GARRETT’S PRIVATE LIFE
Garrett Hedlund THE UNASSUMING ACTOR ON FAME, FILMS AND FARM LIFE
For most Hollywood stars, keeping up appearances at the latest celeb hotspot or on social media comes part and parcel with the gig. But not for Garrett Hedlund. Despite an impressive résumé, the 36-year-old actor has managed to stay relatively out of the spotlight during his 16-year career – and doesn’t use Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. You could almost say he’s the antithesis of Hollywood. “The industry can be very small sometimes. I think the only way to keep even the smallest amount of privacy is to just not participate,” he explains.
It seems Hedlund’s reluctance to join the social media bandwagon stems from his upbringing. “I grew up on a farm in a small town where you do or say one thing and everybody knows about it,” the actor tells. “So I learned at a very young age just to keep my mouth shut.”
But Hedlund was always itching to get out of the small town. “I’d break into convenience stores with two flat-head screwdrivers and steal cartons of cigarettes to sell on the school bus for $2 a pop,” he told Mr Porter’s The Journal of getting bored of farm life. “Stupid things. Life in a small town! If I didn’t get out of there, I’d be on some sort of gurney or in cuffs by now.”
At 14 he moved to Scottsdale, Arizona, to live with his mum, getting a part-time job waiting tables to pay for an acting coach. Four years later, he was off to Los Angeles. “Someone said to me, ‘If you want to catch a fox, you’ve got to be in the forest.’ So I graduated early and moved to LA when
I was 18,” he previously shared with the Evening Standard. “Luckily enough, my first movie was Troy.”
It was a high-profile debut for the young actor, but his subsequent ascent to stardom has been calm and concise – choosing scripts with heart and soul rather than the ones that would naturally come with fame and fortune. He starred in the much loved sports drama Friday Night Lights, 2010’s Country Strong alongside Gwyneth Paltrow, blockbuster Tron: Legacy and the Angelina Jolie-directed war film Unbroken, to name just a few.
While his film choices remain varied, it appears Hedlund makes sure to look for an adventure in every role. And his next film brought it in spades, with the actor filming his upcoming release Dirt Music in some of the most remote areas of Western Australia and the Kimberley Islands.
“We got thrown right into the desolation up there in the Kimberleys,” Hedlund shared with The Moveable Fest of filming Down Under. “It almost felt unfair how much we were being thrown into the environment and letting that envelop our souls. I couldn’t really communicate with anybody back home well. Service, reception, wi-fi – all of that was minimal if not obsolete, so it was just a thousand per cent focus on the story and the journey.”
Adapted from Tim Winton’s 2001 novel of the same name, the film follows Georgie (Kelly Macdonald) who begins a passionate affair with the mysterious Luther Fox (Hedlund), who’s haunted by a tragic accident from his past.
“There was something in [the script] that spoke to me, specifically the story of Lu Fox,” Hedlund explained to Observer. “I thought it was beautiful.”
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“The only way to keep the smallest amount of privacy is to just not participate”