Lainey Wilson: How Hannah Montana Helped Her As a Performer
Lainey Wilson performed not once but three different times at last week’s (11/8) CMA Awards. Everyone who has seen her knows that she’s a great, and unique, performer.
Backstage after her CMA wins for Female Vocalist and New Artist, Lainey told us that she learned her stage presence from playing a certain teen icon. She said, “I think I got a lot of practice with stage presence when I was impersonating Hannah Montana for five years. I did that as my high school job.” She added she had to play for all kinds of different people in that role, “I would do three or four birthday parties a weekend, and I did it for five years straight. I mean, I was playing at a nursing home one day, and I was playing at a three-year-old’s party the next, and sometimes both on the same day.”
Wilson continued, “I really had to learn how to adjust to my surroundings and learn my crowd. But I think I found my stage presence along the way. I knew it made me feel alive when I had that wig on, and I was pretending to be Hannah Montana.” She now feels quite free when she hits the stage, “I feel like when I get up there, I can let it all go. I turn it on, and there is a sense of freedom that comes along with just letting it go and not caring what in the world people think about ya as long as it’s making you feel good.”
After her big week at the CMA’s, this past weekend (11/13) was also very exciting for the budding actress as her role as Abby on the fifth Season of Paramount’s Yellowstone premiered. She even wrote and played a short tune about her debut on Yellowstone and shared it on Instagram. CMT captioned the post they shared with her, “She can write songs, sing, AND act/ Cheers to @laineywilsonmusic’s debut as Abby in @yellowstone Season 5 #YellowstoneTV.”
Lainey responded to the post, “So fun getting to watch the season premiere together live!.”
