Gwyneth Paltrow Goes Country

The last two times a movie star went country (Reese Witherspoon as June Carter Cash in Walk The Line and Jeff Bridges in last year’s Crazy Heart), they ended up with an Oscar. And we’re pretty sure that’s what the producers of Country Strong are hoping will happen with the film’s star, Gwyneth Paltrow. Listen to the movie star “go country” with the film soundtrack’s lead single below.

In the movie (out this December), Paltrow plays an alcoholic country singer who gets out of rehab and tries to restart her career. So basically, it’s Crazy Heart, but with a woman. (And Crazy Heart was basically The Wrestler, but with music. I guess next year we’ll be treated to yet another incarnation of the same basic story.)

Country Strong was shot in Nashville, and co-stars Leighton Meester and Tim McGraw as Gwyneth’s husband and manager.  We’re already predicting that this film’s soundtrack will top the country music charts. Not so sure? Listen to the lead single “Country Strong”:

[wpaudio url=”//idolator.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/Gwyneth-Paltrow-Country-Strong.mp3″ text=”Gwyneth Paltrow – Country Strong” dl=”0″] We’d say we couldn’t believe this was Gwyneth singing, but we already knew she had a fairly competent singing voice—she contributed the easy-listening song “Cruisin'” to the Duets soundtrack.

It’s too soon to make a judgment call on Gwyneth’s performance, but we’re pretty sure this track will be up for an Oscar for Best Song, probably with something from Burlesque and whatever Randy Newman song was in Toy Story 3 (we’re assuming there was one).

And we suppose we’ll be seeing Gwyneth lurking around the CMA Awards, too, mingling with Nicole Kidman, who always seems out of her element as her husband’s date to all the various country music affairs they attend together.