The country singer had her fair share of nerves ahead of her acting debut, but she was relaxed by the fact that she’ll always have music as her “home base”
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():focal(749x0:751x2):format(webp)/kelsea-ballerini-tout-101524-fd8c9c14f69c4f7a8a11a2adad5a0b73.jpg)
Kelsea Ballerini is embracing the unknown.
The country singer, 31, made her first foray into the acting world as a guest star on Ryan Murphy‘s new medical drama, Doctor Odyssey, and she said that the decision to try something new is on theme with the current era of her life.
She described acting as “one of the things that I was like, ‘Run toward the things that scare you!'” in a cover story for Women’s Health, though she admitted she’d worried, “What if I suck on TV?”
“Then you know what I do? I’ll go put on my glitter and go back onstage,” Ballerini said. “That’s always going to be home base.”
Ballerini’s guest-starring role in the Joshua Jackson-led medical drama was revealed in the show’s trailer, which dropped a week before its premiere.
She’s one of many stars who make appearances in the series, including John Stamos, Cheyenne Jackson, Chord Overstreet and Gina Gershon.
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():focal(749x0:751x2):format(webp)/kelsea-ballerini-chase-stokes-doctor-odyssey-premiere-091924-2-65954003dec347b7b0713da3d5da1784.jpg)
At the L.A. premiere on Sept. 18, she told PEOPLE she was “timid” ahead of the role, as it marks her “first time ever trying the acting hat on.”
“I wasn’t reserved on the fact that it was my first time. So I asked a lot of questions and I feel like I learned so much, and I really hope that I did the character and the show proud.”
She also had the built-in help of her boyfriend, Outer Banks star Chase Stokes, if she had questions.
“I’ve always called acting his world, and so whenever I was asking him questions about this opportunity, I was like, ‘What about this in your world?'” she said. “And he was like, ‘Hey, it’s just a world. I’m a part of it and now you’re a part of it. It’s not my world.'”
She continued, “By the end of the conversation, I was like, ‘OK, so you’ll run the scene with me?’ And he was like, ‘Yeah, let’s do it.'”
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():focal(550x0:552x2):format(webp)/kelsea-ballerini-womens-health-cover-101524-ae7e96d286a647f9acd38bf77ebcbd81.jpg)
Stokes is also mega supportive of Ballerini in the world she’s more often at the center of: music.
“It is unbelievable. It is a master class in songwriting,” Stokes, 32, told PEOPLE of his girlfriend’s forthcoming album, Patterns. “To watch her on the back porch writing and see what it is now, it is the most fascinating thing.”