Riley Green made his long-awaited acting debut last Sunday on the first episode of the Yellowstone spin-off, Marshals.
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The "Change My Mind" singer played a former Navy SEAL named Garrett. He asks his friends, Kayce Dutton (Luke Grimes) and Cal (Logan Marshall-Green), to help him "put the demons of his past to rest."
Green spoke with PEOPLE about his first on-set experience, how Grimes encouraged him to begin acting, and how he got into character.
It All Began With Riley Green Helping Luke Grimes
It's not like Green has time to act. The 37-year-old songwriter says he's probably busier than ever. However, Green says it was Grimes who encouraged him to try something new.
"[Grimes] is starting his music career and was starting to come to Nashville and doing some co-writing and stuff," said Green. "I was trying to help him out in that world a little bit with some people that I knew.
He added, "He was like, 'Man, you should try acting, you know? I think you'd be good at it.' I was already kind of putting thought into that."
Green said he eventually found his rhythm on set and found acting to be a pleasant change from touring.
"A lot of my music career, other than writing new songs and adding things to a set, there's a lot of monotony of playing the same songs over and over again, showing in and out during a tour," he said. "This is something that's brand new every day."
Green Put in the Work
To prepare for his role as Garrett, Green worked with an acting coach. While he didn't have any military experience, the singer aimed to be as true to his character as possible.
"He'd been through a lot and had a lot of problems, and that's not the easiest thing to just jump into," he says. "I certainly think there would have been characters that would have been easier for me to sort of tap into that were more similar to me."
Looking ahead, Green stated he would love to continue acting whenever he's not on tour. His time on set also gave him insights into the similarities between acting and performing music.
"When you write a song, you're coming up with these thoughts for the first time, so those emotions are real," he said. "But when you go, and you perform that song over and over and over again, you have to keep it feeling real, even when maybe it's not so much. So for me, if I'm playing a song that's a really emotional song, there is a feeling that I need to get to go and perform it that way. And acting's very similar in that sense."
