Thanks for the memories, Nashville! Connie Britton opened up on Late Night With Seth Meyers on Monday, May 16, about the country music drama’s cancellation after four seasons and how the show overlapped with most of her son’s childhood.
The actress, who played fading country music star Rayna Jaymes on the hit ABC show, says she lived in Nashville about 10 months out of the year to film on location, and it became like home. “It’s sort of a big deal when I realized I basically raised my son there,” Britton said of her little boy, Yoby, whom she adopted from Ethiopia in November 2011 as a single parent.
“He’s 5, and we’ve been doing the show there for four years, so it’s a big deal,” said Britton, 49. “It’s over. The end of an era. I think he’s going to just ditch me now because he’s like, ‘I’m staying in Nashville now. These people are cool. I’m learning how to play the drums. See you later.’”
While she’s so grateful for the show’s run, she says it’s “bittersweet” because she’s excited to pursue new projects. Nashville’s ending has also elicited varied reactions from friends on different coasts. “It’s been a little bit schizophrenic because I’ll talk to my Nashville friends, and they’re all devastated. It’s a real bummer also for the town too. I’m going to miss those people so much,” she said. “I’m so upset, then I talk to my friends in L.A., and they’re like, ‘We’re so happy you’re coming home.’ So I’m just like, I don’t know what I feel!”
The day after Britton appeared on Seth Meyers, ABC president Channing Dungey explained the network’s reasoning for axing the show, along with Castle. “And at the end of the day, it didn’t feel that — even though Castle and Nashville were wonderful shows for us and good performers for a long time — that the future for us did not necessarily lie in those shows.” While fans were heartbroken at the news, Lionsgate is reportedly shopping the country music drama to other distributors to potentially keep the show alive.
The series finale of Nashville airs on ABC on Wednesday, May 25, at 10 p.m. ET.
