I actually have a decent singing voice, and I've never been able to sing onscreen. I'd love to do a musical.
For years, I've thought about a project or a way where I could do acting and music together, and I never really thought that would happen. Then 'Nashville' came along, and it was like a dream come true to marry both of those worlds.
I look at singing and acting as one career, and I love the chance to do both in the same project. I need to do both. When I'm doing one, I miss the other.
I think it's all the same animal for me. There are actors who sing, and there are actors who direct, and I also improvise. That's one thing I do as part of my acting. I don't really separate the two.
So they've actually - it's not that her character is a singer, but she had ambition to do that at an earlier time in her life. So I've actually sung two or three times now on the show.
I want to be able to make people laugh and cry and feel happy or sad and feel all these different emotions through singing and acting. Hopefully throughout my career, I'll get to pursue them.
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.
I sang throughout school, and it was always my passion. For whatever reason, acting took the front seat, but all of the projects that I've been doing seem to have some sort of musical element to them.
I've always loved projects where I can combine acting and music.
