What was your audition for I Saw The Light like?
"Marc was always adamant that he wanted to cast an actor who could sing, not a singer who could act. He kept talking about the contradiction between [Williams’] charisma and his vulnerability. And then, not secondary to that, I had to get up there and sing those songs. I was more nervous about it than he was. He was very confident that I could pull it off. He’d seen that I had an ear for dialect and accents, so he wasn’t worried about that.
It all came to a head on Easter weekend in Toronto while I was making Crimson Peak in 2014. Rodney Crowell was on his way from Nashville to New York for a family wedding and he stopped in Toronto and we all had this pow wow at about 11 o clock in the morning on Easter Saturday. I brought a guitar and Rodney had brought a guitar and we were sitting there over scrambled eggs having a conversation putting off the inevitable (laughs). Eventually Marc went to the bathroom and I said to Rodney, “I need for you to tell me if I can do this or not.” By the time Marc comes back, we are digging our heels into “Long Gone Lonesome Blues.” We spent the next eight or nine hours in that hotel room singing. At the end that day, I was giddy. I was so excited because Rodney had given me a key into the music and I felt like it was going to be a big challenge, but a challenge that I could take on."
You’re a baritone. How did you become a tenor like Hank? When did it finally click in?
"It didn’t happen quickly and it wasn’t easy and sometimes we did so many takes I would go mad. We’d sit in his studio and I would do 56 takes of “Lovesick Blues.” There was a day where I was struggling with “Lovesick” and I couldn’t get the clarity of the sound in the middle of the song. That yodel is very technical. I had been singing for so long and my voice was so warm, I felt like I had sufficient breath and control over it that I’d never had. After a certain point, my lungs opened up and my chest opened up and it felt like I was in clear water. I could tell because Rodney turned around from the sound desk with a light in his eyes and I said, “Did you hear that?” and he said, “Yes, I heard it!” It was like suddenly just knowing how to ride a bicycle or drive a car. I knew I was in a different zone and I could always get back to that zone. Something happened and it was a combination of technical practice and control, but also spiritual freedom."
I Saw The Light questions how an artist deals with his artistry in a commercial world. Ultimately it destroys Hank. Was there anything that you took from that as an actor?
"I think he wrestled with that tension between his artistic sensibility and the commercial demand. He really found that uncomfortable because those songs just poured out of him and they were so authentic. The demand of the Opry, I guess, on him and becoming a hit maker and becoming a professional, he couldn’t handle it. I think that’s what separates professionals from amateurs. If you’re a professional performer, sometimes you’re looked upon to deliver something you don’t feel like doing and you have to do it because there’s a paying audience out there. Have I felt that? Absolutely. The obligation is on you to galvanize your energy to deliver something to people and some days you don’t feel like it, but that’s what being a professional is all about. The show must go on. But Hank didn’t like that."
Read the full interview at The Hollywood Reporter.
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