The new ABC drama series Nashville, premiering on October 10^th, tells the story of music legend and entertainment icon Rayna Jaymes (Connie Britton), who has been one of the industry’s top female vocalists for two decades.  Now, she is forced to compete with the new generation of talent lighting up the charts, putting her in direct contention with the sexy and sassy Juliette Barnes (Hayden Panettiere), currently the hottest act in country music.  With a pilot written by Callie Khouri (Thelma & Louise), the show also stars Powers Boothe, Eric Close, Jonathan Jackson and Robert Wisdom.

While at the ABC portion of the TCA Press Tour, co-stars Connie Britton and Hayden Panettiere talked about what it’s like to do all of their own singing, mastering the archetype of the Southern woman, how this show compares to their previous television experiences, what inspired their performances, portraying the generational divide, and whether they’re fans of country music themselves.  Check out what they had to say after the jump.

NBC has brought Mena Suvari and Kyle Howard in to co-star in the untitled single-camera sitcom created by Hilary Winston (Community).  The story centers on “a shy, focused woman who, after being dumped by her fiance, leans on her co-workers to help her come out of her shell and plot her revenge.”  Suvari and Howard play two of the woman’s co-workers.  Suvari is described as a “hard partyer and unabashedly promiscuous.”  Howard is a former football player.

Hit the jump for more pilot casting news.

While working the press rounds for Nanny McPhee Returns, Maggie Gyllenhaal revealed that she would star alongside husband Peter Sarsgaard in a biopic of musician Bill Monroe.  She described her role in the film,

“Bill Monroe, who invented bluegrass music had a kind of Sid and Nancy style affair with this woman Bessie Lee Mauldin throughout his life and T-Bone Burnett’s going to do the music and Callie Khouri — who wrote Thelma & Louise — wrote the script so we’re going to do that together.” [Screen Crave]

Sounds like an interesting project, and it’s worth noting that both names Ms. Gyllenhaal mentioned are Oscar winners; Finn Taylor (The Darwin Awards) is on board as director.  Following her appearance in the Nanny McPhee sequel, Gyllenhaal will next be seen Hysteria, in which she has an “unexpected love affair” with the man who accidentally invents the vibrator.  Hmm.