The third season of ABC’s Nashville premieres Wednesday night featuring two live performances during the hour-long broadcast. Chris Carmack, who plays Will Lexington, and Charles Esten, who plays Deacon Claybourne, will actually perform twice Wednesday night — first for the east coast and then again two hours later for the west coast. They’ll have a live audience watching the performance at the show’s Nashville-area soundstage.
Even though Charles has plenty of experience doing improv with his former gig on Whose Line Is It Anyway?, he’s not taking this live prime-time performance lightly.
“This is a little bit different,” Charles tells ABC News Radio. This is pretty ‘up there without a net.’ But I’m surrounded by these incredible musicians — the same musicians that I did the recording of the song with. It will be on iTunes and everywhere else. So, I know I’m in good company surrounded by the best.”
Florida Georgia Line is also making a cameo on the Nashville premiere Wednesday night, but the big question of the night is which suitor Rayna Jaymes will choose to marry? She’s already accepted a proposal from her superstar boyfriend, Luke Wheeler, but her long-time love, Deacon, has also stepped up and asked for Rayna’s hand in marriage. That act of courage makes Charles Esten proud of his character, who was at rock bottom at the beginning of season two.
Says Charles, “He climbed his way back and crawled his way back through recovery and through doing all the things you do one step at a time, one day at a time to the point that he felt like he didn’t have to walk away when he saw Luke ask Rayna to marry him.”
ABC’s Nashville premieres Wednesday night at 10 ET. Look for Luke Bryan and Sara Evans to appear in upcoming episodes.
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