Of all the actors on ABC's "Nashville", Chris Carmack has one of the toughest jobs. He plays Will Lexington, the hunky new boy in town who quickly shoehorns his way into industry parties. He eventually lands himself a record deal, a reality show, a country star wife, a support spot on a huge arena tour, and a hit single. He's also gay, and for the majority of the series, in the closet. When his dad found out, he unceremoniously dropped him off on the side of the highway. Nearly every industry big shot who finds out advises him to keep it quiet for fear that it will end his career. It's only at the end of season three (spoiler alert!) that he comes out in a press conference while his father scowls at the back of the room.
Carmack plays a country star, so naturally, the guy's a talented singer. The show has given him the opportunity to play the historic Ryman Auditorium and tour the country singing songs from the show. Now, he's writing and releasing songs under his own name. His debut single, "Being Alone", has him reflecting on what it means to be an actor—attempting to figure out who you are as a person in the face of the entertainment industry's expectations.
The song is about the struggle to understand and establish your own identity in an industry that expects you to be and act one specific way. It's very easy to draw comparisons between this song's narrative and his character's arc on "Nashville". Will Lexington wrestled with his identity in every episode until his final scenes in season three. Season four promises to be an important one for the character—the moment where it's finally revealed whether he'll be embraced or shunned by the industry and fans that built him up.
Thanks to that new single, I was asked to sit on the other end of a Skype call with this guy. He's a former model, and prior to "Nashville", his most famous role was Luke Ward—the dude who says "Welcome to the O.C., bitch" on the first episode of "The O.C." (and subsequently had a torrid affair with Marissa Cooper's mom). He is, perhaps, the most attractive person I've had a conversation with. To borrow a phrase from Liz Lemon, "He looks like a cartoon pilot."
The only rubric in place for this interview was that it needed to go better than the one conducted by "Ben," the "Pitchfork writer" who interviewed the Triple Exes. "Ben" is a disaster who used the phrase "baby daddy" during his interview, so the bar was pretty low. We talked across a shaky Skype connection. Carmack was in the conference room of his publicist's office in a Nashville high rise. He sat in front of an oversized picture of himself.
Pitchfork: Most people are going to be familiar with you from seeing you on TV every week. With this new music coming out, are you at all concerned that people will have a hard time seeing you as Chris Carmack instead of the singing character you play on TV?
Chris Carmack: Well I hope they don't have a hard time! It's interesting, people really do identify with the characters they see on the show, but these days, social media allows you to interact with fans in a really interesting way. On my Twitter account, I'm Chris Carmack, not Will Lexington. I interact with fans and joke with them. I'll post pictures from my life. I think that helps drop the curtain of a character.
Pitchfork: How long have you been writing your own songs?
CC: Probably since the second grade. I've been writing songs on little pieces of paper since I was a little kid, and it's just always been something I've done. When I moved to Los Angeles and I spent a lot of time learning guitar and reading books on song craft, I really started focusing on it as a past-time. Music kept me sane between acting jobs. I did it for myself, and now I have these wonderful opportunities to share it with people.
Pitchfork: Your bio cites some blues guys as inspiration, but I'm wondering if working on "Nashville" has steered you more toward country?
CC: It's interesting, my musical journey since I've been here, because I really expected to be steered a lot more toward country in my personal style and writing. When I first got here, I really gave it a stab, but in performing around town, my friends' feedback to me was that they appreciated the music I had written before I came to Nashville. It drew from very authentic influences—just things that I'd picked up over the years. It was very me. But I'm recording with Nashville studio musicians, so it gets this Nashville flair to it. You probably don't even notice, but there are jazz chords hidden under there. They create a tone, but it's by no means a jazz song.
Pitchfork: This song, "Being Alone", is about having to adhere to the expectations of others. As an actor, do you find that people have expectations of who you "should" be?
CC: Absolutely. What I've run into more than anything is people who have a belief that they know who you are. Type-casting happens because people actually write you off. "You are in this box. That's all you are, that's everything you are." It's a very de-humanizing experience. People complain about type-casting, and I think it's more far-reaching than that. It's not just professional. It exists on a personal level in our industry. That's part of what "Being Alone" is about, and the other part is about the sacrifices you have to make in your personal life in order to pursue a career and that loneliness that comes along with it.
Pitchfork: When you think about the "Nashville" audience, do you feel a kind of responsibility when it comes to playing Will Lexington? How do you prepare for the weight of that role?
CC: I do feel a responsibility to portray this character in a way that is authentic and is fully fleshed out. As an actor, my job is to show up and be present in the moment and to react honestly. Some of the most meaningful feedback I've gotten about my work on the show is people saying that it's a show that their whole family watches, and this storyline has allowed them to begin a conversation with their family about their own sexuality that they may not have been ready to have or didn't have the opportunity to have.
That is the thing that I've heard that, for me, bears the most responsibility. When I think about the character I'm playing and the story I'm portraying as an opportunity for the beginning of a very important conversation in somebody's life, I have to do the telling of this story justice, and I have to be very careful in my choices. There is that extra weight in addition to being real and in the moment and playing and being spontaneous—I have to think about those conversations that might be happening around the television.
Pitchfork: What do you feel like you've learned from playing this character?
CC: I think what I've learned about more than anything from playing Will Lexington is how much support there is out there. In many ways, it might not be the loudest voice out there, but I think it's the greatest voice out there. If Will could hear what I hear, he might've had the support in place to come out even sooner.
Pitchfork: As all these characters on the show were telling Will that it would be detrimental to his career if he came out, did you believe that it would have hurt his chances at success if he'd been open about his sexuality?
CC: You know, I'm no expert in what country artists go through or how country audiences would react, but I'll say that the work I did to put myself in Will Lexington's shoes absolutely led me to believe that it would ruin his career. Meanwhile, I was getting lots of supportive messages saying, "Will Lexington should just come out! It's 2015 already, audiences are going to embrace it!" While I wanted to believe that as a person, as Will Lexington, I felt they weren't necessarily being respectful of the fact that he only gets one chance to do this, and he has to do it when he's ready. It's still a roll of the dice! It's no slam dunk! Nothing you do in an artistic career is a slam dunk. So he had to do it when he was ready.
Pitchfork: You've gotten some amazing opportunities through this show. How did it feel to perform at the Ryman, for example?
CC: There have been a few "pinch me" moments along the way and that's one of them. If you had told me two and a half years ago that within six months, I'd be performing on the Grand Ole Opry at the Ryman Auditorium, I would have laughed at you. It's something I never could've imagined.
Pitchfork: What's your favorite Will Lexington song?
CC: My favorite has also been my least favorite because of how many times we've performed it on the show. "What If I Was Willing" is such a great tune. It's such a great opening song, it has so much energy, a great melody, it's fun to play—it's my favorite.
Pitchfork: Do you have a favorite person on the show to sing with?
CC: I think the most fun one was "Gun for a Mouth", which I sang harmony with Sam [Palladio]. That's a rockin' tune and I got to scream the harmonies into a microphone.
Pitchfork: Every person on that show is a good performer. Is that ever intimidating?
CC: No, not really, but if I had to pick an intimidation factor, it'd have to be the Stella Girls [Lennon & Maisy]. They're just bred to be incredible singers and musicians, and they're so young and so cute and so talented. They're a tough act to follow.
Pitchfork: When you landed the part, did you ever have the idea that this was something that could really propel your career as a musician?
CC: Well within 24 hours of the audition, I had been informed that I had the job and I was to learn a song that, the next morning, I was going over to record at T-Bone Burnett's home studio in Los Angeles. I had a sense that things were going to escalate quickly. It was a wonderful, fun, intimidating experience, but the song I recorded with him was a song called "Things Are Tough All Over". Bear in mind, my head was still spinning. I have gotten better at saying to myself, "Relax and just take this moment in, appreciate it for what it is." Unfortunately, when I recorded with T-Bone, I was still in the place of "my head is spinning, I'm going to Nashville in two days, I'm recording with T-Bone Burnett, what is happening." I didn't get to drink it in quite as much as I would've liked.
Pitchfork: Where do you see Will going in this next season?
CC: I honestly don't know what the writers have planned—I'm excited to find out. He's out and he's open to the world. As open-minded as Luke [Wheeler] appears to be, he dropped Will from his opening date in Nashville, so already, the landscape of his career is changing. I don't know what's in store for him.
Pitchfork: Final question—do you think this interview went better or worse than the Triple Exes' interview with Pitchfork?
CC: [laughs] I think it went a little better, to be honest.