‘Nashville’ Actor Charles Esten Expresses Gratitude to Fans For Sticking With Show
CMT's Nashville has thrown fans through the ringer, so the show's star Charles Esten is thanking them for sticking through it all.
Fans will bid farewell to the characters they’ve come to know and love when the series finale of CMT’s Nashville airs in July. While the fans are struggling with the completion of their favorite show, the stars of the series are also having a tough time saying goodbye.
Though the time to wrap things up approaches quickly, the show’s Deacon Claybourne, played by Charles Esten, couldn’t help but reflect on the fans’ support of Nashville. When asked by Sounds Like Nashville about his final message to fans about the upcoming closure, Esten replied that he only felt gratitude for the role he’d been given to play.
“Well, the first message is one of gratitude. It is the deepest thank you [that] you can imagine, because we have always been a fan-based show,” he expressed. “We have always been a show… from the very beginning, there were people that were just hooked and they climbed on the train and it was not an easy show to jump off no matter what we took you through. We took you on some hard bends and some hard turns. We understand that. We understand that losing Rayna James and Connie Britton, that was a challenge for fans and we are so grateful for everybody that stayed the course and stayed with us to discover the same thing that people are discovering in real life, which is ‘How do you go on? You lose that love of your life. You lose the one you though you would always be with. How do you go on?’”
“And so, I was very grateful that…,” he continued. “As an actor, I didn’t want to lose that relationship. I would much rather Connie was still here, but as an actor you, ‘Oh, we get to explore this new thing that most shows like ours never …’ Deacon’s been through all these things that we thought were pretty hard, we had no idea what he’s going to go through.”
Nashville originally began its run with four seasons on ABC, when it was abruptly canceled. Thanks to the outcry from fans, CMT picked the series up and ran with it for another two seasons, before deciding to inevitably say goodbye.
The series will feature new episodes every Thursday leading up to the finale on July 26.
