Renée Zellweger has made her first starring role in a music video, singing backup on director C.M. “Carty” Talkington’s latest single “Two Steps.”
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The actress sings on the track and also stars in the video along with Talkington, who gave Zellweger her first big break, directing her in the 1994 film Love and a .45. The breakout role brought more attention to Zellweger and led to her starring in bigger roles.
Within two years after the release of Love and a .45, Zellweger starred in the 1995 coming-of-age comedy Empire Records before starring alongside Tom Cruise in the Oscar-nominated Jerry Maguire in 1996.
The video for the mid-tempo Texas-country song was also directed by Mark Pellington, who shot Pearl Jam‘s 1991 hit “Jeremy” and went on to work on videos and visual projects for Bruce Springsteen, U2, INXS, De La Soul, and Nine Inch Nails, among many others throughout the past 30-plus years.
“‘Two Steps’ is a lone star music film about friendship, movement and finding the right rhythm,” said Pellington in a statement. “The video evokes a nostalgic time in Texas lore, a bygone time when people danced and hearts soared when life was somewhat simpler and easier. The video evokes joy in this time, in the free wheeling track, showcasing the true to life, friendship and vocal chemistry between two great friends, Carty Talkington and Renée Zellweger. Two friends in cinema and in song, the music film is a tale of these two, a melancholy ditty, a swinging country twang full of memory, longing and sunsets to die for.”
Shot on a desert location outside Lancaster, California, the video shows Zellweger dreaming about playing with a band, then cuts to scenes of her strumming guitar and singing with Talkington inside a dilapidated house, dancing the two-step with him, and the pair performing together outside with a full band.
“It was joyful,” said Zellweger of the experience shooting the clip. “It’s joyful to play with your friends,” she added. “It’s joyful to do creative things with your pals.”
Zellweger also joined Talkington for his debut performance of the “Two Steps” during the 2023 edition of SXSW. “I was thinking, when we were in Austin for that week [for SXSW], that it was so representative of the spirit of that town when Carty and I first collaborated on ‘Love and a .45.’ At that time in Austin, everything was possible. There was this confluence of different creative mediums, where everybody was supporting each other, and the photographers were calling the actors, who were calling the musicians, saying, ‘Hey, I need this, and can you come help out on that?’ There was nothing anyone was afraid to try, and it felt like these experiences were such a representation of that.”
“Two Steps” is off Talkington’s second album, Texas Radio, a follow-up to the director, singer, and songwriter’s 2020 debut, Not Exactly Nashville. The album is a collection of songs inspired by what the Texas native grew up listening to on the radio, and all the impressions those broadcasts left on him.
“The history of ‘Texas Radio’ covers pretty much everything I dig: music, magic, radio, Texas, Mexico, outlaws, borders, singin’ cowboys, snake oil salesmen, alcoholic evangelists, mysterious mystic, the temple of the Golden Dawn, rock and roll, country, gospel, soul, Tejano, and rockabilly,” said Talkington of Texas Radio.
Talkington continued, “You could hear it all on the ‘Texas Radio,’ as it lit up the airwaves with purple glowing desert magic. The story of Outlaw Radio is the story of my life, metaphorically speaking, so I’d say “everything” about Texas radio’s history best represents my outlook on music.”
Texas Radio Track listing:
1. Feed Your Soul
2. Milk Of Kindness
3. Two Steps
4. Greenlight
5. Let Yourself In
6. Back To Myself
7. Desiree
8. Believe
9. Speed Of Light
10. Let It Begin
Photo by Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images
