BY JOANNA CRAWLEY
ON OCTOBER 1, 2014
Tom Hiddleston's casting as singing legend Hank Williams may have been met with some fan backlash (as well as criticism from Williams' own family) earlier this year, but according to his mentor, country crooner Rodney Crowell, the Brit is the perfect man to take on the role of the all American Hank.
Tom will play Williams in new movie I Saw The Light which will hit cinemas next year. To prepare for the role, Tom has thrown himself into a grueling regime of weight loss, dialect lessons and most importantly singing classes. As shooting prepares to kick off, country singer/songwriter Crowell has revealed that the actor spent a month with him at his Tennessee home in September in order to get intensive singing lessons.
Posting a selfie of the two on his Facebook page, Crowell has written a long account of his time with the Brit actor, as he got to work assisting the "leading man in finding his way into the heart of one of the greatest singer-songwriters of all time."
And Tom was thrown in at the deep end by Crowell, who writes that "the classically trained British actor arrived in Nashville on the fourth day of the month and the very next day climbed on a tour bus bound for Michigan and the Wheatland Music Festival...Just minutes before taking part in an afternoon workshop with Sarah Jarosz, whose permission I had sought first, I asked Tom if he’d like to join us onstage and sing “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry,” a Hank Williams song I’d heard him practicing on the bus. I was surprised when he said yes and skillfully performed the tune before what must have been 1500 people. Later that night, with my band on the main stage, and with very little urging from me, he rendered a joyful version of “Move It On Over.”"
"Afterward, brimming with delight, he admitted, rather boyishly, that he’d never in his life performed with a band and had loved it."
