ST. LOUIS — Most musicians shouldn’t act, and usually actors make for bad singers. Tim McGraw is the rare exception.
As Paramount Plus consumers are just finding out this winter with Taylor Sheridan and Hugh Dillon’s hit TV show “1883,” the country superstar has legit acting chops. But it was a movie where McGraw’s talent was first put on display, with one director (part-time actor) playing a big role in that arrival.
It was Peter Berg’s “Friday Night Lights” where the film world first got a glimpse of McGraw’s raw yet honest performance. As the Texas high school alum and father of Garrett Hedlund’s Don Billingsley, he echoed the aesthetic of the movie-which starred Billy Bob Thornton. I’m one of the rare souls that likes the movie better than the television show version of FNL, and I really liked the Kyle Chandler-led show.
But McGraw’s Charles Billingsley burnt a hole in my memory in Berg’s “Lights.” The former high school football star who was now a grown adult and fed up with his son’s troubles on the field; a father mad that his son isn't exactly like him.
Playing a dad saddling the weight of his insecurities on the shoulders of his son, McGraw never lets go of your attention. It was a tough role and an easy chance for a well-known actor to chew through, which made it the role of a lifetime for him.
He stood out in a very talented and crowded cast. Playing the drunken Charlie, McGraw found a way to completely shed the music star’s skin and reinvent himself.
After a comfort food leading role in the family film “Flicka,” McGraw re-teamed with Berg for another high-tension performance in “The Kingdom.” While the role was much smaller this time-he played Aaron Jackson, the widowed husband of a shooting victim-the role comes out of nowhere in the movie and grips the viewer.
A group of U.S. agents are dispatched to a deadly crime scene of a mass shooting, one that claimed the life of Jackson’s wife. It’s a startled-looking McGraw answering a knock at the door from Jamie Foxx’s Ronald Fleury, which follows with the husband telling the agent how his wife was brutally murdered by a bullet right in front of their kids. For a white knuckle thriller, McGraw’s intensity fits like a glove.
Again unkempt and not looking like a guy who compels thousands from a stage, it was the kind of one-and-done scene work that sticks with you at the end of the movie.
It was these two pivotal roles in Peter Berg films that won McGraw impact roles in “The Blind Side” and “Country Strong.” After a hiatus from film and television work due to that other side gig he has, McGraw is back these days in the saddle for a new Taylor Sheridan show—which is like saying you’re in a Tarantino film in the 90’s.
Sam Elliott and his real-life wife Faith Hill (playing his wife in the show) share main title co-star credit, it’s McGraw’s show to win or lose. He’s the start of this industrial Dutton family line that runs strong all the way through Kevin Costner’s “Yellowstone” patriarch, John.
It’s a weighty role for a guy with only a handful of acting credits, but not one that wasn’t earned. By finding a way to disappear into much smaller-yet very pivotal-roles earlier in his Hollywood career, McGraw found his way to bigger roles when the acting bug produced another itch.
He can thank Pete Berg for making the introduction with audiences. Proof that even a guy like Tim McGraw is full of surprises. A musician who can actually act.
Originally posted at Ramble On with Buffa newsletter.
