ABC/CRAIG SJODINThe premiere night of fall's best new drama is finally here, y'all!
ABC's Nashville, one of our favorite new shows of the season, debuts tonight at 10 p.m. and introduces viewers to one heck of a girl fight between beloved Friday Night Lights and American Horror Story star Connie Britton's country music icon, and a young rising and conniving star, played by Heroes' fan-favorite Hayden Panettiere.
We chatted with Britton, Panettiere and some of their Nashville costars about the "risky" show and what Connie found "more terrifying" than American Horror Story's Rubber Man!
So how did Connie end up going from a loyal (and perfect) football coach's wife to horror house victim to a Faith Hill-esque superstar? "After Friday Night Lights, it's like what do you do?" Connie explains. "I really went through a big, major soul search after that and then Ryan Murphy showed up and said, ‘Here's what you do: You play the exact opposite of what you have just been playing for the last five years.' I thought, you know what, you make a good point, so I did that, had sex with a Rubber Man and then I thought, 'Then what do I do?'"
In Connie's case, you play a country music star and sing on TV on a weekly basis. "I thought that's about as scary a thing I can think about. Period," Connie tells us. "More terrifying than the Rubber Man is to play a country music star and sing my own songs!"
It sounds like Connie has nothing to be afraid of though as her costar and on-screen love interest Powers Boothe gushes about her singing voice. "She's being very humble," he says. "She's also being very smart. She's laying low, she's reducing expectations. She totally did that to me, so the first time I heard her, I was like, ‘Seriously, that's what you've been pretending not to be good at? That was amazing!'
While singing isn't anything new for Hayden, the actress has never taken on a role quite like that of Juliette Barnes, the show's resident man-eater, who will do whatever (and whomever) it takes to get her way.
"It's a character I've not played and that's what's exciting for me. And what's exciting to me is what's behind the character; what's in her past and what's this dark thing she's running from, this void in her life that she's trying to fill?" she explains. "It's going to be something that some people can relate to. I think people at the end of the day will fall in love with her, I hope, for all her flaws."
The men of Nashville better watch out though, because Juliette is constantly on the prowl, with Hayden telling us, "If you are on the rebound, if you are sad, if you are disturbed, if you are vulnerable in any way, shape or form, Juliette is lurking somewhere around the corner!"
Watch our interviews with Connie, Hayden, Powers, Jonathan Jackson, Eric Close and Clare Bowen above to get more scoop on Nashville's love triangles.
Nashville premieres tonight at 10 p.m. on ABC.