Showtime’s George & Tammy co-stars Michael Shannon and Jessica Chastain opened up about the “kind of spooky connection” they developed while portraying married country music icons George Jones and Tammy Wynette.
Under instructions from their vocal coach, the actors did things to create intimacy with each other while they sang. And Shannon said it was hard not to get “overwhelmed” sometimes.
Michael Shannon ‘didn’t know much at all’ about George Jones and Tammy Wynette before ‘George & Tammy’
Shannon told NPR he “didn’t know much at all” about Jones before he signed on to play the country music legend. “… I’m from Kentucky originally, so I guess most people assume if you’re from Kentucky, you grow up with country music in the house,” he noted. “But I didn’t.
The Nine Perfect Strangers actor added he was “shocked” by “how many people there were in [his] life” that were “huge fans” of Jones. Through those people, he heard some of the stories.
“I mean, it was, frankly, I think, part of his appeal,” he noted. “You know, I think some of these figures in country music or in music in general, they’re kind of fascinating because they’re such train wrecks, you know?”
Michael Shannon said his connection with Jessica Chastain while playing George Jones and Tammy Wynette was ‘kind of spooky’
According to Shannon, connecting with Chastain to harmonize as Jones and Wynette was a “kind of spooky” experience.
“You know, we worked on it such a long time before we even started shooting. We had kind of a music boot camp with our vocal coach …,” he explained (NPR). “We just went in Monday through Friday and just sang all day.”
“And for him, his approach was, you know, very much geared towards that intimacy,” he went on. He explained the coach would have them sing the songs while sitting on a piano bench, staring at each other with their knees touching.
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He added, “… It’s really heavy, you know? … The singing ideally is coming from somewhere very deep inside of you, and you’re sharing that with somebody else.”
Shannon said it was “hard sometimes” to maintain eye contact with Chastain without feeling “kind of overwhelmed.”
Jessica Chastain and Michael Shannon tried to create ‘authenticity’ as Tammy Wynette and George Jones
Chastain explained that their vocal coach was trying to help create “authenticity” in George & Tammy, and part of that required them to connect in a way that made her feel “incredibly vulnerable.”
“Ron actually had us one day sing a song to each other, one of our solos — and the other person got to choose which song they wanted to be sung to them — and then just stare at each other and sing the song. I have never done that before,” The Eyes of Tammy Faye star noted (NPR).
According to Chastain, she and Shannon found a way to communicate “what’s happening emotionally on the music” for the limited series.
She added that she was “such a … wreck of nerves,” sharing, “… It’s incredibly vulnerable. But I think what I loved about this series is the songs weren’t ever set up as, like, oh, here’s the musical number. It was set up almost like a monologue.”
