Garrett Hedlund’s career is a “dream come true”.
The 26-year-old actor’s professional ambitions are finally manifesting.
In January of this year Country Strong was released, a film in which he was able to work alongside esteemed actors Gwyneth Paltrow and Jeff Bridges. He is equally enthusiastic about his newest project On the Road, an adaptation of the famous Jack Kerouac novel, which will be released later in 2011.
“I’ve been on board for four years,” Garrett told Glamour magazine about On the Road, “so to finally get to make it is a dream come true.”
A country boy at heart, Garrett spent most of his youth on a farm in Minnesota. His newfound fame has altered his life in numerous ways, but he has yet to be corrupted by the high-paced Hollywood lifestyle.
“You’d be surprised, it’s quite simple,” said Garrett, when asked about his life. “I don’t leave my place often, I’m still focussing on work.”
Garrett currently resides in Los Angeles where he actively pursues his aspirations. He is looking for a house in Nashville at the moment to capture a bit of the simplicity he craves.

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Garrett Hedlund says filming the big screen adaptation of Jack Kerouac’s classic “On The Road” with Kristen Stewart was an unforgettable experience.

“It was wonderful,” he told Access Hollywood at the 2011 Young Hollywood Awards on Saturday.

“It was such an incredible rare journey that we all got to take, so I’m very proud of it. My anticipation is just as high as every body else’s about it,” he explained of the film, based on the legendary beat generation novel where “The Twilight Saga” star plays Marylou and Garret portrays Dean Moriarity.

“Kristen’s phenomenal,” the “Tron: Legacy” star continued. “She’s so focused, especially on this role… she’s so amazing and the world is going to get to really see that in this one.”

The 26-year-old actor is happy that the film will finally hit theaters after taking years to get off the ground.

“I singed on to the role like four years ago and so for the last four years I’ve just been twiddling thumbs trying to get the thing made, and hoping for it to be made and so it’s finally done,” he told Access.

“On The Road” — which also features Kirsten Dunst, Viggo Mortensen, Amy Adams, Elisabeth Moss, Steve Buscemi and Terrence Howard — is due for release on December 10, 2011.

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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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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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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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.

Jeff Leins from “News On Film” evaluates a June 2005 and May 2010 (production white) drafts of the screenplay by Jose Rivera (NOT to be confused with the final script). If you don’t mind being potentially spoilered, continue reading:

The script begins with a Queens apartment, where Sal Paradise’s cancer-ridden father takes his last breath through a cigarette filter and drifts away in Sal’s arms. At the funeral, it’s clear this is a pivotal moment in his young adult life; the bittersweet beginning of a new chapter. Sal (Sam Riley), described as a “former college football star now a struggling novelist,” drinks away his sorrows with his “brooding, waif-like” friend Carlo Marx (played Tom Sturridge), also a suffering writer. (Marx is the alter-ego of Allen Ginsberg.)

Together they are introduced to Dean Moriarty (Garrett Hedlund), wearing nothing but a “con man’s seductive smile” on his handsome face. This nude entrance is an instant establishment of Dean’s carefree, sexually-charged attitude, but each subsequent, similar meeting illustrates the erosion of the group’s “raging testosterone, energy, and appetite” with time and maturity.

In a departure from earlier drafts, Rivera includes the first moments of Sal’s friendship with the charismatic Dean, who ultimately has a profound, inspirational influence on him, rather than leaping into their relationship already in progress. This is a critical shift because the newest draft focuses on how their bond arcs through their road trip exploits, instead of the story of Sal seeking solace and inspiration in his travels.

The two become fast friends, but Sal develops an almost hero worship of Dean that blinds him to his buddy’s selfish vanity and reckless behavior. Rivera compares Dean to Jesus at the last supper as he passes a cup of coffee spiked with Benzedrine and breaks into another existential conversation in a haze of “benny.” It’s one of several drug-fueled larks of unbridled, youthful exuberance, often celebrations of their freedoms or precursors to sexual flights of fancy (threesomes, orgies, public nudity, and homosexual experimentation). These unrestrained antics serve as a stark contrast to a postwar society plagued by McCarthyism and inhibited by conservative principles.

On Sal’s first trip he meets Terry (Alice Braga), a beautiful Chicana girl, on a bus to Los Angeles and they share a fondness for the road. Faced with the prospect of becoming an agrarian family man, Sal flees, not ready to settle… yet.

Women come and go through their lives, usually linked to Dean, but represent something very different for both young men. For example, Marylou (Kristen Stewart) is introduced as Dean’s 16-year-old wife (naked, of course) and a free-spirited, sexual nymph around the boys. But Sal takes an immediate interest in her “subtle, natural beauty” and they exchange fleeting, flirty glances and talk of living together.

Dean’s other wife, Camille (Kirsten Dunst), embodies the responsibilities he leaves behind on the road, and Sal’s picture of an eventual happy home life.

On the road again, Dean, Sal and Marylou meet the affable Ed Dunkel, his tough wife Galatea (probably Elisabeth Moss), the “brilliant drug addict” Old Bull Lee (Viggo Mortensen, described as “35 going on 95″), and his “once beautiful” wife Jane (Amy Adams). Through the two couples, Sal learns how to make a relationship last and has his first realizations about finding a proper woman.

Rivera splices intermittent pieces of Kerouac’s poetic prose with Sal’s coming-of-age self discovery story, but makes the script his own. A bit about a writer’s self-loathing and the historical context of their wild exploits are on the mark, but perhaps more impressive is his control of the characters’ energy, from rowdy spontaneity to Sal’s gradual disillusionment.

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Garrett Hedlund:  Hello.
Me:  Garrett?
Garrett: Yes.
Me: Hi.  This is Chapin.  How are you?
Garrett: Hi, I’m very well.  Nice to meet you, Chapin.
Me: Nice to meet you too.  Where are you speaking to me from?
Garrett: I’m in Los Angeles.  I understand you’re in New York?
Me:  No.  I’m in L. A. too.
Garrett: Oh, you are?
Me: Yeah.  So we’re on the same time zone.  How many of these phone interviews have you done today?
Garrett: I’m not sure!
Me: Losing track?
Garrett: I mean, with the Tron-machine junkets and everything else, all told, yeah.  But I’m quite fine now.

The primary reason you haven’t heard much, if at all, about him, is that he is a definitively private guy and he ain’t playing the look-at-me game.

That said, he’s also a guy on the threshold of some potentially huge (and maybe unwanted?) fame. He’s currently starring in the movies mentioned above, ‘TRON Legacy’ and ‘Country Strong,’ and has a movie coming up where he plays Kristen Stewart’s husband, which is going to push him into the spotlight in a whole new way.Garrett Hedlund’s about to land on the Hollywood ‘Grid’ … hard core.

Speaking to him a few days ago he didn’t seem too aware of the impending change that could happen, but as you’ll read, he’s got his head screwed on straight. Thankfully, even though he’s private, he’s also a really nice guy too and he had way more interesting things to say about his life and work than I expected. Here he is…

Me: So, I wanted to get a little bit on your background, because there’s not that much except for you’re from Minnesota and then you lived in Arizona and you’re one of five kids, right?
Garrett: Three.

Three?  Oh, okay.  But you’re the youngest?
Yes.

So what originally got you interested in acting?
I don’t know.  I mean, I guess it’s just something that when I was a little kid we’d have VHS, and I’d write to, you know, Universal or MGM, “can I be in one of your movies?” you know?  I think just because you’re on a farm you just want to get away.  And so it was either that or be a professional baseball player.  And, you know, when I moved to Arizona, I was just state away, so I was able to sort of pursue an independent style of study and read everything I could and just pursue it that way.

Were you a super-focused kid with whatever you’d be into?
I suppose, I mean, I just, I guess I loved everything.  I loved every sport, you know.  I played, you know, football, wrestling, baseball and I think anybody on a small town just wants to find their outlet and if any of those sports would have  taken me out of the town.  I would have done it.

Being the youngest, were you like the entertainer of the three?
It’s a weird quality that the youngest have because the oldest have been told no, they can’t do that so many times that the parents are tired of it.  And by the time the youngest comes around, they always say you get away with a lot more. And so maybe that’s it.  But yeah. I always kind of — I was always just kind of a goof off.

Did you do any acting before actually like coming to Hollywood and doing auditions?
It was just the auditions, and my first film was ‘Troy.’

Wow, so straight to Hollywood … there were no like school plays or anything.
Well, it was two years of flying back and forth. No plays or anything like that.  I mean, I wanted to do film, you know?  And so two years of flying back and forth auditioning for films.  And then being fortunate enough to be able to get one.  I mean, it was the first unbelievable thing that ever happened to me in my life.

I read, what was it, ten days after you moved to L. A. you were doing ‘Troy’?  Something like that.
Yeah, I was auditioning for it.

That’s amazing.  Most of your roles would not be considered comedic, they’re mostly dramas and big action movies, but I saw ‘TRON Legacy’ and I was surprised how funny you are. Would you ever be interested in doing comedy?
I don’t know.  If it was the right project.  I mean, I don’t try and particularly search out comedic scripts. At the present time I like the ones that are extreme and completely opposite from anything I’ve done before.  And ones that take a lot of work and have a lot of emotion and takes a lot of work and emotion to be put into it in order to achieve the goal.  And that’s what fulfills me more, and that’s just tended to be more rather serious film in my career.

Well, that holds true that ‘Country Strong’ and ‘TRON Legacy’ couldn’t be more different.  What drew you to each of those roles?
I filmed ‘Tron’ before ‘Country Strong’ and I started prepping for ‘Country Strong’ immediately after I finished ‘Tron.’  But for ‘Tron’ the prep was learning parkour and mixed martial arts and weight training and motorcycle training.  When you’re doing this type of film, it’s just you know you’re being a part of something so revolutionary and so new and cool. So I was very eager to be a part of it, and to work with Joe Kosinski.  I mean, I’m from Minnesota, he’s from Iowa, so we have that tie.  But he’s also what I feel is the next visionary genius of our time. And I feel so privileged to be not in Joseph

Kosinski’s first film, but a Joseph Kosinski film. And for ‘Country Strong,’ I had started guitar training right after I had wrapped ‘Tron’ because I never knew how to play the guitar.  So in six months of guitar training. four days a week, you know, learning how to jam, and going to the studio and playing and singing at the same time, and just trying to progress. And then I moved to Nashville a month and a half early to be out there and to get comfortable inNashville.  And then we embarked on our filming process.  So I was very proud of the work put in, and that [director] Shana Feste believed in me for that role, and knew I couldn’t play it, but she believed in me when I said, “I’ll do whatever it takes.”

That’s awesome. Did you keep up with anything like the parkour, or do you still play the guitar?
I play the guitar a little bit here and there. I haven’t lately because I’ve been on the road filming the movie ‘On the Road’ and the character doesn’t play guitar, so I didn’t want to bring the guitar along.  But, I mean, I think I’ll be playing the guitar for the rest of my life.

When you pick up the guitar do you have a song that your fingers go to the chords automatically?
Yeah.  ”Chances Are” from the film.

Ahh. You sing in ‘Country Strong.’  To get the part you obviously had to prove that you could sing.  How did you audition singing-wise?
I took Shana to karaoke and I sang “Better Man” by Pearl Jam.  (laughs) It didn’t go over so well.

It didn’t?
No.  But she saw, well, she okayed it and — I don’t know.  I guess maybe it went all right.

Well, you got the role!
But when it comes karaoke time that was always my go to.  And I figured I’d be able to try and do it confidently.  And but I’m very fortunate that she believed in me.

Did she have you like sing any country songs or anything like that?
No, not then.  I mean, she was just like, “that wasn’t country.” (laughs) And I said, “that’s the only one I know how to sing.”

Ha!  That’s funny! So, you’re on just about every ‘one to watch’ and ‘hot’ list of 2010 and 2011.  But it kind of seems like you might not really like or want people watching you in that way.  Correct me if I’m wrong, but it kind of seems like acting appeals to you, but celebrity does not.
Yeah.  Yeah.  I mean, these films haven’t even come out yet and, you know, it’s been pretty crazy, but my focus at this time has been ‘On the Road.’  And we just wrapped yesterday morning in San Francisco, and it was exactly six months of filming.  And, you know, you get so beat, and you’ve been everywhere in the world.  I mean, we traveled all over the place for it. And, I mean, I wrapped at 11:00 in the morning and went straight to the airport to arrive here and go to the ‘Tron’ premiere last night on Hollywood Boulevard. And, you know, just being thrust into this, you know, massive sort of night. You know, I hope everybody enjoys the films, I’m really proud of them.  But no, I mean, I’m more a private guy.  And, you know, I’ll just start looking for a place to hide.

Yeah.  Have you started being stalked by paparazzi or have you been able to avoid that so far?
Yeah.  Yeah. I’ve been able to avoid it.

So I’ve got a few quickies I want to ask you before we wrap up, favorite books, that kind of stuff.  Is that all right?
Mm-hmm.

So, favorite book?
Favorite book.  Let’s say ‘On The Road.’
Favorite album?  That’s always a hard one.
Let’s go with Blaze Foley, I think it’s at the Austin — I can’t remember.  But that’s info to look up.  It’s Blaze Foley, F-O-L-E-Y.  And it’s Live at the Austin something.  I forget what it is.
All right, I’ll look it up.  Favorite film?
‘Being There.’  Peter Sellers.

Have you read the book?
No.

It’s really good.  You have to read it.
I know, man.  I can’t — but I love what he does with that performance so much as well.  But I really gotta read the book.
The book won’t ruin it for you at all.  I promise.
No.  Of course.  I probably, you know, it’d probably become my favorite book instead.

Favorite TV show?
I don’t watch TV.

No?  How about favorite travel destination.
Favorite travel destination.  I’ve never been to the same place twice.  Let’s see.  Favorite travel destination.  Nashville.

So you’ve just wrapped ‘On The Road.’  Do you know what’s next after that?
Nothing.  Just rest.

Take a break?  It seems like it’s been pretty intense.
Well, yeah.  It’s just, you know, it was, kind of a journey of a lifetime we just embarked on.  So, there was so much work put together.  And I got the opportunity to play such a rich sort of vibrant character.  And one of the greatest characters I feel has really been written about. And even two nights ago I got to hang with the actual character, Neil Cassidy’s ex-wife, Carolyn Cassidy in San Francisco two nights ago, and walked with her hand-in-hand up to Vesuvio’s, the old bar they used drink at.

Oh, wow.
And to be a part of this, and to look over and see Carolyn Cassidy smiling at me, it’s just — it was the very last day too, you know?  We’d done the whole journey, and now this is the gift.  And it was wonderful.

That’s perfect.  That’s awesome.  Do movies stick with you for awhile after you finish shooting or…?
Yeah, it takes a little while.  I mean, you know, I think the ‘Country Strong’ one took quite a few weeks to shed.
I mean, just because you started finding that life and lifestyle so desirable, so it was hard for me to let go of it. But yeah.  They kind of do, but you get back, and over time you sort of, you know, sink back into your couch and everything kind of goes back to the same.  It’s good to get back to you after a while.

Makes sense.   And how are you gonna spend the holidays?
I don’t know yet.

You haven’t had two seconds to think about it I bet.
No.

Well, I hope they’re great.  And congratulations on all of your success.  I can’t wait to see ‘Country Strong.’
I’m excited for you to see it.

Now, with private actors, especially ones who are this good looking, their status can go one of two ways.  The first way, they eventually come to be known purely because of their stellar acting work. The other way is they can become hounded by the media and paparazzi who are trying to their hooks into him because the people demand to know who these people are off screen. Garrett seems bound and determined not to go the ‘other’ way.  Here’s hoping…

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Traditionally, there’s only one golden-boy megastar a decade—in the Seventies, Sixties icon Steve McQueen handed the blond baton to Robert Redford, who, in the Eighties, passed it to Brad Pitt. While Pitt is still the reigning blond, Garrett Hedlund is his successor. He was first cast as Pitt’s look-alike cousin in Troy. And watching Hedlund’s performance in Country Strong, as an up-and-coming country music star who seduces two women, one is instantly reminded of Pitt’s breakthrough moment in Thelma & Louise. Hedlund is commanding, vulnerable, sexy. And he can sing. Apart from talent and the fact that he’s great-looking, the 26-year-old has that ineffable quality—star power. Which is why he will be the next one, the blond that defines the upcoming decade.

In Tron: Legacy, you play Jeff Bridges’s son, who’s searching for his father in video-game outer space; and in Country Strong, you’re a country singer entangled in a love triangle. What’s more difficult—performing onstage in front of a live audience or kissing someone you’ve just met?
They’re both a little tricky. When I read the Country Strong script, I thought, Can’t they just hand-double it? Can’t I just do the rest of the movie and not have to do the performing? It took me six months to learn to sing and play guitar at the same time. So I guess the kissing thing was easier.

Growing up in Minnesota, did you listen to country music?
I remember driving the tractor on our farm, and Tim McGraw would be on the radio. I’d find myself walking out of class, singing his songs. And then Tim ended up playing my father in Friday Night Lights. It was surreal.

How did you get from the farm in Minnesota to Hollywood?
Growing up, I would watch a movie on video and would go to the back of the VHS and locate the address for Universal Pictures or MGM or whatever. I’d write to the studios asking them if I could be in a movie. They never wrote me back. When I was 14, I moved to Arizona to live with my mother. Being in Arizona, I was only one state away from California. For two or three years, I flew to L.A. for auditions. I’d get out of school, fly into Burbank airport, get in a taxi, go to the audition, taxi back, fly back to Arizona, and go to school the next day. I remember the reaction to my first audition: I think the phrase was “You sucked pond water.”

But it got better fast: At 18, you were cast as Brad Pitt’s cousin in Troy.
Yeah—when my senior prom was happening, I was in Malta filming Troy.

You had to die in that movie. It’s hard to imagine your death when you’re only a teenager.
I didn’t know how I was going to die. I didn’t get much sleep the night before that scene, and finally, at 5 a.m., I decided to rehearse a little bit. I got down on the floor and started gagging and dry heaving. [Laughs.] I said, “That’s it—that’s how I’ll die.”

After Troy, you went to Texas to play the star wide receiver in Friday Night Lights. Had you played football in high school?
Yes, but I was always on defense—not in the glory positions. I wasn’t the quarterback or the one making the touchdowns. I loved playing, but I hated to practice. Which is strange, because I like doing research for a character. For Troy, I studied The Iliad. I’m not sure I would have read it as carefully if it had been assigned for school.

Did you read On the Road in class? You’re currently playing Dean Moriarty, perhaps the coolest guy ever, in the film version.
I remember reading the book in high school, and then, three years ago, I went online, and it said, “Francis Ford Coppola is producing this.” Now we’re halfway through filming, and I still can’t believe I’m a part of it. In ’07 I auditioned for the part twice. On my birthday that September, I was flying back from New York and I had to land in Chicago for a layover. When I got to the gate, my father called and sang me “Happy Birthday,” and at the same time I received an e-mail saying I got the part in On the Road. I boarded the plane so happy. When I landed in L.A., I got another call from Minnesota: After he hung up the phone with me, my father had a heart attack. He’s doing fine now, but that’s life—a great amount of good is always evened out by a great amount of bad. I find it’s best to acknowledge that weird balance.

[Hedlund’s phone rings. He picks it up and skips it against the floor like a rock across a lake. The phone bashes into the wall.] If I was in a car, that phone would be out the window. [Laughs.] I’m not good with phones and gadgets and stuff. I don’t appreciate them the way others do. You know how when somebody gets a new car, they are so worried about that first scratch, but after that everything’s fine? Well, I just say, “Everything to me in life is like the second scratch.”

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