Most actors auditioning to play a musician would probably make sure they can, you know, actually play an instrument of some description first. Australian actor Josh Heuston took a slightly different approach.
Before landing the role of Justin Kohl in Prime Video’s wildly popular new series Off Campus, Heuston couldn’t really play guitar or sing. Minor detail, right? After scoring the part, though, the actor threw himself into a crash course in both – learning on the fly to bring the aspiring musician to life onscreen.
“I could play the basic campfire song chords that I feel like everyone knows,” he told Rolling Stone AU/NZ in a new interview. “But that was it. Then I learnt Kings of Leon’s ‘Revelry’ and performed that for the audition and I guess they liked it.”
Watching the series now, it’s hard to believe Heuston wasn’t already a seasoned musician. But according to the actor, pulling off Justin’s live performance scenes took months of intense practice behind the scenes.
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“I was lucky enough to have an amazing music team around me the entire time and just drilled as many hours as I could,” he explained.
“I had Michael, my guitar teacher, in my apartment maybe every day after set or before set. Same as my singing coach Rosie. We just did as much as we possibly could to get good enough to then try and perform and make it look natural.”
That commitment even extended to rehearsing the physicality of performing, with Heuston obsessively filming himself to make sure he looked believable on stage. “I have so many videos on my phone of me playing, but without anything plugged in, just singing into a stick to try and make it look natural when I was on stage,” he laughed.
And the singing? That was another skill entirely. “Couldn’t sing! Like maybe you’d catch me singing in the shower, that’s as far as it would go,” Heuston admitted.
Off Campus is now streaming on Prime Video.
