January 2011: Garrett Hedlund
Age: 26. Provenance: Roseau, Minnesota.
Where C.P.U. meets CMT: While filming Tron: Legacy, Disney’s new 3-D sequel to its 1982 cyber-gladiator fantasia, Hedlund bonded with his co-star, Jeff Bridges, over a subject entirely more earthy: down-home music. “I had just gotten the script for Country Strong, and Jeff would play songs from Crazy Heart, and I was so blown away by it,” says Hedlund.
A good Ol’ boy ... Hedlund spent his youth on a farm in Minnesota. “When we’d work in the turkey shed,” he says, “my grandfather would put on Johnny Cash, and all the turkeys would just bob their heads to it.” Hedlund plays a singer in Country Strong, Shana Feste’s new slice-of-life Nashville pic, starring Gwyneth Paltrow.
And next is On the Road: In Walter Salles’s adaptation of Jack Kerouac’s Beat classic, Hedlund will play his dream role: Dean Moriarty, Neal Cassady’s fictional alter ego. “It was my birthday when I was cast,” he says. “I was flying back from New York and stopped in Chicago. My dad calls me and sings ‘Happy Birthday,’ and I get an e-mail from Walter Salles saying, ‘I have great news.’ So I start smiling, coast-to-coast.”