‘Nashville’ Star Charles Esten Isn’t Sure What The Future Holds
What comes after Nashville?
When CMT’s Nashville wraps its final season, the cast and crew will have to find work with other ventures. While things are still up in the air, Charles Esten isn’t sweating the small stuff and eager to go wherever work takes him next.
While acting his been at the forefront of his career, taking the role of Deacon Claybourne has allowed Esten to revisit his love for music.
“Music was my first love. In college, I was in band and I poured my heart and soul into it. At a certain point when the band fell apart, everybody else had to go get jobs at banks and law firms, and I was the only one that was destined to that and I went out to be an actor thinking, maybe I can do both. I could be an actor and make music. Along the way I did a little bit here and there, but it wasn’t until all these years later that I got to play Deacon and the music came alive in ways I couldn’t ever even imagine,” he shared with Sounds Like Nashville and other media while backstage at the 2018 CMA Music Festival.
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As he prepares for the show to end, Esten admits that he’s unsure of what will come next. One thing he does know, for sure, is that music isn’t going anywhere.
“I’m never going to say goodbye to music again. Ever,” he asserted. “I don’t care what role it is. Whatever it is, they’re going to have to take that into consideration or make it work somehow or another that I get to do both. I never felt like I was operating as fully as I do now. I felt like half of me was missing. I don’t feel that way anymore.”
The series finale of Nashville airs on Thursday, July 26 on CMT.
UPDATE: Esten has landed a season-long recurring role on TNT’s Tell Me Your Secrets. According to Deadline, the thriller drama will revolve around a trio of characters, each with a troubling past.
Emma (Lily Rabe) is a young woman who once faced a maniacal killer while John (Hamish Linklater) is a serial predator looking for redemption. Mary (Amy Brenneman) is a grieving mother looking for her missing daughter. As each is pushed to the limits, the line between victim and offender become more and more hazy.
Esten will play Saul Barlow, Mary’s husband. He, like his wife, is coping with the loss of his daughter, though in different ways. By giving up materialism and trying to move on, Barlow finds himself estranged from his wife who refuses to stop searching.
No word on when season one of Tell Me Your Secrets will debut.
