Carter Faith on ‘Cherry Valley,’ Acting Debut With Jessica Chastain

Carter Faith is the perfect example of success coming gradually, then all at once.

The 25-year-old rising country singer-songwriter has been cutting her teeth in Nashville for eight years; she’s released a few EPs and she finally released her debut album, Cherry Valley, last October. And while she’s gotten some buzz — Ella Langley said last May that she’s “just one song away” from superstardom — only in the past month does it feel like that moment is feeling increasingly imminent.

Faith’s album itself was an editor’s pick for THR’s favorite albums of 2025 and was one of the most promising projects of last year to come out of Nashville’s up-and-comers. Faith and Cherry Valley give viewers sonic whiplash as she seesaws between cheeky, sarcastic songs like “Grudge,” only to immediately follow up with devastating, string-laden heartbreak tracks like “Six String,” the very next song on the record.

Since the start of January, she was tapped as an opener for Chris Stapleton’s upcoming All-American Road Show Tour, she had two new original songs on the season two soundtrack for Landman (which she co-wrote with her friend, the show’s star Billy Bob Thornton) and just this week, she was announced as the opening act for Post Malone and Jelly Roll‘s much-anticipated upcoming Big Ass Stadium Tour 2. She also just launched her own headlining tour this week in Boston. Meanwhile, she also recently wrapped filming on the Netflix film Heartland, the first acting credit she’s ever had, where she’s starring opposite Jessica Chastain.

“I feel like a fan who sneaked backstage, like ‘holy fucking shit, I shouldn’t be here,” Faith tells The Hollywood Reporter of the life her career is starting to become. “Billy [Bob Thornton] told me something before, that any good creative wakes up every day hoping they’re gonna make the thing that they remembered for forever. I thought that was beautiful, and that reminds me of why I do this. And if I can remember what keeps me going like that, I think it keeps me grounded in that honest dream.”

Below, Faith spoke about making her debut album, meeting Chastain for the first time during their first scene together and how a Chihuahua inspired a fictionalized song version of a real cheating story she experienced while making Cherry Valley.

I want to start with the album. I’ve seen you describe Cherry Valley as a dream landscape, but tell me more about it. What is Cherry Valley?

 I think I’ve related it a lot to Alice in Wonderland, which I was always really inspired by. I was always really inspired by Hans Christian Andersen and those really dark kinds of fantasy stories. And then people like David Lynch. When I make my music, even though it doesn’t start with the visuals, I’m creating a world in my head, I guess. And so I wanted to be like, “This is what the world’s called” and give people something to grab onto. I knew people would be like, “What is Cherry Valley?” It’s just a fantastical cinematic version of real life. It can be whatever to anyone. But for me, I’m 25. I’m growing up, but I’m in that weird position between young woman and adult. And so I wanted to walk the balance of both those things.

Is Cherry Valley a place that gives you comfort? Some of the songs are a lot of fun and others deal with much more intense emotions: depression and heartbreak. 

I wouldn’t say comfort. I mean, it was comforting for me as a person to make the record and have somewhere to go in my head. But I kind of like how, like in the score of a movie, you can foreshadow what’s going to happen based on the music, even if the scene isn’t really showing that. Even for “Still a Lover,” which is lyrically a love song, The music landscape of it has like this tinge of darkness in my head, and I just wanted it to feel like ‘yeah, I’m in love again, but there might be something lurking that I don’t even I’m not even aware of, and that’s why it’s kind of in the background, like in the music part. 

Something so fun about the record is that you can see so many branches of influences. It’s all you, but “Sails” feels very Kacey Musgraves. “Betty’s” a modern-day “Jolene.” “Changed” sounds like an old Elvis tune. 

I’m glad you say that because I’m inspired by so many different forms of music, specifically country music. And as a woman in country music, you’re told to pick one lane to kind of go down. I hope I make records for the rest of my life, but I said to myself and to Topher, who produced it with me, that if this is the last record or the one and done record I get to make, like, I want to show all sides of me as a person, artist and songwriter. 

Men are allowed to do that. So I wanted to just be allowed to do that too. And at some point, I realized the through line is just me and my story and my language of writing. There’s kind of a Fleetwood Mac feeling in “Arrows.” And then I love the Beach Boys. There’s some of that to me in there, too.

It’s interesting that so much of the production used all these old-school country tricks, too. A lot of stuff from the Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard era. 

People call the 90s resurgence classic country, and I agree with that, but my love is definitely 50s, 60s, 70s country. I wasn’t hearing a lot of people reference that. I remember turning in “f I Had Never Lost My Mind,” and someone was like, “I just wish it sounded country, it’s not country at all.” And I was like, “It may not be to you, but if you know the history of the Nashville sound and the strings, that’s country.”

What was the first song you recorded for the record?

“If I Had Never Lost My Mind” was the first actually. I was making a whole album with Topher, and it was called If I Had Never Lost My Mind, and this was before I signed a record deal. 

The album didn’t feel right. It felt like I was recording a bunch of songs I loved because I wanted to make an album. I’m a very intentional person, not necessarily a precious person, but I want it to feel intentional, especially my very first record. So we took a pause on that, I totally revamped my team, and when I went into Universal, which is now MCA. I was like, “If you don’t buy any other songs like this song, I need to take with me.” And that was “If I Had Never Lost My Mind.” And at the time, Cindy Mabe was there, she was like, “That should be the first single.”

Did you feel supported with the content? Some of these songs, such as “Sex, Drugs and Country Music” don’t feel necessarily like the surefire country radio tracks. 

If those conversations were being had, they were being had behind closed doors, which I appreciate. I took a lot of label meetings. I make a lot of promises to myself that I try to keep because of who has inspired me, like Kacey Musgraves, going against the grain. 

And I remember being in label meetings, showing these songs, and saying I’m not interested in dumbing myself down or watering things down. I love country radio, I want to be a part of it, but if that never happens for me, I’m not going to change my music in order to make that happen. My relationship so far with MCA has really worked because we started really honest with each other, and they knew what they’re getting into with me. 

How autobiographical is the record? I saw in another interview that you said “Betty” was actually about a dog you saw on the road. 

It’s pretty autobiographical. For “Betty,” I was cheated on, and I was sick of being sad about it, and so I had met this dog. And I was desperate for a fun way to write a cheating song from a woman’s perspective. It’s not ragging on the other woman, because you could easily do that too. But I think that goes back to the whole theme of the album. They’re really honest stories. “Six String” is a totally 100 percent true story, but I’m telling it in a theatrical way. I like to kind of push boundaries in my art, and I like for people to have to dig a little deeper to find the reality of it all. Every story on there is, unfortunately or fortunately, true.

The line in the chorus “I Bet He’s With Betty” is incredibly clever. How’d that happen?

Thank you. I was nervous about that one. I remember going into the room with Topher and Shane and being like, “Is this too songwritery, trying to twist a word, or is it cool?” And they’re like, “I think it’s cool, but fuck it, let’s just write it.” Because I just really love this damn Chihuahua that I met named Betty. 

Taylor Swift had a song named Betty too. But in this case, it just reminds me of a glamorous older woman, and I don’t even know where I was going with that, but I loved it, and I thought it was a cool title. I was like, “Fuck Betty, I’ve gotta write that.”

Let’s talk about Heartland. How do you go from an upcoming country act to starring alongside Jessica Chastain in a Netflix project when you’ve never been on screen like that before?

I love theater, so I had mentioned to my team that I’d one day maybe want to write a musical or be on Broadway or something. But I think I remember Cam Lutz on my team got this script and asked if I would want to audition for it. I was home in North Carolina with my family; I had to audition the next day. I’ve literally never done this before, but sure, I’ll try it; it could be fun. It was an hour-long audition, which I didn’t know if that was normal, but I just remember having a feeling that I was gonna get it. 

The character felt really parallel to me and country female singers that I know and our stories. Shauna, the director, called me a couple weeks later after we had talked a lot about the role and gave it to me. I’m just as shocked as everybody else because she’s putting so much faith in me, and I appreciate that. 

What’s it like to have never acted before and then have your first scene beside one of the greatest actors in the world? Did you two chat at all before?

Yeah, my very first scene was just me and her. And I hadn’t met her yet until the cameras were up, and I was freaking the fuck out. Halfway through, I’m realizing that she’s just trying to do her job, like I am trying to do my job. I was just  staring at her, being like, “I’m getting a master class on acting right now.” It’s surreal. She’s been in so many movies with Southern themes, so I grew up with her on my television, and it’s surreal just seeing her in real life. And also something weird is that I thought she was going to be like 5’10” but she’s super tiny. Her aura is just massive, I guess. Being alongside her and realizing she’s just another creative, she’s just fucking amazing at what she does, is really inspiring and intimidating.

How long did it take to settle in?

It kind of feels like when I play a concert. I’m a pretty nervous person, so when I play a show, I’m nervous the whole first song of the set, and then I’m kind of settled in. It felt like that. The first couple takes, my heart was beating out of my chest and then I got used to it. I know Billy Bob Thornton; he’s the only actor I know. I asked him, what should I do to prepare?

He was like, you can’t really prepare. You just go in there and you have to forget that you’re acting. You have to become the person and don’t say things how you think they should be said and how it would sound poetic; say them as the character would say them. I tried taking that advice to heart.

Speaking of Billy Bob, I heard Dave Cobb introduced you two? You’ve written a couple of times. Is there more?

Yeah, me and Jesse Joe Dillon went down to Texas to write songs with him and Mark Collie, who’s also in Landman. We were there for like a week. When you write songs with someone, you just kind of get close with them. We wrote eight songs. It was my birthday week, so he took me to dinner. It felt like a little family. Me and Jesse talk to him like a couple times a week. He just feels like a friend and a mentor now, which I can’t believe.

Between the music and the film, how are you managing having more eyes on you watching your career develop?

If I’m being so candid, it makes me feel like, “Oh my God, I better make it happen, or all these people will be like, ‘Well, why couldn’t she make it work?’” That’s probably a shallow feeling.

I don’t think that’s shallow at all. It’s a lot of pressure when the people around you are all waiting for you to succeed. The thought of “Did I fuck it up?” Everyone else thought I could do it. 

That’s literally how I feel. I work really hard; I’m always working. But I am trying not to put that pressure that I feel from other people on myself, which is impossible. It’s a weird feeling. I hear what people in town tell me, and it’s flattering, but it is like, “OK, then when’s it gonna happen?”

But I look back on a lot of things in my career so far and when I wanted them to happen, then I was so devastated something wouldn’t happen at that time. But thank God it went the way it did instead. The timing of everything has turned out really beautiful for me and so I’m trying to just trust that too.