A Country Music Legend Is Godfather To This Minnesota-Born Actor’s Son

Every once in a while we get sucked down an internet rabbit hole.

While wasting my life and rotting my brain scrolling on Reddit, I saw a post of actress Emma Roberts pulling a 1-of-1 baseball card of Baltimore Orioles rookie Jackson Holliday.

Since I didn't know the connection between Emma Roberts and Jackson Holliday (I've heard of Roberts but wasn't sure what she had been in), I did some digging and it turns out... there is no connection. She just likes to collect baseball cards!

Looking in the 'personal life' section of her Wikipedia page like some kind of creep, I saw that she had had a child with actor Garrett Hedlund, whose name I didn't recognize, but I did find his face familiar when I got to his entry.

It turns out that Hedlund, who has starred in movies like Four Brothers, Troy, Friday Night Lights and Tron, was born and raised in northern Minnesota- specifically Roseau and Wannaska.

Unlike other Minnesota-born thespians like Jessica Biel and Chris Pratt, Hedlund actually spend a good portion of his life working on a cattle farm until moving to Arizona with his mother at age 15.

Hedlund played Donny Billingsley in the movie version of Friday Night Lights, while country music superstar Tim McGraw played his father, Charles Billingsley. The two formed a bond on set, and when Roberts and Hedlund welcomed their child into the world in 2020, McGraw was named the child's godfather.

In the above linked video, Hedlund explains how it came to be that McGraw became so important in his, and his child's, life.

"We laugh about it because it's probably been over 17 years since we did Friday Night Lights together, we played father and son. So I got to first experience him as a father — in that film, somewhat more of an abusive one — but then we did Country Strong together, and we've remained such close friends and, you know, I've seen his children, his daughters, from the time they were 1, 3 and 5," Hedlund told Kelly Clarkson (via People). "After around 12 weeks of Emma being pregnant, I called him, and the first thing he said was, 'I'm the godfather.' So, how can you argue?"