Again, you’re working with buzzy young talent on Love Don’t Let Me Down. You’ve got Garrett Hedlund, who’s the star of the upcoming Tron Legacy…
I know. When I met him, he was shooting Tron. Who knows what Tron is going to be? I think it’ll be a huge success and people will know who he is, but it’s like when I met Carey. She had done An Education and we didn’t know what that would be, but there was something special in her. When I met Garrett, I felt the exact same way.
I saw a video of Gwyneth doing karaoke at the wrap party.
[Laughs] Yeah, yeah. Gwyneth singing. I mean, that’s another cool thing about this movie, is that Gwyneth, Leighton, and Garrett are all really singing in the movie. We’re not revoicing any of them. It’s all original songs. Gwyneth — as you saw — even in karaoke when she’s just having fun, she has a beautiful voice.
When you’re writing a script with so many musical sequences, how are you allowing for the songs? Would you write the lyrics?
I didn’t. I would write, “Song here.”
How does that work?
It doesn’t work very well. [Laughs] I had a 120-page script with 13 musical numbers, and producers were going like, “Shana, this movie is timing at 3 hours and 20 minutes.” The songs were all original, and they hadn’t been written.
Did you know then who would be writing them?
No, I just named the songs. It’d say, Beau sings “Chances Are.” Kelly sings, “Coming Home.” I had the titles, and then we reached out to songwriters in Nashville with them and said, “Can you write these songs?” And they did. We got literally the biggest songwriters in Nashville to collaborate with us and help us with the music.
How did you know Garrett could sing?
I went to karaoke with Garrett.
Where at?
Koreatown, I think?
The Brass Monkey?
Yeah! [Laughs] We went to the Brass Monkey, we both got really drunk, and we did karaoke.
So for actors who have to audition via karaoke in the future, what would you and Garrett recommend?
I think he did a Pearl Jam song. It really wasn’t the best showcase ever of his voice, but Garrett went to school for us. Literally, he took four months off and started learning how to play the guitar, took voice lessons, went to Nashville early, started working with Nathan Chapman, a record producer in Nashville who produces Miranda Lambert. I mean, he became a country singer.
It sounds like you took a leap of faith in casting him. He had a long ways to go.
It was definitely a leap of faith, and there was definitely a point where we thought, “OK, are we going to have to revoice him? Is he making enough progress?” And then when you hear him sing and you hear the songs in the movie, I think everyone is gonna be blown away. I don’t know if you’ve ever met him, but he has a beautiful speaking voice. I just knew out of that voice, there had to be something special.
[Photo Credit: Mark Ralston/Getty Images]
