Strolling into a room wearing a black leather vest and a matching cowboy hat, 43-year-old Wheeling, West Virginia native John Corbett has a big announcement to make. “I’m bored. I’ve been doing this for so long - I’m serious - and I can’t do this anymore.”
While making sure to get across his point that he enjoyed making Raise Your Voice and working with Hilary Duff, the actor insists that he’s reached the end of the line. The actor has fallen in love, both with actress Bo Derek and with Nashville, and says he wants to spend his time with them.
“I’m definitely branching into music and I’m getting out of acting,” confesses Corbett, best known for Northern Exposure, My Big Fat Greek Wedding and his turn opposite Sarah Jessica Parker in Sex and the City. “I’ve got one more movie to promote after this one and then it’s, ‘Thank you, Jesus, I don’t have to do this anymore.”
Corbett, who recently signed a deal with country label Broken Bow Records, compares his music to that of Travis Tritt. He claims that his debut album, due in the spring, is the beginning of a new career. “I’m 43,” he says, tilting back the rim of his hat. “I’ve been doing this for twenty years. I can’t be in a hotel in Toronto for seven weeks anymore, staring at the ceiling, and then leaving the hotel room to be on a set for like fifteen hours.”
“The six weeks that I work,” he continues, “I would have to work nine or ten years to make what I can in seven weeks at a regular job. Now I’ve saved up enough of that cash, not to brag, but I’ve saved up enough that I don’t have to do this any more. So I’m going to do something I really enjoy now.”
Corbett seems to be a rare man, one at peace with his place in the universe and wise enough to push himself away from the table while he still has plenty of poker chips. Like his character in Raise Your Voice, Corbett is determined to devote his life to music, and play it on his own terms.
Ironically, one of Corbett’s latest and, apparently, final contributions to the cinematic firmament is entitled Elvis Has Left the Building. Co-starring Sean Astin and Kim Basinger as a saleslady who accidentally kills a gaggle of Elvis impersonators, the film as of now does not have a firm U.S. release date.
Among Corbett’s other upcoming film projects are another co-starring Sean Astin, Caught in the Act, and the indie drama Dreamland. Presumably, Nashville might have had to wait if this past season’s Phil Joanou/Armyan Bernstein pilot for ABC-TV, in which Corbett played a hotel manager, had been picked up.
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