NASHVILLE: The Cast and Creative Team Behind the ABC Musical Drama Take the Stage at PaleyFest 2013

This past weekend the cast and creative team of the new ABC drama Nashville were saluted at the 30th Annual PaleyFest, filling the Saban Theatre in Beverly Hills with an exuberant audience just waiting to learn more about their new favorite musical drama.

Among the cast in attendance were Hayden Panettiere, Connie Britton, Charles Esten, Sam Palladio (who is British), Clare Bowen (who is Australian) and Jonathan Jackson as well as series creator Callie Khouri and executive producer Dee Johnson. The moderator for that afternoon’s panel was Debra Birnbaum, the President of TV Guide Magazine, who shared that the show’s soundtrack was released in December; and since that time has garnered 1.5 million downloads. That is pretty impressive for a show that has only been on the air since October of last year.

After a screening of the most recently aired episode entitled “Dear Brother”, the cast and creative team took the stage with Callie being asked what made her develop the show for TV. She shared that she lived in Nashville right out of college and worked in a lot of music clubs, wanting to share, through the show, the Nashville that she knows and loves.

The talk, of course, quickly turned to Callie’s husband – renowned musician, songwriter and soundtrack and record producer T Bone Burnett – who oversees all of the music featured in the series. The conversation throughout the hour and half panel trailed back, quite often, to Burnett because the cast had nothing but good things to say about the musical impresario (or the “Music Whisperer” as monikered by lead star Connie Britton), who is as important a component of the show’s success as is his wife Callie.

Each actor then recounted how they came to be a part of the show with each going back to how safe Burnett made all of them feel since they are all actors not singers (but, as anyone who has watched the show knows, they are actors who CAN sing). In fact, Hayden shared that she suffers from extreme stage fright and Burnett has been instrumental in helping her through all of that. Clare also shared that she is terrified of microphones, but Burnett has helped settle her fears on that account. Connie admitted that she was intimated by the singing, but she knew that the opportunity to play a character like Rayna James doesn’t come along very often so she jumped at the chance to play her. She also joked that she signed on because of the rhinestones (that, obviously, made the audience laugh).

For Brit Sam and Aussie Clare, they had never met (and for Sam he had never been anywhere in America until he landed in Nashville) until they were brought together for rehearsals of the song “If I Didn’t Know Better” before the pilot was filmed. Legendary country singer, songwriter, musician and producer Buddy Miller worked with the duo on this early rehearsal; and at first, he was concerned whether the newcomers – especially Sam – could handle the song; but after that first rehearsal, he had little concern as Sam and Clare proved that could handle the song (and that is self-evident by their performance of the song in the pilot episode.

Most of the cast shared that it was the pilot script that drew them in, but also the fact that it was written by Callie Khouri and that they would get to sing. Jonathan shared that he “didn’t care what character” he got to play; he just wanted to be part of the show. He even elaborated that about three or four years ago he was in a café writing in a journal, making a list of the producer he would love to work with someday and T Bone Burnett was top on that list and now that dream has come true for him.

Neither Callie nor Dee were willing to give away any spoilers on the relationships that swirl around in Nashville between the characters, and the cast even joked that they don’t usually know what’s going on until they get the next new script. But a few things that could be shared include the following:

* The dog that Juliette gave to Deacon will still be around although it would appear Deacon is having trouble with the puppy behaving;

* There won’t be smooth sailing for Gunnar and Scarlett after their night together after brother Jason’s body was found and identified by a mournful Gunnar;

* While a flashback of how Rayna and Deacon came together as musical and romantic partners isn’t off the table, Charles joked that they would have to “check with special effects” first to make both of them look young enough to play their earlier counterparts;

* A concert tour with the cast of Nashville has only been vaguely eluded to with nothing concrete planned; and,

* When asked if any big names in country music have made their opinions made about the show, Hayden proudly shared that “they love us”.

And with that the afternoon panel came to an end with excited fans rushing the stage to get their autograph opportunities with the cast and creative team.

The next new episode of Nashville will air on Wednesday, March 27 on ABC at 10/9c.

NOTE: All pictures are copyrighted to the Paley Center for Media and Kevin Parry.