Monarch, the drama airing on FOX starring Trace Adkins and Susan Sarandon, has been canceled after its inaugural season. Deadline reported the news, although an official statement has yet to be released. The show, which also starred Anna Friel, Joshua Sasse and Beth Ditto, centered around country music’s most powerful couple, Albie and Dottie Roman, played by Adkins and Sarandon.
Adkins, who is already a seasoned actor, admitted that he was a bit afraid, at least at first, of starring opposite Sarandon.
“I quickly realized, oh my God, she’s so professional and so good that she’s gonna carry the scene,” Adkins told People. “So, if you don’t throw up on yourself, you’ll probably be OK because she’s gonna do all the heavy lifting. I just swam in her wake the whole time and had a ball.”
Although the role of Albie was fictitious, the Grand Ole Opry member acknowledged there were a lot of similarities between who he portrayed on the show, and who he is in real life.
“He’s a no-nonsense kind of guy, and I’m kind of that way too,” Adkins tells Fox News. “He’s not very animated, and neither am I. We say what we’ve gotta say, and don’t have to yell it … just kind of move through this life as softly and peacefully as they’ll allow us to, but when they don’t – we’ll do what we’ve gotta do.”
The news of Monarch‘s cancellation comes as Adkins and Melissa Etheridge released the video for their duet, “Love Walks Through the Rain,” used in the season finale of Monarch. The song also appears on Adkins’ 25-track The Way I Wanna Go album, out last year.
“I’ve done very few duets in my career with female vocals, because it’s hard to find a female vocal that blends with my voice, because my voice is so low,” Adkins told Everything Nash “But her voice is perfect. It’s the first female vocalist that I’ve ever worked with, and I thought that she blends so well with me. I couldn’t have dreamed that it would have come out any better than that. It was perfect.”
Monarch was originally scheduled to premiere on January 30, but was pushed back to the fall, due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“With an incredible pedigree of talent and musical performances, the powerfully compelling drama, Monarch, is a top priority for Fox Entertainment in 2022,” a Fox spokesperson said at the time (via Deadline). “Unfortunately, due to the unavoidable realities of the pandemic and the profound impact Covid-19 continues to have on our industry and around the world, it is necessary to reschedule Monarch’s January 30 debut to the fall.”
No word yet what Adkins’ next acting role will be. “Love Walks Through the Rain” and all of Adkins’ music can be found at TraceAdkins.com.
