Q&A: Garrett Hedlund having a big year
After three years without a movie in theaters, Garrett Hedlund has a couple of big ones.
The biggest, of course, is “Tron: Legacy,” in which he plays Sam Flynn, the son of Jeff Bridges’ character. But he also stars in “Country Strong,” which opens Friday, Jan. 7.
And he sings.
Really sings. He plays an up-and-coming country singer opposite Gwyneth Paltrow’s down-and-out one, and he performs his own vocals. Hedlund, who graduated from Horizon High School in Scottsdale after moving from Minnesota, talked about singing in front of Tim McGraw, why country singers make good actors and the value of moving around.
Question: Big year, huh?
Answer: It’s been all right, yeah (laughs). The last film I had come out in theaters came out in fall of ’07, so I guess they are kind of ambushing right now.
Q: The release schedule is good for keeping you in the public eye.
A: It’s nice. I’m happy with the marriage between the two films. They’re for different audiences, in a way. And hopefully country music can sort of bring everybody together and they can be for the same audience. But they’re two different kinds of genre films.
Q: You recorded your vocals separately, but was it hard to lip synch to the music in front of Tim McGraw?
A: I performed for Tim quite a few times. I did it on the stage, and I wasn’t even lip synching there. I sang every single one of them, because I didn’t want to look like a lip-syncher. You’ve got to have those veins popping when you’re on film, or you look like a phony. . . . I moved to Nashville last December, like a month and a half before shooting. I stayed at Tim McGraw’s cabin on his ranch and just sat in front of the fireplace playing these songs over and over and over.
Q: Were you a country music fan?
A: No. Yeah. Just because it was in the blood from home. We had one country station back in Minnesota. Singing country as a young teenager, and you want something else - rock and roll, and then you move on to rap and then country music kind of brings it back home.
Q: McGraw is good in this film. Dwight Yoakam is a good actor. Why are country singers good at acting?
A: Because they’re not scared of anything. I guess everybody’s their own different person. I just know that Tim is so driven to be the best that he can at anything. That was inspiring.
Q: How did making “Tron” and this film differ?
A: On “Tron” we had to deal with a lot of blue screen and stages. Once you understand what your obstacles are, it’s about each and every day trying to make what’s not there, there for everyone. For “Country Strong” everything’s sort of there. You just have to be honest.
Q: Do you think moving a few times when you were younger helped you out in the long run?
A: That’s just undeniable. If I never would have left Minnesota, I definitely wouldn’t be here. Sometimes that step that you have to take is such a difficult one, too. I’d never left my family and friends behind before. You do it, and you’re in Arizona and you have aspirations to be an actor, and now you have to leave everything else there and go on your own. A lot of the choices you have to make are very difficult ones to make that pay off in the end.
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