Nashville.com Visitors Guide To Nashville, TN
Beau Bridges and Rob Mayes deliver a wonderful performance in the new Nashville centered movie “Neon Highway.” The movie is about an aspiring singer/songwriter Wayne Collins (Mayes), who was a heartbeat away from making it in Nashville when a car accident derailed his ambitions. Now working a 9-5 job and struggling to support his family, Wayne has a fateful encounter with waning country music star Claude Allen (Bridges) who reignites Claude’s musical dreams. Together they go to Nashville with one of Wayne’s songs, believing that with Claude’s fame and contacts, they can make it big. The problem is the industry has changed and no one is interested in the song – or Claude. Devastated and out of options, Wayne creates a way to get the song out to the public; not for himself, but for Claude.
Other cast members include well known Nashville names like Pam Tillis, Lee Brice and Chuck Mead. The original theme song, “Neon Highway,” was written by Nashville hit-maker, Dallas Davidson.
Bridges and Mayes took some time last week to talk to Nashville.com about the film. We asked Bridges, who pretty much has his pick of of what he’d like to work on at this stage of his career, why he picked “Neon Highway.” “Well, you know the script is always the most important element of any project for me, and I thought Bill Wages and Phil Bellury wrote a wonderful script. And that’s what I responded to. It’s a story that deals with these 2 guys that are somewhat lost and they’re from different generations, and they come together to find a renewal of their their zest for life. They go to Nashville in search of their dream again. It has to do with forgiveness, redemption. It’s a great story, that’s what got me going.
We also asked Bridges how he prepared for the part of a washed up country star. “Well music has always been a part of my life. I’ve always enjoyed music, and it’s been a real hobby of mine. Our family is heavy into music. With all our family gatherings we play musical instruments but this was different, because I’m in there with, you know, real players like this guy here, Rob (Mayes) and Lee Brice. These guys are fantastic musicians so I had a lot of support and a lot of help when I was in there doing it with Them. Chuck Mead, the music director on it also is a real country music guy, and he helped me so it was a lot of fun. I enjoyed it.
Rob Mayes’ career has leaned heavily on acting with roles in various films and television projects. He even scored a Best Actor award at the 2020 Wild Bunch Film Festival for his role “A Soldier’s Revenge.” But Mayes is very much a rising star right here in Nashville with four albums under his belt and over 8 million career streams. “I’ve got a song that comes out from this film on March 22, called Dirt in my Life, written by the great Dallas Davidson, Tommy Cecil, Chris Jansen. says Mayes.
The only disappointing thing about the film is that there was no real Nashville imagery at all as the movie was shot exclusively in Columbus, Pine Mountain and Hamilton, Georgia. Georgia has a “production-friendly” tax incentive program and as a result, many projects get filmed in the Peach State. Maybe Nashville should work on that. But we highly recommend watching this great “Nashville” movie. The film will be theatrically released on March 15, following a Nashville premiere on March 13 but it can be streamed now. (watch trailer above) The film’s soundtrack is slated for release by Curb Records.
–Jerry Holthouse
Nashville.com
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