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The producers of new film Forever My Girl took a big risk casting Alex Roe as a country and western star, because the actor had no musical skills - and he is British.
The 5th Wave star grew up worshipping Elvis Presley and even attempted to learn the guitar when he was 12, but when he signed on for the movie he'd never sang a tune and had no music background whatsoever.
And he also had the wrong accent.
"I've never sung before or played the guitar before," he tells WENN. "My mum bought me a guitar when I was about 12, so my musical talents were playing a couple of notes and just strumming away as hard as I could. That was kind of it, and then I'd sing in the shower, stuff like that. I played the triangle pretty well!
"I had to learn how to sing and play country and I had a few months to train. The chords were relatively easy to learn but then I went to Nashville and we recorded the songs from the film with some of the people who did Luke Bryan's album and Little Big Town's album.
"The people who were playing guitar were incredible guitarists so I learned their picking style that they wanted to record. That was the hardest part."
And now he's stunning journalists across America by walking into junkets and promotional events and talking like a true Brit.
"We're doing a tour around America and people were pretty freaked out when I came into the Q&A (question and answer session)," he smiles. "They were really surprised, which is cool. I'm glad they weren't like, 'Ah, of course he's English. I could tell the whole time!' I guess I pulled it off."