Nashville star Charles Esten had a big culture shock when he first arrived in the UK from the sunny plains of California – the weather.
The actor and country singer landed his first major job in England back in 1991, when he played Buddy Holly at the Victoria Palace Theatre in London. His lead role was everything he’d ever dreamed of, and kept him coming back to Britain in the decades that followed.
Speaking exclusively to Daily Star, Charles revealed that nothing shocked him quite as much as the climate did. He said: “At the point of [first coming to the UK], I had lived in California for a good few years, up in the high deserts. There was a lot of brown and yellow – and it’s very, very hot. So the deep, rich, lush greens and blues and dark stones and cobblestones and grey skies and the clouds – I loved it instantly. I fell for it so quickly.”
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Charles encountered a little of what he’d always seen in the old movies that first night at the Victoria Palace – a real pea souper. The star explained: “I know you don’t get the pea soup thick fogs as often as all the 40s and 50s movies like to show, but I promise you, my first night going to the theatre there was a pea soup thick fog.
“I came out from the Tube up to the street level, and as I stepped out, about a football pitch away, there in the distance was Buddy in neon lights. Because it was so foggy, it was like a watercolour and it blurred it out so perfectly; it said, ‘I hope you practiced hard, because you are now walking into the theatre in London where you will be Buddy Holly’. It just shook me to my core and made the hairs on my arms raise up.”
He added: “To get to live in Paddington and work at the Victoria Palace Theatre and be on stage all these different nights… what a way to live here. One of the reasons I fell for the UK is… I know how country music is being embraced here, this music from another place.
(Image: Lime Tree Music)
“[Those dirt roads and pickups] somehow seem exotic because you’re like, ‘What’s that?’ I’m still the same way about England. I feel like I knew England from the Beatles, from listening to the little cultural references they would make, from seeing Hard Days Night. And it was everything I ever dreamed of and more. This country has always been such a blessed friend to me and I’m so grateful for that, and I will keep coming back as long as you are all happy to have me.”
Now Charles is bringing his album Love Ain’t Pretty on a UK tour, and though there are plenty of challenges, he says it’s more than worth it.
(Image: Getty Images for Capital Concert)
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“I don’t have a label, so I’m funding everything as an independent artist. We make all these investments in coming over here, with so many folks doing so much work, and sometimes in the middle of it you’re like, ‘Will they be there? Do they want this?’ I can tell you, in Edinburgh and Glasgow they showed up, they stood up and they sang all night.
“It’s so rewarding because of that bit of risk. We came back here with the Nashville reunion tour not long ago and we had every reason to think, ‘Maybe everybody’s put that behind them and forgotten about Nashville’. We found out then and I’m finding out now that no, there’s still a passion.”
You can catch Charles on his UK tour here.
Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk
