. It was like these scenes are beautiful and I’ll work on these scenes and I can’t wait to do this with Gwyneth, Tim, and Leighton, these scenes. But the performing now, can we just get this over with? Our first time of performing for an audience was at The Stage [On Broadway], well the first one was “Silver Wings” but the first one we filmed was at The Stage. I just remember having so much fun up there but it also helps because I felt very great about the songs and having Hayes Carll who I admire so much as a singer-songwriter, who’s very parallel to this character, who has a real Blaze Foley kind of grit to him, so playing the songs and when you’re having fun and you’re confident and when the songs are good the audience enjoys it so it’s not hard for them to partake and just kind of really cheer and be genuine with it.
Were you a fan of country music before making this film?

GH: I was. I grew up on a farm where we had one radio station and it was all country. So that’s why Tim McGraw would be filling the airwaves then, and I’d be in the tractor listening to Tim’s songs and Faith’s [Hill] songs and then for him to play my father in Friday Night Lights and I got up on stage with him in 2004 and sang “I like it, I love it” but I wasn’t a country singer you know? I was like, “Can I sing, “Don’t take the girl?’” He said, ‘No, you’ll sing “I like it, I love it.” I said, ” But I don’t know the words to it.” He’s like, ‘You’ll catch on.’ ‘But why can’t I sing don’t –?’ ‘You’re not singing “Don’t take the girl!” So I’m up there kind of mouthing with him [singing] I like it, I love it. But then his guidance with this was great because he just said, you know, ‘You’ve just got to live and breathe country music. There’s thousands of people out here who are incredibly talented trying to gain success, so you need the scales that are raised to be high.’ To really live and breathe country music.
It sounds like you were surrounded by a solid group of professionals.

GH: I got to work with this guitar coach out there, this guy Rob Jackson who’s kind of the best of the best in guitar training out there and then go to the studio everyday and work with this producer Frank Liddell and engineer Luke Wooten. I’ve been working with a lot of incredible people. So I was kind of taken in by these people who were trying to help me succeed the way I wanted to succeed. Once they saw a possibility we just started running for that door.

How was going from shooting on a Vancouver sound stage for Tron Legacy to being on location in Nashville for this?

GH: It was close to like a 67 or 70 day shoot for Tron on stage, in the suit. You can’t even sit don’t during the day because of all the cables that divide the foam rubber and all the electrical circuits. We had these stools that were tall with a bicycle seat on them and you’re just looking at a blue screen all day. And then to being able to just wear some Levi’s jeans and a button up it, it was exactly what I wanted. It was different.
It was more real, because you were actually out in Nashville making country music.

GH: Yeah, I’d become a family with so many of the locals out there. By the time we were filming I was going to a lot of the lower Broad spots and a lot of these young musicians, or even the guys in my band like Chris Scruggs would be up at Robert’s every night. Chris Scruggs is the grandson of Earl Scruggs, who’s like the Godfather of the banjo, and Randy Scruggs. You know it’s a famous family. There was a documentary done about them in the seventies, Randy Scruggs played the guitar on my tracks for “Chances Are” and stuff like this. I mean on Youtube there’s like black and white videos of him and Earl Scruggs and Bob Dylan all in a room playing and Randy Scruggs is just 17 and won’t take his eyes off Dylan and now he’s like 57 playing the guitar for me.
How was it performing in front of those real crowds?

GH: Basically, I was becoming a lot more comfortable with the auditorium scenes by just getting up on stage and doing it. One time at the Station Inn I got up and the table right in front of me, well this guy named Jim Lauderdale, he played a lot with George Jones. He was in Gwyneth’s band as a guitarist and he was playing at The Station Inn and at intermission he took me back and he said , ‘I want you to teach my band how to play “Chances Are” and get up and sing it for the audience.” I said, ‘All right.’ So there I am after six or seven months of learning how to play the guitar now I’m teaching this band how to play. We get up on stage and play it and right in front is Gwyneth and Chris Martin and Caleb the lead singer of Kings of Leon, and Faith Hill, and Dierks Bentley. It was one of the greatest nights of my life.

With all this musical training is this something that you’re going to keep doing?

GH: Of course on my own time. It’s funny because I was on set and Terrence Howard came up to play a role in On the Road, and we’d work together on Four Brothers and we became really close and he played a lot of guitar on that and I would just sit back. He’d show me how to play but I couldn’t. The night we wrapped in Montreal he came to my room with a bottle and a guitar, and we got to take turns. We came up with a thing like, ‘You play one. I’ll play one.’ We must have played 15 songs a piece.
Have you wrapped On the Road?

GH: I just did yesterday morning [as of December 12, 2010].
So what was that experience like?

GH: It was a guerrilla shoot with the most incredible family. Walter Salles directed it and he’s put so much work into this film over the last six or seven years. I’ve been attached since September of ‘07 trying to get this project made. Being on set during the first day like, ‘we’re fucking filming On the Road‘ to today’s the day after we just finished it. It was unfortunate to part with a family you’ve come to love so immensely on this journey.
Now that you’ve wrapped that film, what do you have coming up next?

GH: Nada. I’m very fortunate to be a part of these projects and I’m very proud of them. I’ll be able to sort of sit back and read some books that I haven’t caught up on and try to enjoy the time a little more.

Garrett Hedlund Discovers His Country Strength

We understand for your role in this movie, you auditioned by singing karaoke?
It was sort of like that. I was given the script saying if I responded to the role that [writer-director] Shana [Feste] would fly up to Vancouver to meet with me, because I was working on 'Tron' at that point. We went to a little country bar, and I expressed my feelings towards the script, because by the end of it, I had tears in my eyes. She asked if I'd be willing to put in the work necessary for the role, and I said, "100 percent, undoubtedly." So I ended up taking her over to a karaoke spot and I got up and sang 'Better Man' by Pearl Jam. [laughs] I get back to the table, and she goes, "That wasn't country!" But it was my go-to, I guess.

So you already knew you could sing, but you had to learn to play guitar.

Rob Jackson, the guy that was training me on guitar, said, "Now, you're not gonna be another one of those Hollywood guys getting up and playing a 'G' when we're singing a 'C.'" [laughs] So, I didn't want any hand doubles or vocal doubles, and I wanted it to be genuine.

Obviously, Tim has successfully crossed over from music to movies. Would you be interested in crossing over from movies to music?

Not necessarily. I really enjoyed my time in Nashville, and the hospitality of this city and being able to stay out in Franklin on the ranch and work on the tunes and have great people to work with. Frank Liddell was the producer on it, and a guy named Luke Wooten did the engineering, so to be with these guys, it was such a wonderful experience. At the end of the day, it was a role for me and I was really pleased with what we acquired. But if somebody said, "Hey! Would you come over and sing this with me?," maybe that would be something fun ... but no personal plans.

You mention living out on a ranch ... and it was not just any ranch!

Yeah, it was Tim McGraw's ranch, and he let me stay there and have as much time as I wanted to myself, just to get that experience, rather than being in a hotel downtown. I'd be out there with this guy Bobby, who lives on the ranch and maintains it. We would be in the back of the barn shooting clay pigeons and riding around on the wheelers, and I'd go over to [local restaurant] Puckett's every night and watch a lot of the people get up and play while eating a little pulled pork. Then you look out the window every morning and see Hank Williams' old plantation home. The feeling was just much more there. Once you feel it, then you know that there's a lot of big shoes to fill and also a lot of expectations -- not really expectations from Nashville, but just me expecting myself to not let Nashville down.

You've worked with Tim McGraw before in 'Friday Night Lights,' and in a recent article, he was very complimentary about your acting and said that you were destined for great things. What did you think of Tim's acting in 'Country Strong,' especially since 'Friday Night Lights' was one of his first major roles? Did you see any progress from then until now?

Yeah, which I'm sure he's seen in me, as well. It's always a confidence thing. It's knowing your way around the territory. It took me a while. You get on this thing, and you think it's all about the acting and this and that, but there's a lot of technicalities, and once you know all those, the set becomes much more of a home than a strange land. Tim, in this, he's such a driven person. I wouldn't say a perfectionist, but he always wants to do the best he can ever do, be it music or this, and to have that on set is great. He's always been so supportive of me, and I owe him so much for what he gave me in this film. It's so strange, if that character wasn't played by Tim, I don't think I would've been able to do what I did in the film. I owe a lot to him. I guess there's some expectations when you're playing for Tim that make you work a little bit harder.

What were your preconceived notions about Nashville, and how did they change once you arrived?

I had never heard much about Nashville before coming out here, and that's why it's so surprising, because I'm the biggest enthusiast on the city of Nashville now. I'm looking for a place out here to live. I came in this week, and I call one member of the band, and he calls all the other ones and all of a sudden the band's back together hanging out, and a lot of people who were involved in the recording process. We're all just sitting at a table and I raise my glass and say, "Cheers, but this cheers means a lot more to me because I'd rather be sitting here seeing you guys than you seeing me, and you probably mean more to me than I do for you."

For me, and this may not be everybody, but because I do love country music so much, there's such a feeling of home in Nashville, especially because it's such a small town. You bring up one song, everybody knows who wrote it, everybody knows their mother and what their cell number is, and all of the stories. You can go anywhere and be incredibly entertained by the music. Every artist out here has something great to contribute to the city, and everybody I feel is in it together.

What were your favorite spots in Nashville?

I liked going to Robert's to see some night gigs. Chris Scruggs, who was playing the steel guitar on this, he'd get up there once in a while, and the whole band would go down and some of us would get up with Chris. I'd get up to sing. And the Station Inn, I loved. I loved going to see the Time Jumpers and Vince [Gill] playing on Mondays. I got up at the Station Inn with Jim Lauderdale and sang 'Chances Are' there. So that was one of the greatest nights of my life, because sitting at the table in front of me was Gywneth and Chris Martin, Caleb [Followill] from Kings of Leon and Faith Hill, and Dierks Bentley was standing up behind them. I got home, and I had to work at five in the morning the next day, and I woke my mom up, and I said, "Guess what just happened?" It was great!

What was it that drew you to the character of Beau Hutton, who has been described as the "heart of the movie?"

At first, it was just seeing the opportunity to play a poet. We had the blessing of having such wonderful singers and songwriters contribute, like Lori McKenna and Nathan Chapman, who wrote that one, and Hayes Carll, who I just think is like a god in terms of a great new singer-songwriter. All these songs came into play to add to the poetic side of Beau. Everybody saw his potential. I saw him as the heart of the film in that, because he's constantly dealing with the joys and vicissitudes of this new life. He's found himself in the middle of a lot of chaos, unknowingly, and having to deal with that. Also, he reminded me of a young Kris Kristofferson, when he just moved out here with all of the stories you hear of Kris mowing lawns down on [Music Row] and all the ladies in the studios just googling at him out there without his shirt. You see little things like this that add to the soul, but also to the charm of someone.

What was the dynamic like between you and Gwyneth Paltrow?

I haven't worked with a lot of big female actresses whatsoever, so this was an incredible experience to work with just a wonderful actress, somebody who listens so wonderfully. She was always so sweet to me, and to be there with her, you have less worries when you know who you're with, not who you're up against, but who you're in this together with. You both work and do the best you can do and express a character to the fullest of which it was hoped to be expressed. That's why you're cast to work as hard as you can work to overcome this obstacle and complete the objective of a wonderful film and a wonderful piece. It was a great experience.

You read the script for 'Country Strong' while working on 'Tron: The Legacy,' alongside Jeff Bridges, who won an Oscar for playing a country singer in 'Crazy Heart.' Did you get any guidance from him?

I did towards the end, since I didn't play anything and I knew I'd have to audition. I almost wanted to say, "Jeff, would you just play the guitar and maybe we could set up a camera and we can sing together?" It wouldn't be me singing by myself. It was great to see him in the trailer playing guitar and singing these cool songs and just seeing him as an example of where to get to; that's already setting the standard so high and then you come down here and see all of these incredibly talented people in the bars on Lower Broad. It's like, "God! Doesn't the world know how good some of these people are?" But it was fun! Jeff taught me how to play 'I Don't Know,' that Stephen Bruton tune from 'Crazy Heart,' and showed me some other ones. When 'Country Strong' was all said and done and we wrapped, and I saw Jeff again, we were just jamming to all these songs.

You have a song, 'Chances Are,' that you sing in the movie and on the soundtrack. How did you connect with the song on a personal level?

Nathan Chapman and Lori McKenna wrote it, and it is such a great song. My grandpa was in the hospital and I said, "I'm going to come visit." He said, "I'm not making her through this one, feller." And I said, "Well Grandpa, I'm going to be there in two days." He said, "Naw, I ain't making her through this one." So, the next day I called and he couldn't talk any more, so they put the phone on speakerphone and I sang 'Amanda' by Waylon Jennings, because it's my sister's name and she meant the world to him. I sang that once for him and once for the nurses. [laughs] He seemed to be trying to move his lips and his eyes, and the next day I called back and I played 'Chances Are' for him. And as soon as it got to the point "I'm not the worst love that's making, but better at the breaking, a guy like me knows how to disappear," he passed away. So now he's with me going through the journey. For me, every time I performed the song, it made me appreciate every time I got to sing it. Every time was meaningful.

You've got 'Country Strong' and 'Tron' in theaters at the same time. What's next for you?

I'm a little beat now, because I just worked for six months straight on this film, 'On the Road,' the Jack Kerouac novel. It was an incredible experience around the world. Playing this character, Neal Cassady -- that's Dean Moriarty in the book -- it's such an infamous, rich, vibrant, rare role. We were in Canada to South America, back up here -- New Orleans, Arizona -- down to Mexico, back to Canada and over to 'Frisco. I've been on that since 2007, so I've been prepping for that this whole time; that's been three or four years of preparation and research. It became a little hard at times, too, because being on that one, then jumping onto 'Tron' and 'Country Strong'; you've flown this kite so high in terms of prep and everything you read -- all of Proust, Twain, Wolfe, Kerouac, Cassady', Ginsberg and Burrows -- and all the jazz research. You fly this kite so high that you're scared, and you think you have to tie it to a post and hope it's there when you come back to it. Ultimately, I had to read everything all over again just to have it fresh. I wrapped that the day of the 'Tron' premiere. I had to go straight from Frisco to L.A. for the premiere, and then the next day an all-day press junket for 'Country Strong.' I was just like, "Whew!" So, everybody was going, "So, 'Tron,' huh?" And I'm just like, "I want to go home and cry, I'm so tired."