Nicholas Galitzine On ‘High Strung,’ Learning To Play The Violin & Do The Tango [EXCLUSIVE VIDEO]

So, it’s basically about these two characters, Ruby Adams and Johnny Blackwell. I play a character, Johnny, who is a British violinist asking for money in New York. He doesn’t have a green card to be there, so he can’t really earn money any other way. She is, basically a polar opposite: works very, very hard, but has kind of trouble letting go. And these characters are basically polar opposites. They meet each other, and though you kind of think they wouldn’t go together, they have this immediate, very, very strong connection. They then kind of hatch this plan—because Johnny’s running out of money and, you know, could get departed—to enter this competition called the Peterson Foundation, where he would get a very big cash prize and then a scholarship to the conservatory. So he teams up with this hip hop crew that lives on the floor before him and, obviously, with Ruby, who’s a stunning ballerina. So you eventually have this very crazy fusion of classical music meets hip hop music meets hip hop dancing meets ballet.

So, I’m actually a guitar player. I don’t play the violin. (Oh, you don’t?) No. So, basically what happened is they gave me some time before and during the filming where I had very extensive crash course training. I had an amazing tutor in London, and then throughout the filming, sort of day and night whenever I wasn’t filming I was kind of practicing to make it authentic. I mean, I play the guitar most of the time, and the fingering is kind of similar. But, you know, you’re using muscles in your body you don’t really know you have. I have to commend all violinists because I think it’s probably the most difficult instrument to play. Cause I know they spoke to a lot of people, a lot of actors. They auditioned a lot of actors in the casting process who were actually violinists, and then they were kind of thinking… the acting wasn’t quite there on that side, maybe. Michael [Damian] is a musician as well, and we kind of spoke to each other and I think sort of he understood my musicality and what I could bring to the role acting-wise. So, I mean, eventually it worked out quite well ‘cause I think most people think I actually play the violin, which is great. [laughs] Mission accomplished.

So, we did a tango scene as well, which is crazy cause I’m really... I’m not a dancer, I’m not training or anything. I mean, I love dance. And you know when I’m like alone, chilling in my bedroom then I’m like the best dancer in the world. So uh, we had some extensive training in that before, me and Keenan. I mean Keenan is an exquisite dancer in kind of pretty much all forms. She does a pretty mean robot as well. If you meet her, ask her to show you that. So we had like about a week or something before that of learning all the moves. And it’s very difficult because in a Tango, the man’s supposed to lead, and, you know, if you’re not a dancer and they kinda tell you to lead this very accomplished dancer, it’s kind of scary. But, hopefully that came out in the end. There’s a lot of footwork that I mastered, which they didn’t show, which I was very upset about.

The dancing was mostly the problem. I mean it just… I think I ripped my trousers on one occasion, my jeans, because I stupidly thought that wearing jeans to a dance rehearsal would be appropriate. It was not. And there was this one big dip I have to do, I have to stick my leg out, and I heard a little tear. So that was probably… I know I probably stepped on Keenan’s feet on a few times. I think musically, well, no one else… well none of the dancers could call me out on it, so I think like, you know, that wasn’t too bad.