Trace Adkins Gets "Lifted"

Trace Adkins performs at the VAULT Concert Stage at LP Field in Downtown Nashville Saturday, June 13 during the 2009 CMA Music Festival. Photographer: John Russell / CMA.

Aug. 31, 2009 — Ever since Trace Adkins went all the way to the finals on "The Celebrity Apprentice," he’s received increasing attention from Hollywood. He appeared in the satiric movie An American Carol, made a guest appearance on a soap opera and recently showed up on the A&E series "Gene Simmons’ Family Jewels."

Now he’s been cast in another movie. Trace will be featured in Lifted, an independent picture starring 12-year-old Uriah Shelton, who portrays a hopeful singer struggling with uncertainty in his family when his father is deployed to Afghanistan with the Marines. Slated to shoot in Alabama, according to The Hollywood Reporter, the movie’s cast will also feature former "American Idol" Ruben Studdard.

Using a military backdrop for onscreen drama is not a one-time thing for Trace. That’s how things worked in his 2005 video "Arlington," and that’s how the next one will go, too. Trace plans to shoot the video for "All I Ask For Anymore" Wednesday at Nashville’s Berry Field, home of the Tennessee Air National Guard. According to WSMV-TV, the clip will incorporate members of the Guard and soldiers from Fort Campbell, Ky.

In the meantime, Trace has been called out regularly during the America’s Toughest Tour with Toby Keith to help out vocally on another military-themed effort, Toby’s "Courtesy Of The Red, White And Blue (The Angry American)."

"I feel pretty honored," Trace told The Wilkes-Barre Times-Leader, "because everybody in [Toby’s] band and crew told me that he’d never done that before."

Trace appears Monday night in the ABC special "CMA Music Festival: Country’s Night To Rock," with Taylor Swift, Kid Rock, Sugarland and Brad Paisley. He’s also expected to show up this fall on "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" after taking part last month in a home build for a wounded Dallas police officer.