MoviesOnline sat down with Garrett Hedlund to talk about his new film, Country Strong. Garrett, who grew up on a farm near a small Minnesota town that only had one radio station that played country music, has an innate sensitivity that comes through in his acting. It made him perfect for the role of Beau Hutton, a struggling, charismatic singer-songwriter who is the heart of the film.

Garrett told us how much he enjoyed his character and looked forward to performing the songs. He also described how he prepared for the role with the help of Tim McGraw and the Warren Brothers, what it was like playing opposite his country music hero again, and how he was handling the pressure of having an incredible run of success that included this film, Tron: Legacy, and On the Road.

Q: How was the Tron: Legacy after party last night?

GARRETT: Literally I stayed about 20 minutes at the after party and then went straight home. I was so spent. It’s because I had finished filming On the Road with Walter Salles and I was driving across the bay bridge yesterday morning in the Hudson and then finally around 11 in the morning I wrapped. Then it was the goodbyes to this six-month On The Road family and they were like “You have to go to the airport!” and I was like “Just give me a fucking minute!” because it was such a long journey. And then, I jumped straight to the airport. But then, the driver brought me to the wrong airport and then I got on a different plane and tried to make it in, in time for the premiere, and so I was just beat.

Q: Can you talk about the different relationships that your character has with Kelly (Canter), James (Canter) and Chiles (Stanton)?

GARRETT: There’s a progression to the relationships. At the beginning, Beau works at thisrehab facility where Kelly is being treated at and he’s introduced to her. They get along and she feels very strongly about his abilities as a musician, and also in a loving and tenderly way, she’s attracted to him. So you have that. And I think as a young singer/songwriter, when one of the biggest country singers in the world tells you you’re good at something, you kind of believe it and it makes you feel fulfilled so you want to be around that a little more. But also, there’s a loving protection that he’s got with her which is why he does go on the tour with her. It’s to oversee but also to be there and express his talents that she feels so strongly about. With James, he’s the husband and tour manager but also somebody that Beau feels is sort of a sellout or has his eyes on a different prize rather than what’s best for Kelly. It’s what’s best for him and his career and her career and the money and revamping her image to the public which had been slightly demolished a little bit after the Dallas performance. With Chiles, it’s this young gal that he feels is in it for the wrong reasons, is in it for the celebrity side, is more bubble gummy pop. But then, I think her cuteness and her – not naivete — but maybe the person she really can be attracts him and then he ends up falling in love.

Q: We see you playing a Merle Haggard song at the start of the film and at one point you’re singing along with Roger Miller. Were you a country music guy before shooting and did you become one if you weren’t and what kind of things do you listen to when you listen to it?

GARRETT: I grew up in a very small Minnesota town where we only had one radio station and it was all country music so that’s why it was first so surreal on Friday Night Lights to beworking with Tim McGraw because he’s – you know – “Don’t Take the Girl” is my favorite song and [I’d be] driving in the tractor and singing it, and then next, Tim’s playing my father in the film so it was very surreal. I got up on stage and I sang “I Like It, I Love It” with him in Austin in 2004. But I wasn’t a country singer by any means. I was really familiar with all the great old men. I mean, my grandpa used to play Johnny Cash to our turkeys (laughs) and they’d start bopping their head to the music as we were getting everything ready in the morning.

Q: Turkeys are smarter than we thing, right?

GARRETT: (laughs) Yeah, they’re very smart.

Q: They have good musical taste. This may be a digression.

GARRETT: Me and Shana (Feste) had sat down ever since August. That’s when I’d started the guitar training with this guy Neal Casal who’s a wonderful singer/songwriter and extremely talented and was very patient with me. Me and Shana would meet up every Tuesday and Thursday and sit and watch old documentaries – either The Highwaymen or things on (Kris) Kristofferson and Roger Miller and just all these great performers and Waylon (Jennings) and Merle (Haggard) and (Jack) Dunham and just what they were about and the soul to them and trying to bring that soul to this. But it’s also funny because the music today in country music had changed so much from what it was when I was on the farm because once you move to a city you kind of get away from it and go alternative. When we’d get closer to Canada, we’d get the Winnipeg stations, so rock ‘n roll, so now you’re starting to go “Yeah, I want a little more of this rock ‘n roll!” But when I came out here, country was home and I flew back to it and really it made me feel much better. I was relaxed a lot more in the chaotic city of Los Angeles with country music. But today’s music, I hadn’t known almost a single song when we were starting this back in August and then by the time March rolled around and we’d finished, there wasn’t a song I didn’t know every inflection to.

Q: Did Tim McGraw give you much advice along the way? Was it a little nerve-wracking him being there while you’re trying to pick this stuff up?

GARRETT: The one nerve-wracking moment with Tim was I’d flown out there in October to get a gist of Nashville because I’d never been and to just get a feel for the city and see what I was about to embark on, going down to Lower Broad and seeing the incredibly talented musicians there that set a very high scale. I’d sat with Tim in the studio and I’d just brought my travel guitar, you know, it’s just a little Martin-like and first thing he says is “We gotta get you a better guitar.” So, he basically said, “Alright, well play.” And so I sit on this little stool. It was him and the Warren Brothers were sitting to the side, and putting the cape on, I start playing this little song that I had been writing. Basically, we all worked on forming a song around this. He’d say “Another line, another line.” (snaps fingers) and the Warren Brothers would be like “’I’m on this lonely road tonight,’ sing that.” And then I’d sing “On this lonely road tonight” and then it’d be like “C’mon guys, another line.” Then the Warren Brothers would throw out another line and say, “Alright, sing that with it.” Basically it was just saying to sing country music all day, every day, and live and breathe country. It’s not about the acting but about the aspirations of becoming the next great singer/songwriter/country musician. There’s a thousand people in Nashville. There are thousands of people that are geniusly talented that don’t come across success. You’ve got to live and breathe it and really be true to it to understand and express it confidently. And so, he was great and he let me stay out at his cabin in Franklin. And out the bathroom window, Hank William Sr.’s plantation home was right there so every morning it’s like “Good morning, Hank.” And all day long you’re sitting by the fire playing the guitar and trying to go over and smooth out transitions.

Q: What about when it came to actually performing? That was a pretty big crowd in a few of those scenes and also at the end. What was that like?

GARRETT: The lucky thing about performing for these audiences was I really truly loved the songs that I was singing – like the songs that Hayes Carll had given me. I mean, this was what I wanted and we had got it. If you were singing a silly song, you would have felt silly and everybody would have felt silly for you, but these ones – just the message in all these songs was something that I felt really strongly about. But the first performance we’d had, I was kind of worried about this. I knew the scenes were beautiful and I’d put a lot of work into the preparation of the scenes and the soul and finding the internal rhythm of that, but the first concert we had to do was at the stage, at the beginning, the smaller one and the rowdierpeople. But when the crowd actually likes the songs that you’re singing, they just feel like they’re at another concert. So they’re just having fun and there’s the excitement of a movie being filmed in Nashville and they’re there and the song’s good and you’re having fun with it. So they’re having fun. I didn’t want to do anymore scenes, I just wanted to keep performing.

Q: So you forget yourself in the moment?

GARRETT: Yeah. I was really looking forward to every performance part, even when it got to be the big auditoriums. You walk out and you’re like, “Well alright. Here we go. Another day. Look at all of you.”

Q: Yeah, but they’re paid to cheer so you knew you were going to be fine.

GARRETT: I think they were volunteers.

Q: Nashville and Hollywood aren’t that dissimilar in the way that a songwriter or singer is in Nashville is how actors are here in L.A. You’ve had an incredible run of success that happened very quickly and it’s similar to how it is for your character in the movie that’s plucked out of obscurity and suddenly he’s on this huge stage. This is such a big year for you. What sort of pressure do you feel or do you just put it out of your mind?

GARRETT: Last night was the most similar to that, I think. You know, walking down onto Hollywood Blvd. and the barricades being off and everybody roaring was very similar to the experience that Beau had coming out of that concert and he’s caught by surprise by people with his picture and wanting his autograph. That was the most similar feeling that I’ve had so I’m glad I got to act it before I experienced it.

Q: Did that experience make you want to run to California and play in a little honky tonk just like get away and do theater?

GARRETT: No, it makes me want to run to Nashville and find a little honky tonk. I swear it does.

Q: You’ve got two such different projects out right now. Can you talk about the contrast of those two roles – from the super high tech CGI of Tron to this stripped down guy just in front of a mic?

GARRETT: It’s been weird and a line of transitions because for two years I was prepping for On the Road, so by the time I did Tron I’d had to start a massive amount of training for cap wear and parcour and physical training and motorcycle and all the wire rigs and things like that.  So the physicality came into play, the physical transition came in, and then having wrapped that and then starting straight into the guitar and just sitting back and feeling the soul of all these tunes and moving out to Nashville and the pulled pork and the lovely Lower Broad venues that we frequented. And, as soon as I’d finished that, I ended up going up to 200 pounds for Country Strong. After I finished, I said alright now you have 5 weeks before Tron reshoots. Then I got with a trainer and I had to lose 30 pounds to get back into the suit because the suit was what it was when I was in it for the first time.

Q: How did you manage to drop 30 pounds in 5 weeks?

GARRETT: This trainer, Gunnar Peterson, he trained me for Troy and this is maybe the second or third time I’ve trained with him and he’s just so good at what he does so it makes it easy. And you’re laughing the whole time. You’re not crying. Then, we had to get ready to do On the Road but I had to keep the facial hair to go to Nashville to do additional scenes for Country Strong. So while I’m at the boot camp for On the Road, I got the beard going.

Q: There was a boot camp for On the Road?

GARRETT: Yeah. We did a beat boot camp with biographers and family members.

Q: What do you do there – drink coffee and smoke and snap your fingers?

GARRETT: And then once I’m finished with that, then I can shave the facial hair off and then go about that and then I have to go back and do it and it was so chaotic. It’s been such a multiple personality sort of disorderly year. How can I make that make sense – multiple personality disorder.

Q: What about working with Gwyneth and Leighton (Meester)? What was that like?

GARRETT: It was wonderful. I mean, we were so blessed to have these two. They’ve got such incredible voices. That’s one thing. But also, they’re so good. Gwyneth was so wonderful in this. From our very first scene, it was tender moments. We really had to jump straight into it. But also, she’s such a beautiful person and wonderful actress and to sit there and be able to work with her and listen and respond accordingly and just to have the moments we got to have was the opportunity of a lifetime. It was just surreal. I’ve been a fan of hers for a long time. Also, with Leighton, from the moment I read with her I was very excited to have her bring this in because I thought she brought such a genuine believability to this character and an undeniable cuteness.

Q: What about Tim as an actor and as a country star who doesn’t sing in this?

GARRETT: I think Tim is incredible. I can’t wait for the next movie.

Q: Is he going to kick your ass again?

GARRETT: I hope so.

End of the Road
Walter Salles talks about end of filming of “On The Road” project which will display the book by Jack Kerouac

“I just think this movie will be when the last plane is shot,” said the filmmaker Walter Salles in mid-2010. Done. The final slate of On the Road was hit on December 11 last, San Francisco (USA), after almost four months on the road with the actor Garrett Hedlund, Sam Riley, Tom Sturridge, Kristen Stewart, Viggo Mortensen, Kirsten Dunst, Amy Adams, Steve Buscemi and Alice Braga, and others. The care Brazilian is understandable, since even today many difficulties prevented the adaptation of this classic of the Beat movement, Jack Kerouac, published in 1957. The economic crisis of 2008 was the latest drying up funding sources and those interested in venturing into an independent film. On Thursday, the director started editing the film. In an interview, said preparations for the film, tells how they were filming in the U.S., Canada, Mexico and Argentina and says the film should be ready by early 2012.

Leaf – After so many names involved in the attempt to film “On the Road” feels like having finally secured the implementation of this project?

Walter Salles Jr. – Without the support and generosity of filmmakers and writers connected to the other incarnations of the project, such as Francis Ford Coppola, Roman Coppola and Barry Gifford, would not have reached the end … This is the only certainty is that. From a personal standpoint, finished shooting a project that took six years to materialize is not simple. It is a feeling of emptiness.

The fact that he had been shot in 2010 somehow changed their options, since the movie deals with themes like the role of immigrants, the culture of fear, sexual repression, liberation by drugs?

The invitation from Zoetrope to make the film came in 2004. During those years that was not possible to finance the film, much has changed in the U.S. and worldwide. But Kerouac’s book transcends a particular period and their possible inconsistencies. He announces a behavioral revolution that has opened up many of the changes usually associated with libertarian 60 years and that affect how we live today, the sexual liberation, mind expansion through drugs, redefining the family, the emergence of ecology etc.. And most of all, the need for experimentation.

When filming began? As last?

The MK2, the French independent producer, gave us the green light at the end of May. We only had eight weeks to prepare to start shooting, less than any movie I’ve directed. There were sixty-few days of shooting, 20 less than “Diaries [Motorcycle (2004)], for the same number of scenes. In other words, there was no time for much hesitation.

What countries and cities were the recordings?

In the U.S. cities that have kept traces of the past are increasingly rare. There are malls, Walmarts and McDonalds everywhere. This forced us to go farther and farther to find places that still had some architectural interest, and deserted roads. We shot in different regions of Canada, around Calgary, Montreal and Hull, in New Orleans (USA), in the deserts of Arizona, San Francisco and Mexico.

There was shooting in Bariloche. Why?

First, because the film’s budget did not allow us to wait for winter in the Northern Hemisphere. One solution would be to create the winter digitally manipulating the images. I come from the documentary and am totally against it, fake snow, actors having to spend the sensation of cold at 40 degrees in the shade. That was when we remember that during the filming locations of “Diaries” was a stretch of the border between Argentina and Chile we had left out because it seems to eastern U.S.. We went there in August. We shot in the middle of snowstorms, freeze the truth and still had the pleasure of finding a good part of the team “Diaries.”

What is the film’s budget? The fact that a smaller budget than anticipated changed the film in any way?

The cost of On the Road “differs from other films in that it includes the expenditures that occurred during 45 years of development … a dozen different routes, payments to producers involved in earlier stages of the film, etc.. The MK2 is still calculating the final budget, but the fact is that we shot with economy and urgency to get to the end. It was not possible, for example, mounted parallel to the shooting. It is the first time this has happened since “Foreign Land” (1996). We did not see what we shot.

There is already an estimate of when will be released?

No, because only now we begin to discover the film images, with the beginning of the assembly. I imagine he will be ready by year’s end or early 2012.

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If Hollywood had a leading-man factory, Garrett Hedlund would be forged from its golden-boy mold. It’s the template that produces the kind of easy-on-the-eyes, blond-haired, blue-eyed actors like Robert Redford and Brad Pitt who seem genetically predestined for roles throwing footballs, wearing cowboy hats and curling the leading lady’s toes.

Hedlund has done all of that in his eight years in Los Angeles, but as far as Hollywood is concerned, he is just arriving. In the last month, he’s starred in a Disney tent pole ( “Tron: Legacy”), crooned opposite Gwyneth Paltrow ( “Country Strong”) and is about to be onscreen as a lead in an iconic indie adaptation ( Walter Salles’ “On the Road”). For this Midwestern farm boy, it’s been a brisk and unlikely journey.

Hedlund, 26, grew up on a 400-acre cattle ranch 25 miles outside of Rouseau, Minn., population 2,500. “I had to jump on the tractor and do my chores,” he says of his childhood. “I would have just killed to be in town, to be able to Rollerblade hand-in-hand with somebody I had a crush on. I just wanted to get off the farm, to find my outlet.”

His outlet, he determined quite early, would be Hollywood. Getting here was the tricky part. Hedlund copied studio addresses off the back of VHS tapes and mailed letters asking to be in the movies. At 14, when he moved to Scottsdale, Ariz., he began hanging out at the local Borders bookstore, scouring Variety and reading books by talent manager and producer Bernie Brillstein.

As a teenager, Hedlund called Brillstein’s office regularly. “I’d say, ‘I’m an aspiring actor seeking representation. Would you sit down with me?’ Of course, I never got a call back.” (A few years ago, Hedlund was picked up as a client by Brillstein Entertainment Partners. Shortly before Brillstein died in 2008, Hedlund attended one of his book signings and introduced himself. “Bernie said, ‘Now that you’re my client, I might start answering your calls,’ ” Hedlund recalls.)

Hedlund speaks in a soft baritone, and with an earnestness that seems wildly out of place at the Beverly Hills power lunch spot where he’s being interviewed. He tends to coin his own words, like “partialize” and “subtextualize,” and winces and suggests moving seats when a deal broker at the next table yells into his cellphone, “Alan, you’re a true mogul!”

During high school, Hedlund took acting classes, modeled for L.L. Bean catalogs and Teen magazine and doubled up on coursework so he could finish early and move to Los Angeles. He was also, thanks to an English teacher who took an interest in his writing, cultivating a love for reading that included Jack Kerouac and Tennessee Williams.

Eventually, he secured an agent and manager, and by the time his classmates were getting ready for senior prom, Hedlund was in Malta, filming his first movie part as Pitt’s cousin in “Troy.” (In a bit of a portentous parallel, some critics are comparing his performance in “Country Strong” to Pitt’s breakout seduction scene in “Thelma and Louise” at age 28.) Other acting work quickly followed — a Texas high school football player in “Friday Night Lights,” one of John Singleton’s “Four Brothers,” a supporting part in the fantasy “Eragon.”

In 2007, Brazilian director Salles cast Hedlund as beat character Dean Moriarty in a long-gestating adaptation of Kerouac’s “On the Road” that Francis Ford Coppola was producing. Hedlund, thrilled to earn a serious, artistic, leading role that relied on his vulnerability as much as his physicality, swore to Salles he would take no other part until “On the Road” got off the ground.

In a reflection either of his naivete about the fragility of independent film financing or his commitment to Salles — or some combination of the two — Hedlund didn’t work for the next two years. While waiting for financing for “On the Road” to come together, he spent his time reading everything he could find on the Beat Generation and visited a New York museum that was exhibiting the original scroll upon which Kerouac had written the book.

By the time he auditioned to play Jeff Bridges’ son in “Tron” in the fall of 2008 — a long shot leading role in a potential studio franchise — Hedlund was taking loose change to Coinstar machines to get money for gas.

“We were doing a pretty exhaustive search for Sam Flynn,” says Sean Bailey, Disney’s president of production and “Tron’s” producer. “Physically and demeanor-wise, we needed someone who could credibly stand against Jeff Bridges. We wanted a classic leading man, but the character we were casting had grown up with some complicated issues, had a certain stoicism and a quiet confidence, and also athleticism. It’s a hard combination to find.”

Bailey and “Tron” director Joseph Kosinski felt they had found that combination in Hedlund, but there was a wrinkle. “He was so creatively committed to ‘On the Road,’” Bailey says. “He was really conflicted about going ahead.”

The scope of the opportunity helped Hedlund overcome his reluctance, and he put the beat world on the shelf for a digital one.

“Jumping onto ‘Tron’ was hard because you had to tie this kite you’d been flying up to a post,” he says. The actor began heavy physical preparation for “Tron” — he got a motorcycle license, trained in stunt fighting and worked out intensely to fit into the spandex lightsuit. It took two-and-a-half hours every morning to put on the costume, and days on the effects-heavy film ran long.

While he was shooting “Tron” in Vancouver, Hedlund met with “Country Strong” writer-director Shana Feste, who was casting a role for a soulful young singer-songwriter with whom Paltrow’s alcoholic country star would find some comfort. “He said he doesn’t really sing, but he has this beautiful speaking voice that’s so low,” says Feste. “It’s such a sexy voice. I thought there has to be something great to come out of that voice if he learns to sing.”

Hedlund ultimately confirmed Feste’s suspicions by singing the Pearl Jam song “Better Man” at a karaoke bar. After “Tron” wrapped, he started learning guitar from Ryan Adams’ backing guitarist and meeting with Feste twice a week, running lines and watching videos of country artists like Kris Kristofferson and Waylon Jennings. Six weeks before shooting started, he moved to a cabin outside Nashville that belonged to his “Country Strong” costar and onscreen father from “Friday Night Lights,” Tim McGraw, and practiced guitar all day. “Garrett was sweet and great and like an enthusiastic puppy dog,” recalls Paltrow.

By the time “Country Strong” was a week into production in Nashville, Hedlund had acquired some fans — local girls cast as extras for the concert scenes kept popping up and elbowing their way to the stage, a bit of a problem because the shows were supposed to be taking place in different cities.

“I never once had to tell those girls, ‘OK you really think this guy is cute. You really love his music,’” says Feste. “They got the motivation.”

After he finished filming “Country Strong,” Hedlund got the opportunity he’d long been waiting for — Salles went into production on “On the Road,” a road-trip shoot that took him to Montreal, Argentina, New Orleans, Mexico, Chile, Calgary and finally San Francisco. On the morning of Dec. 11, he was driving a 1949 Hudson Hornet across the Bay Bridge to shoot his final scene for that role. That night, he walked a red carpet on Hollywood Boulevard for the premiere of “Tron.”

“‘On the Road’ is a film telling you to live as much as you can,” says Hedlund. “Don’t let fear hold you back from anything. That feels really right right now, doesn’t it?”

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Garrett Hedlund, 26 starred alongside Tim McGraw and Gwyneth Paltrow in “Country Strong,” as a young folk singer named Beau Hutton who stirs up a romance with a fallen country star (Paltrow) at the inconvenience of her husband/manager (McGraw) and an upcoming country starlet (Leighton Meester). Hedlund talked to OnTheRedCarpet.com about his admiration for McGraw and his grandpa’s unusual advice.

Hedlund formerly portrayed McGraw’s son in the 2004 movie “Friday Night Lights” and has nothing but admiration for the country singer.

“Tim’s been such a support in my life,” Hedlund told OnTheRedCarpet.com in a satelite interview. “It’s so sureal going from the farm in Minnesota and just singing his tunes, you know, all these years later, we show up to work at this audtiorium in Nashville and he’s singing mine so it’s a real honor.”

Tim McGraw recently said that if it wasn’t for his wife, Faith Hill that he would be dead but admit that it was his drunken texts that alerted him to his vice. The tables were turned in “Country Strong” as McGraw had to look after his alcoholic wife.

Hedlund spent 6 months honing his guitar and singing skills as he was determined to do his own performances. But he Minnesota farm boy said that he grew up with country music and credits his family for his vocal skills.

“My grandpa always told me that if you eat burnt toast growing up that you’re going to grow up with a real good voice but I think that was all b.s. now and I think he was just telling me that so I didn’t waste bread. Nah, it wasn’t always this low, I don’t suppose but most of my family members sound like Joe Cocker on acid.”

Hedlund recently starred as Jeff Bridge’s son in “TRON: Legacy” and recently wrapped an on-screen adaptation of “On The Road,” where he will portray Dean Moriarty.

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It’s easy to see why Garrett Hedlund was cast in the coveted role of Dean Moriarty, the slightly fictitious alter ego of legendary Beat icon Neal Cassady in director Walter Salles’s highly anticipated film version of Jack Kerouac’s classic novel On the Road — they’re both magnetic blond bundles of energy. The photogenic 26-year-old actor just completed filming Road the afternoon before our interview, immediately caught a flight to Los Angeles to attend the premiere of Tron: Legacy, yet is surprisingly effusive after waking up early the next morning to begin publicity duties for Country Strong (now in theaters nationwide).

It’s been a quick rise to fame for Hedlund, who first made waves crossing swords with Brad Pitt in the 2004 epic Troy, a role he landed just weeks after graduating high school and moving to Los Angeles. Following his attention grabbing turns in the football drama Friday Night Lights and the Lindsay Lohan comedy Georgia Rule, Hedlund now reveals solid musical chops in Strong. He stars as Beau, a rising Nashville performer torn between Gwyneth Paltrow’s alcoholic, down-on-her-luck singer, and Leighton Meester’s winsome newcomer. Hedlund speaks with The Advocate about honing his musical skills for Country Strong, the downward spiral of former costar Lohan, and bringing the homoerotic Kerouac classic to the screen.

The Advocate: Your performance in Country Strong is so accomplished that it’s surprising to learn you had no previous experience as a musician before making the film. Was it this challenge that attracted you to the project?

Garrett Hedlund: Well, Shana [Feste, the film’s writer-director] had written this wonderful script and when I finished reading it I had tears in my eyes. I thought that a script that moving had potential to be even moreso on screen. Shana and I met and she asked if I was willing to put the necessary work into doing the part and I told her 100 % completely and undeniably yes. It required six months of guitar training four days a week, plus just living and breathing country music. There was a lot of hard work put into it and I’m really proud of the film.

The hard work certainly paid off as your musical performances in the film have authenticity. Do you think you might pursue a musical career in addition to acting?

No, not as a career but of course just getting the taste of being in Nashville and getting up and doing it was so much fun. What I’d pursue is playing guitar in my spare time and writing. Maybe if one of my pals performs onstage somewhere I’d get up and play with him, but it would be very casual.

Gwyneth’s character, Kelly, is an alcoholic singer whose life and career are spinning out of control. Three years ago you starred opposite Lindsay Lohan in Georgia Rule, around the time her downward spiral began. Did you see any parallels between Lindsay’s off-screen struggles with substance abuse and Gwyneth’s character’s on-screen problems?

[Pause] I guess not. [Laughs] I guess the parallel in this situation would be, like the theme of Country Strong, whether love and fame can co-exist. It’s such a hard thing when you work steady and live your life and try to be happy and appease audiences and be the greatest you can be, but then life takes a toll on you and you turn to drugs. It’s unfortunate.

You have starring roles in three very high profile films. Have you thought about how you’ll handle the inevitable loss of your anonymity?

I don’t really think about it. I take it a day at a time. I’m a harmless, peaceful guy. I like to be at home and I don’t cause any trouble. If things get too crazy I’ll find another place to hide.

You might need to find one after your next project, the long awaited film version of On the Road. I don’t want to put any pressure on you but it’s arguably one of the most highly anticipated films of all time.

Yes, I’ve spent the last six months working incredibly hard with Walter Salles on it. It was a phenomenal cast, who I will love for the rest of my life. We embarked on something so rare and so rich. I’m incredibly proud to be a part of it.

You play Dean Moriarty, which is a plum role that’s been discussed over the years as a vehicle for everyone from Marlon Brando to Brad Pitt. How did you get cast?

I read the book when I was 17 and still in high school. I immediately went online and read that Francis Ford Coppola was going to direct it then. I thought, Oh man, I’ll never get a part in this! [Laughs] Never mind that I was just a 17-year-old high school kid in Arizona so why the hell should I get the part? I met with Walter in 2007 and auditioned for him and then made a screen test. Walter called me on my birthday that September and told me I got the part.

What a nice birthday gift.

It was the greatest day of my life. Then came the journey of trying to get it made. For two years I worked on the character and read everything—all of Jack’s books. I read Neal’s book, The First Third, and all the letters between them and between Neal and Carolyn [Cassady, Neal’s ex-wife and biographer] and between Neal and Allen Ginsberg [the poet, who was one of Cassady’s lover]. Just going into auditions and saying that I was working with Walter Salles on On the Road gave me confidence, even though I didn’t have any money. I was fortunate to come across Tron and Country Strong to help me survive in Los Angeles.

Dean seems like a character who’d be difficult to shake when the cameras stop rolling. How did playing him affect you?

Yeah, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to shake certain traits of his. I honestly feel that all the years I’ve spent preparing to play Neal Cassady made me a better person. It was such an honor to portray one of the richest characters ever written. The night before we wrapped Carolyn came to the set. She sat with me and Sam Riley [who plays the Kerouac stand-in Sal Paradise] and for her to look at both of us and smile…wow. We went to Vesuvius [a bar in San Francisco], where those guys drank. The three of us walked arm in arm and the sole of her shoe broke so I pulled my boot off and slipped my sock off and tied it around the sole of her shoe and we went to Vesuvius and sat down. She just closed her eyes and took it in. I don’t even have the words to express how it made me feel. It was so fucking fulfilling.

There have been screenplays of On the Road in development for decades. Is your film adapted from the first published version of Kerouac’s novel, which was censored, or…

It’s based on the scroll version. The original scripts were always based on the censored version but just last year the scroll version came out. To be infused with the raw honesty of the scroll and infuse events from the letters, I think the film is going to be so filled with the beautiful honesty of what this story was about.

The real Neal Cassady was bisexual and there was understated homoerotic tension between the Dean and Sal characters in Kerouac’s book. How explicit is this portrayed in the film?

Between Dean and Sal, not so much – it’s more between the Ginsberg character and Dean and the relationship they had. That is very visible in the screenplay.

I read a story about you, which may be apocryphal, but it’s fascinating just the same. When you were starting out as an actor, you read screenplays of old movies and prepared auditions for them.

One film I remember doing it for is Five Easy Pieces. When I was first starting out everyone said, “You have to see Jack [Nicholson] in Five Easy Pieces.” I read the script, but I hadn’t seen the film yet. I prepped a scene for a week and pretended I was auditioning for it, but I didn’t perform it in front of anyone. Then I watched the film to see what the actors did. Acting schools always say you have to do this and you don’t do that. They put barriers on everything. There are no rules, you know.

That’s a very Neal Cassady thing to say.

[Laughs] It’s only when you can cut the cuffs that are attached by rules that you can finally be free.

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A Little Bit L.A. and Nashville

Garrett Hedlund on Barbecue and Learning to Sing for His ‘Country Strong’ Role

While most young movie stars prefer their food served to them, 26-year-old Garrett Hedlund doesn’t mind going up to the counter and ordering himself.

“Oh, I forgot my fork,” said Mr. Hedlund at Hill Country Barbecue Market early this week after making friends with George Gonzalez, the restaurant’s chef, and settling on a meal of confetti coleslaw, pulled pork sandwich and Coca-Cola with lemon.

“I wish I got to go to these places more often, but I don’t,” he said dressed more dapperly than any of the restaurant’s other guests in a Calvin Klein blazer and white button-down shirt with Diesel jeans.

When a reporter seemed surprised that Mr. Hedlund wasn’t in fact over Southern cooking, given his work on the Jan. 7 film “Country Strong,” with Gwyneth Paltrow and Tim McGraw, he responded in between bites “I love barbecue and I feel like I haven’t eaten it in so long. Could all meetings be like this? It’s always so rushed, so I’m trying to take it slow and enjoy the food.”

He then turned to the waiter and asked, “Which sauce is better,” referring to the condiments on the table. Mr. Hedlund settled on the spicier of the two before offering a reporter a roll of paper towels he was clutching.

Though Mr. Hedlund had no prior professional singing or guitar experience, that kind of easygoing attitude is probably what landed the “Troy” and “Tron: Legacy” star his part in “Country Strong” as Beau Hutton, an up and coming, straight-shooting singer-songwriter who finds himself entangled with Ms. Paltrow and Leighton Meester’s characters. Mr. Hedlund based it loosely on Kris Kristofferson, someone whose music was “sad and gritty” and who “looked like a poet, not a self-conscious football player.”

“I had done chorus before in school, but I was only trying for an easy A,” he said gesturing grandly with his hands. “I was a bass going dum dum da doo wop. I had to sing karaoke for ['Country Strong' writer] Shana Feste at Brass Monkey in L.A., so she could report back to [producers] Tobey Maguire and Jenno Topping that she heard me sing. It was hard to even get up there. There were only three people in the place and the lights were on, I was like ‘give me a double.’ I ended up singing Pearl Jam’s ‘Better Man.’ It was hardly the best rendition, but she was kind.”

In respect to improving his singing skills, Mr. Hedlund had to get out of his adopted hometown of Los Angeles, “I grew up listening to Garth [Brooks], like ‘The River’ and ‘The Dance,’ and my grandfather would play Johnny Cash every morning when we were in the turkey shed in Minnesota, but when I went to a vocal coach in L.A. and he was like ‘and a one and two,’ I was like this is crazy,” he said. “I need to get to Nashville.”

Once in Nashville, Mr. Hedlund apparently spent time on Mr. McGraw’s property “living and breathing country music.” “I’m looking for a place down there,” he said as he rocked back and forth in his seat. “It’s not really like L.A. Nashville is a lot like my hometown. You learn so quickly once someone hears something about you or sees something, everybody talks about it at dinner. They know your business, so people tend to be more private and not to throw themselves into everyone’s faces.”

Just then a familiar tune blared through the honky tonk establishment. When someone at the neighboring table said it was Clint Eastwood, Mr. Hedlund proved his country prowess and started cracking up. “Unbelievable,” he said. “It’s Clint Black.”

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Garrett Hedlund is clearly one to watch in 2011. The actor recently wrapped shooting On the Road alongside Kristen Stewart and debuts a pitch-perfect singing voice in Country Strong, which opens nationwide in theaters today. He attended a special screening of the film last night in NYC, but I had a chance to speak with Garrett in Beverly Hills in December as he kicked off his press duties. I also chatted with Gwyneth Paltrow and caught up with Leighton Meester at the junket. It was held the morning after the Hollywood premiere of Tron: Legacy, in which Garrett also stars, and he admitted to being a little overwhelmed by his burgeoning fame, talked about growing up on a farm, and sang the praises of his leading ladies. Check out Buzz’s review of the film, and here’s what he had to say:

PopSugar: What was it like working with Gwyneth and Leighton?
Garrett Hedlund: It was wonderful. We’re so blessed to have these two. They’ve got such incredible voices, so that’s one thing, but also, they’re just so good. Gwyneth was so wonderful. From our very first scene, it was a tender moment, so we kind of really had to jump straight into it. She’s such a beautiful person and wonderful actress. Sitting there and being able to work with her, and listen and respond accordingly, and just have the moments we got to have, was the opportunity of a lifetime and just surreal. I’ve been a fan of hers for a long time, and also with Leighton. From the moment I read with her I was very excited . . . because I thought she brought such a genuine believability to this character and such a cuteness. An undeniable cuteness.

PS: You’ve had an incredible run of success that’s happened very quickly. What sort of pressure do you feel — or do you put it out of your mind?
GH: Last night was the most like that, I think. You know, walking down on Hollywood Boulevard, and the barricades being up and everybody roaring, was very similar to the experience that Beau [his character in Country Strong] had coming out of that concert. He’s caught by surprise at people with his picture, wanting his autograph. That was the most similar feeling I’ve had, so I’m glad I got to act it before I experienced it.

PS: You’ve got two such different projects out right now, Tron and now this. Can you talk about the contrast?
GH: It’s been a weird line of transitions, because for two years I was prepping for On the Road, so by the time I did Tron, I had to start a mass amount of training with capoeira, and parkour, and physical training, and motorcycles, and all the wire rigs. So the physicality came into play. The physical transition came in. And then, having wrapped that, going straight into the guitar and sitting back and feeling the soul of all these tunes and moving out to Nashville with the pulled pork . . . I ended up going up to 200 pounds for Country Strong. And after I finished, they said, “All right. Now you have five weeks before Tron reshoots.” And then I had to lose 30 pounds to get back into the suit.

PS: How did you drop 30 pounds in five weeks?
GH: This trainer Gunnar Peterson. This is maybe the second or third time I’ve trained with him, and he’s so good at what he does, he makes it easy. You’re laughing the whole time, not crying. Then I had to do On the Road, but I had to keep the facial hair to go to Nashville to do additional scenes for Country Strong, so while I’m at the bootcamp for On the Road, I got the beard going . . . It was so chaotic. It’s been such a multiple personality, sort of disorderly, year.

PS: Were you a country music guy before shooting Country Strong?
GH: I grew up in a very small Minnesota town, and we only had one radio station, and it was all country music. So that’s why it was, first, surreal on Friday Night Lights to be working with Tim McGraw, because “Don’t Take the Girl” was my favorite song. [I was] driving in the tractor and playing that, and next, Tim’s playing my father. I got up on stage and sang “I Like It, I Love It,” with him in Austin in, like, 2004, but I wasn’t a country singer by any means. I was really familiar with all the great, old men. I mean, my grandpa used to play Johnny Cash to our turkeys, and they’d start bobbing their heads to the music.

PS: What was it like when it actually came to performing [for the movie]? Those were some big crowds.
GH: The lucky thing about performing for these audiences was that I really, truly loved the songs. If you were singing a silly song, you would have felt silly, and everyone would have felt silly for you. The message in all these songs was something I felt very strongly about. But the first performance we had, I was kind of worried about. I knew the scenes were beautiful, and I put a lot work into the preparation of the singing, the soul, finding the internal rhythm of that. But the first concert we had to do at the beginning, the smaller one, was for rowdier people. But when the crowd actually likes the songs you’re singing, they just feel like they’re at another concert, so they’re just having fun. They get excited when a movie’s being filmed in Nashville, and you’re having fun with it and they’re having fun. I didn’t want to do any more scenes, I just wanted to keep performing!

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Garrett Hedlund set foot on the Opry’s famous circle– the six-foot piece of floor cut from the stage of the Ryman auditorium, and felt the vibes.

It was standing in that spot, as so many others have done, that Hedlund described as “chilling,” considering the greats that had stood there before.

For an actor trying to sink into the role of a young singer-songwriter from Nashville, tapping into the vibes and soul of the city and the people who call it home was a major step in finding that identity.

In his new movie Country Strong, Hedlund stars alongside Gwenyth Paltrow, Tim McGraw and Gossip Girl’s Leighton Meester. The story follows washed up, booze-addled country singer Kelly Canter (Paltrow) as she gets out of rehab and launches a three-city tour to get her career back on track. Hedlund’s character, Beau Hutton, meets Canter while working at her rehab facility and subsequently finds himself on the road opening for her and wading through a handful of romantic entanglements.

In preparation for the role, Hedlund, who had no prior musical experience, underwent six months of guitar lessons and spent a month and a half in Nashville absorbing the music-rich culture while immersing himself in the lore of country music greats like the Highway Men.

He looked with special regard to “[Kris Kristofferson] and just the soul of what Waylon and Merle and what all these guys brought,” Hedlund said. He tried to take cues from “the great old men, the great storytellers, lovers, drinkers, and musicians.”

It was in going to shows and getting to know “the locals” that Hedlund started putting together a picture of the singer-songwriter.

“Singer-songwriters are sometimes a little more soulful, sad and mumbly, rather than really expressing their words clear for everyone to hear,” he said. “I think the most important thing though, is singer-songwriters have a wonderful sad story to tell. It’s kind of like, ‘Alright, what’s your story? And see if you can make us cry.’”

Much in the way songs and stories attach themselves to each other, “Chances Are,” a song Hedlund’s character sings in Country Strong, found its way into the last moments Hedlund had with his grandfather over the phone.

“My grandpa was in the hospital and said he wasn’t going to make it through this one, so I’d called him up and I’d played him “Amanda” by Waylon Jennings because it’s my sister’s name and she meant the world to him,” Hedlund said. He had left his capo at a friend’s so the next day when he talked to his grandfather again, he sang “Chances Are.”

“I played him “Chances Are” and after I’d sang ‘I’m not the worse love this making, I’m better at the breaking, a guy like me knows how to disappear,’ he passed away at that very moment, which was quite ironic. So, he got to come along to Nashville too,” Hedlund said.

Aside from learning music for the movie, Hedlund played and recorded other songs like Merle Haggard’s “Mama Tried.” He said it was a matter of living with the song. “You’d come in and put the song down and you take that home, live with it, sing it over and over, polish it a little bit, and you’d come back in and now you’re putting down a better take,” Hedlund said. “It took time.”

“I always just felt I was the underdog because we knew Gwenyth could sing and Leighton could sing, and Tim didn’t have to sing. I think I was just working hard not to embarrass the director for believing in me,” he said.

At certain point Hedlund found himself more comfortable performing.

“You’ve got that one blast of something in sequence to grab the audience’s attention or feelings and swim around in that pond for a while. I had a blast doing it, and it’s fun to get up at places now,” he said.

“Seeing what Nashville was and what it was about, and the potential, and all the incredible talented and gifted musicians out here,” Hedlund said, “They set the stakes so high.”

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Vanity Fair: For The Greatest, your first directing project, you had an amazing cast—I mean look at what Carey Mulligan has gone on to become—it’s just so exciting.

Shana Feste: You know, I had a great casting director, and we just got so lucky. When I worked with Carey, she just finished doing An Education, and I hadn’t seen her in anything. I hadn’t even seen her in the footage from that movie—she just kind of came in and auditioned. There was just something immediately very special about her, and I felt very much the same way about Garrett [Hedlund] when I first met him. There was something very special about him.

And did you always think that when you met him that he was right for the character Beau?

You know, he didn’t sing, he didn’t play the guitar, he had only done a lot of action-driven films, and I had never seen him play a love interest. And we took a huge gamble with him, and it completely paid off. He took four months off, he took guitar lessons, and he came to my house to do monologues and scenes—I would get my video camera and would video tape him doing scenes. I mean, he was so incredibly dedicated. So many young actors just come in and are like, “O.K., I have my lines memorized. I’m here. I’m ready to do the scene,” and they think that’s all that it takes. Garrett is just up to do the work.

I really liked him in the movie, and we have him in the issue this month, actually. It feels like it’s his Brad Pitt moment in the movies, where you see him and you’re like, “Who’s this guy??”

That’s what Gwyneth said, too, after working with him.

Oh really?

Gwyneth was so taken aback by him, because there was a scene that they did that was just a very tender, sweet scene. It was in Dallas when they say goodbye to each other, and we were shooting Gwyneth’s side first. So every single take, every single angle, the camera was only on the back of Garrett’s head—and Garrett cried for her performance. I didn’t even know he was doing it, because the camera wasn’t even on him. Gwyneth afterwards was like, “Oh my God, that was so amazing, I loved everything you were doing—Shana, Garrett was crying in every single one of those takes.”

To trace Minnesota native Garrett Hedlund’s involvement in “Country Strong,” you have to go all the way back to Roseau and a farm and hundreds of country-music-loving turkeys.

Hedlund is the star of “Country Strong,” in which he and Gwyneth Paltrow play singers — he’s on the way up, she’s on the way down — who are also lovers. Country superstar Tim McGraw plays Paltrow’s estranged husband. Hedlund had never sung professionally before he made the film, which opens today, but he has been around country music since he was growing up in Roseau.

“We had one radio station in town, and it was country. So I listened to, coincidentally, a lot of Tim McGraw,” says Hedlund, calling from — appropriately — Nashville. “Every morning in the turkey shed, my grandpa would put on Johnny Cash, and the turkeys would all bob their heads together.”

At the time, Hedlund was more interested in sports — he played football and baseball and wrestled — than singing: “I had pals on the school bus who could sing ‘The River’ as well as Garth (Brooks) could, but that wasn’t me. I did chorus in school but not with any aspirations. I was just trying to get an easy A, and I still think I got a C.”

Hedlund is liable to earn higher marks for “Country Strong,” in which his rich voice is prominently featured. Before filming began in late 2009, Hedlund spent six months taking lessons, recording in a studio and playing gigs in Nashville. He even lived a little country when McGraw gave him the use of his cabin for a month.
“Tim had said, ‘You’ve got to live and breathe country music. You’ve got to keep researching and finding out more and more,’ ” recalls Hedlund, who also stars in “Tron: Legacy” as the main character opposite Jeff Bridges.

“I had never been to Nashville, and I’d see all these incredible musicians performing for tip jugs. I figured that, once I understood these people and their successes, then maybe I could try it for myself.”

Hedlund immersed himself in the sort of heart-of-country performers his character wants to emulate: Townes Van Zandt, Roger Miller, Kris Kristofferson. Says Hedlund, “In terms of music, for me, the sadder and grittier, the better.”

All of that work was to make sure Hedlund knew country as well as, for instance, a baseball fan knows baseball lore: “It was about finding and understanding the soul and the heart of Nashville. For me, I’m very proud of what we accomplished with this film. ”

If learning country music from scratch wasn’t enough, the challenge Hedlund took on after “Country Strong” was even more daunting.

He just completed filming “On the Road,” in which he plays one of the iconic characters in American fiction: Dean Moriarty, the suave hipster writer Jack Kerouac based on his friend, Neal Cassady. Directed by Walter Salles (“Central Station,” “The Motorcycle Diaries”), “On the Road” co-stars Kristen Stewart and will be released late this year.

Asked about it, Hedlund exhales a long breath that suggests he’s sad to be done with it.

“It’s the job of a lifetime. Walter Salles, who I owe so much to, directing. And to play this amazing character? I’ll never have that kind of opportunity again,” says Hedlund, who immersed himself in the world of Kerouac as thoroughly as he immersed himself in the world of McGraw.

“It’s not just about the characters and the people who surrounded them but also the jazz and poetry and literature that influenced these people. I read a lot of Dostoevsky and Proust and Burroughs and Kerouac.”

Hedlund, who says Salles was instrumental in his performance, likens his director to a coach.

“It’s best when they’re more like a coach, forcing you to do better at the end of the day.

“I was raised by coaches, and no coach was ever easy on me,” says Hedlund, who moved to Arizona to live with his mom (and get away from chores) when he was 14 but who says Roseau will always be home.

“My dad was a wrestling coach when I was really young,” says Hedlund. “He didn’t end up being my coach ever, but still, he coached me on the mat, coached me on the farm, coached me through life.”

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