Picture Credits: Getty Images / Netflix
Heartland is a country star noir mystery. Not a film audiences see every week. From writer-director Shana Feste, the Country Strong and Run Sweetheart Run director crafts a thriller around the country music scene in Nashville, Tennessee.
The star is Misty Jones (Jessica Chastain), who’s a hard-knuckled and tight-lipped anti-hero looking for her missing niece. She goes to amphitheaters, honky tonks, and smoky back alleyways – digging through her own past as well her niece’s.
For Feste, instead of fedoras, audiences get cowboy hats in Heartland. Recently, the filmmaker spoke with What’s on Netflix about creating Misty Green and the Nashville music scene on screen.
Where did Misty Jones first come to you? What were the first inklings of this character?
It came from my love of film noir. I fell in love with Humphrey Bogart and Robert Mitchum playing these kinds of hard-boiled detective characters. I thought, oh, I’d love to see what a woman would do with this role.
I loved even more the idea of creating a woman who didn’t organize her life around being likable or admired. And I thought, what if I put these characters together in this city that I love most, returning to Nashville? Put them in a much darker story that explored the underbelly of the city, like Chinatown did with Los Angeles, so that we get to see a different side of Nashville. It is a very heightened side of Nashville, but we get to see all the secrets in the fluorescent lights. Even while we were shooting in Nashville, it’s an incredibly cinematic city that lends itself very well to noir, especially with Lower Broadway and all the fluorescent light signage.
As a fan of Bogart, Robert Mitchum, actors who could say so much without having to say anything at all, did you and Jessica Chastain talk about that a lot, what this country artist would not express?
Oh, that’s interesting. She plays things pretty close to the vest, except what we talked a lot about was her vulnerability, about making sure that that was a part of her character and that she showed that. Jessica’s character is running from something very, very painful in her past. She is about as far from her musical dream as she can be. For her to go back to return to Nashville was not an easy thing for her to do at all. She had to face so many of her demons and have full closure on a story that she has been hiding from her entire life. So, we talked a lot about her bravery and her vulnerability.
Heartland. (L-R)) Garrett Hedlund as Roy Combs and Jessica Chastain as Misty Jones in Heartland. Cr. Tina Rowden/Netflix © 2026.
There’s that Southern stoicism to her in this movie as well. What was it like, day one on set when you get to see an actor finally inhabit that role?
What stood out the most was sometimes I didn’t even recognize her when she took her wig off. When Jessica would take her wig off and her kids were on set, I would just walk right by her. I was like, “Oh my God, I really only know you as Misty.”
I mean, she changed the way she walked into a room. Her entire physicality changed when she was playing Misty. And so, to see her just giving her kids a hug with her real hair, I was looking at a totally different person. So, that surprised me because I think being in the movie business, so many people ask you, “Can you still enjoy a movie or do you just see, you hear all the ADR, you see all the special effects?” I was like, “Well, this time I actually really bought in that Jessica was Misty. I really believed it.”
What else did you really want to get across the screen about Nashville? What were the little details that mattered to you about the city?
We wanted this film to be as authentic as possible. I’m from the South, my family is from the South, and they’ve always had a little trepidation of, oh, are you really going to get this right? There’s always a little nervousness when you go to Hollywood. Oh, is Hollywood really invested in telling our side of what we experience or capturing the city authentically?
Look, this is not a documentary. I did not set out to make a documentary about Nashville. I’m making a very kind of highly stylized, heightened world in Nashville, but what was really important to me was finding true players in that community. And so I spoke at length with Carter [Faither] about her real-life experiences in Nashville. She would tell me stories about how she was so broke when she drove to Nashville the day after she graduated from high school.
She drove to Nashville on her own. She was eating red beans and rice. She was just cold-calling venues on Lower Broadway, just trying to get an audition to play on a Monday morning at 10:00 a.m.
What was the sound, the music in particular, you really wanted for Heartland?
Well, I wrote the movie a lot to that Shovels & Rope song that we used twice in the movie. It’s a very hard-charging drum. It’s Misty’s energy. If you’re going to call anyone to help find a missing person, this is who I would call, Misty. And so, I had to create that character musically as well.
Randy Poster is my longtime great friend and music supervisor and producer on this film. We just started sharing songs we love, just like friends, like, “Oh, did you listen to this? Have you listened to the new Kacey Musgraves song? Have you listened to…” He played me Carter Faith’s music before she even auditioned because we were trying to determine, okay, who are five contemporary or past artists that sound like this character?
Randy reached out to songwriters to take a stab at some of the songs. Some were songs that existed that we kind of recreated for our own purpose. Some songs, the characters, the actors wrote. John Hawkes wrote two incredible songs for this movie. But most importantly, we always wanted the songs in the film to be telling a story.
Heartland. Jessica Chastain as Misty Jones in Heartland. Cr. Netflix © 2026.
Good score, too. Strong guitar riffs and licks, just right for the character.
Oh, the score is so… I remember the first time I heard the score, I was like, “Man, this is a ballsy score. This feels so much like Misty.” It felt so hard-charging and badass. Our composers were so lovely, and they said, “You know what? We’re going to send you something you might think is totally insane.”
Danny [Bensi] and Saunder [Jurriaans], they were like, “You’re going to think it’s insane, just don’t tell us it’s insane yet. Listen to it a few times.” I was like, “This is bananas.” Then the more I listened to it, and as soon as I put it up to the visuals, I was like, “Oh wow, this is really unique.”
You have a plot-heavy mystery here, but keeping it character-driven, is that a challenge when writing?
It was difficult because the easiest thing to do in the edit is to cut out character moments, to be like, “Well, this isn’t necessarily furthering our main story.” But when you cut those moments out, the film felt really lightweight, right? It just felt like it felt no different than any other mystery thriller that you or I’ve watched.
I think what makes this film really special is that it can do both. It creates and spends enough time with characters that you can fall in love with them so that when their hearts do get broken, you’re right there with them. And when they do win, you win right beside them. I wanted you to feel invested in Misty’s journey. I only felt like you could be truly invested in Misty’s journey if you knew her.
