How Riley Green's Music Career Helped Him Tap into His Character's 'Vulnerability' on “Marshals” (Exclusive)

The 'Yellowstone' spinoff marks the country singer's acting debut'

NEED TO KNOW

• Riley Green opens up to PEOPLE about making his acting debut on the Yellowstone spinoff Marshals
• The country singer says that he met with an acting coach
• He also reveals how he tapped into the character’s vulnerability

Riley Green is expanding his repertoire.

In Marshals, a Yellowstone spinoff that premiered on CBS and Paramount+ on Sunday, March 1, Green took a leap of faith by taking on his first-ever role as Garrett, and he opened up to PEOPLE about his experience.

"It certainly isn't because of the timing, because I'm probably more busy now than I ever have been," Green, 37, tells PEOPLE exclusively of his reason for taking on the role. "It happened really organically. It was through Luke Grimes, who's become a real good buddy of mine. He's starting his music career and was starting to come to Nashville and doing some co-writing and stuff. I was trying to help him out in that world a little bit with some people that I knew."

"He was like, 'Man, you should try acting, you know? I think you'd be good at it.' I was already kind of putting thought into that," he says, adding that he had been closely watching the crossover between country music and Western TV shows.

Before Marshals, the closest the "Worst Way" singer had gotten to acting was in music videos — but even then, he was playing himself. On his first day, everyone was "so welcoming" and he found his groove after getting feedback from production. He also found it was a nice change of pace from his day-to-day as a musician.

"A lot of my music career, other than writing new songs and adding things to a set, there's a lot of monotony of playing the same songs over and over again, showing in and out during a tour," he says. "This is something that's brand new every day."

To prepare, Green met with an acting coach who taught him to not "worry so much about the lines" — rather how to respond "to what the other person says."

His character, Garrett, is a former Navy SEAL who has "a lot of vulnerability" to him and Green — who doesn't have any military experience — had to work to portray that authentically onscreen.

"He'd been through a lot and had a lot of problems and that's not the easiest thing to just jump into," he says. "I certainly think there would have been characters that would have been easier for me to sort of tap into that were more similar to me."

He continues, "This guy was somebody that really had a lot of deep emotional problems from things that had happened to him in the past. And when you haven't lived those, you really kind of just rely on feedback from other people in the room."

Ultimately, Green found that tapping into that emotion for the character was similar to performing emotional songs night after night on tour.

"When you write a song, you're coming up with these thoughts for the first time so those emotions are real… But when you go and you perform that song over and over and over again, you have to keep it feeling real, even when maybe it's not so much," he says. "So for me, if I'm playing a song that's a really emotional song, there is a feeling that I need to get to go and perform it that way. And acting's very similar in that sense."

When asked if this could be the start of an acting career, Green says he'd love to do it again while he's not touring. "I'd really like to be able to go to one place and kind of settle in. I think it'd be helpful to stay in that world for a little," he says, adding that he's excited to watch his episodes on the show.

Up next, Green will travel overseas for a series of shows in Australia later this month — before returning to the States for shows scheduled through November. The "I Wish Grandpas Never Died" singer released the deluxe version of his 2024 album Don't Mind If I Do in August and now he's gearing up to release his new era of music.

"What's really inspiring me is that people are listening to my music," he says. "When people are really fired up about new music and they're really listening and it seems like they really get what I'm writing about, it makes you want to go write more songs."

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