ENGLISHMAN ALEX ROE GETS HIS TWANG ON IN ‘FOREVER MY GIRL’
‘I didn’t realize how much I would love singing and playing the guitar, but now I know.’
T
he romantic drama “Forever My Girl,” opening Friday, tells the story of a successful bro-country singer-guitarist and twangy heartthrob from Louisiana and the woman who changes his successful but shallow life.
So, naturally when the filmmakers were looking to cast someone to play the lead they chose a guy from London who couldn’t sing or play the guitar.
“I think they were a little bit insane for letting this English guy who had never sung before play a country singer,” said Alex Roe, the actor who became the film’s unlikely star, during a recent Houston visit as part of a multicity tour promoting the film. “But they auditioned people from all over the country, and they auditioned people from England and Australia. They saw something in me. I don’t know, maybe it’s because I was into Elvis as a kid or something. I had some kind of essence of a country singer. I really don’t know.”
That meant Roe, 27, who didn’t know much about country music beyond Johnny Cash and Elvis, had to take a crash course in music, and accents. He began by listening to interviews with musicians as well as their music.
“I’d listen to Brett Eldredge and I’d listen to Dierks Bentley. I was listening to Chris Stapleton but I realized that I definitely couldn’t sing like Chris Stapleton, so I kind of put that one to the side,” he said with a laugh.
“It was a lot of work as far as practicing to be able to create this sound, but within that work I ended up being really able to get into the character. I didn’t realize how much I would love singing and playing the guitar, but now I know.
“Country is relatively simple as far as the chord structures, so you’re not playing jazz chords.”
As for sounding like a Louisianian, Roe says it’s relatively easy for Brits and Aussies to morph into Americans, though he said some have pointed out he sounds more Texan. “It’s just because we grow up with American TV,” he said.
The last ‘Wave’
“Forever My Girl” isn’t the first time Roe has tried
to reach a wide American audience. After appearing on several English TV projects, he landed a role opposite Chloë Grace Moretz in the 2016 young-adult fantasy movie “The Fifth Wave,” which was shot in Georgia and was being pitched as the next “Hunger Games” or “Maze Runner.” But any illusions about a franchise evaporated when it stumbled at the box-office.
“I’m proud of the movie. It was an amazing opportunity for me to work with Chloë Moretz, who’s one of the most successful actors of her generation, and J Blakeson, who’s an English director, so I look at it as an amazing opportunity rather than the missed chance of it being like ‘The Hunger Games’ or ‘Twilight,’ ” he said. “It’s also opened up these avenues for me to do other movies. It was kind of a blessing in disguise in some ways.”
Loving the light
He may have more luck with “Forever My Girl” and especially “Hot Summer Nights,” one of the buzz films from last year’s South by Southwest Film Festival. The Cape Cod crime and coming-of-age film, set for release by A24 this summer, is the first feature from director/ writer Elijah Bynum, whose script was on the Black List of the best unproduced screenplays in Hollywood, and it costars Timothée Chalamet, the hot young actor of the moment because of his turns in “Call Me By Your Name” and “Lady Bird.”
Roe said he had a gut feeling that Chalamet would be a breakout star.
“I saw him in a play (after filming ‘Hot Summer Nights’), ‘The Prodigal Son’ in New York, and he absolutely killed that,” Roe said. “And, to be honest, the stuff that I’d seen from him before when I knew that we were going to be working together, like the little bit he did in ‘Interstellar,’ I thought he was definitely a talented guy. … And to work with Maika (Monroe, on ‘Hot Summer Nights’), who had just done ‘It Follows,’ it feels good to be a part of that group.”
Also coming up for Roe is a 10-episode TV series about killer mermaids, “Sirens,” that debuts in March on Freeform (formerly ABC Family).
And now that Roe is living in Los Angeles, he expects to be concentrating on working on this side of the Atlantic so he will have plenty of chances to work on his American accent.
“I feel so lucky to be in the sunshine, as a London lad,” he said with a laugh. “To have the ocean right there, to go surfing. (But) the more time I spend in the South, like here and Nashville, there are some places that aren’t necessarily L.A. or New York that might be nice to spend a little more time in. They might feel like a little bit of a break from just being in the Hollywood scene all the time.”