Ben Foster on Why He Moved to Nashville From L.A.

When filmmaker Potsy Ponciroli and Ben Foster were trying to schedule a Zoom meeting to discuss a potential collaboration on Motor City, they quickly discovered that time zones wouldn’t be an issue.

“When Potsy emailed me, he said, ‘OK, we can Zoom at 12 p.m. What coast are you on?’ I told him that I was in Nashville and he said, ‘Get out! Me too!’” Foster recalled to The Hollywood Reporter during a recent interview at the Venice Film Festival. “We decided to meet in person and have lunch, all on the same day, right after I had read the script. I have to be intuitive. I don’t want to be too thoughtful about things. It’s got to move me immediately.”

Move him it did. Foster signed on for Motor City to play a ruthless drug lord in the ‘70s-set action flick, which is notable in that it casts the veteran actor opposite Alan Ritchson, Shailene Woodley and Pablo Schreiber in a virtually dialogue-free revenge thriller. And speaking of moving, Foster’s relocation to Nashville is a relatively recent change for the 44-year-old father of two. Not only did it make his Motor City casting that much easier, it turns out that it’s been a good vibe shift in his personal life, too.

“I lived in L.A. for, we’ll call it 12 years. I lived in New York for about the same. [My ex-wife and I] had two children and my parents are very close with my children. They’ve moved close to Nashville. After the pandemic, I had a cognition that I didn’t need to live on either coast, quite frankly,” Foster explained of the decision. “I love horses and I ride. I love live music. I dig country music. There’s been a shift from both coasts and I’ve found that it’s gentler for me, at least, to hub there. Nashville is just a different way. I’m enjoying it.”

Foster is now part of a growing contingent of stars that have relocated to Nashville, a group that includes Nicole Kidman, Alicia Witt, Melissa Joan Hart, Chrissy Metz and Kellan Lutz.

Back to that lunch meeting in Nashville. Foster said he was so enthusiastic about the script that he wound up jumping out of his chair to act out some of the scenes in the Chad St. John-penned script. It’s not something he normally does, he admitted, but he just couldn’t help himself.

“It’s like music when the song calls you,” Foster continued of the film, which premiered at the Venice Film Festival before moving on to the Toronto International Film Festival. “I wasn’t doing line readings because there aren’t a lot of lines here, but I was more responding to the space. I’m a physical person, I can’t help but be in this skin suit that we all negotiate with every day. I think I just felt like moving with him and talking about scenes. I got turned on. Also, knowing that [Shailene Woodley] was attached, I have been a fan of hers for years. As an actor, sometimes you lean in and other times, you lean back and let others do their thing. Shay is always unpredictable and true.”