Meet Vivie Myrick, the Memphis actress in Showtime's new 'George & Tammy' miniseries

On Oct. 21, 2009, Liz Myrick took her daughter, Vivie, to a concert at FedExForum.

"We went to see Miley Cyrus back before Miley was on the wrecking ball," said Liz Myrick, 47. "And when we walked out Vivie very pointedly said to me, 'Mama, you are going to come see me when I'm playing here one day.' With her little 6-year-old self she looked up at me and said that, and she meant it with every ounce of her being."

Vivie Myrick hasn't been booked to headline a concert at FedExForum — yet.

Nonetheless, the Memphis singer/actress is poised to make a big impression on audiences in December with a key supporting role in "George & Tammy," a six-episode Showtime miniseries that stars Michael Shannon and this year's Best Actress Oscar-winner, Jessica Chastain, as George Jones and Tammy Wynette, the star-crossed country-music superstars whose tumultuous marriage was as dramatic as the lyrics of their songs.

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Myrick — only 17 when the series started filming — plays Wynette's stepdaughter and longtime backup singer Donna Chapel, the daughter of Don Chapel, Wynette's husband before she hooked up with "The Possum," George Jones. The role will introduce audiences to not only Myrick the actress but Myrick the singer: Under the supervision of famed music producer T Bone Burnett, she joined Chastain at the East Iris Studios in Nashville for new recordings of such 1960s Wynette classics as "Your Good Girl's Gonna Go Bad" and "Apartment No. 9."

The Dec. 4 debut of the first episode of "George & Tammy" will put an exclamation point on what has been a — dare we say it? — supercalifragilisticexpialidocious year for a young woman whose talent and determination had made her a fixture in local independent short films and on Memphis stages (at age 14, she had the title role in a youth production of "Mary Poppins").

On the set of 'George & Tammy'

With her blonde hair dyed brunette, Myrick worked on "George & Tammy" from December 2021 through the spring of 2022, a timeline fraught with milestones for the show's participants. On Dec. 24, Myrick turned 18; and on March 27, Chastain and "George & Tammy" makeup-and-hair artist Linda Dowds won Oscars for their collaboration on a biopic about a different Tammy, "The Eyes of Tammy Faye." ("We were all like, 'We want to see what they look like!'," but only Dowds brought her Oscar to set, Myrick said.)

The production schedule was exciting and intense. Mondays through Wednesdays, Myrick attended classes at her high school, the experimental Delta School in Wilson, Arkansas; Thursdays, she flew to Wilmington, North Carolina, where the "George & Tammy" production was based; Sundays, she flew back home to Arkansas. "For basically my whole senior year I did that," she said.

The schedule was stressful, but Myrick loved every minute of it, she says — in part because being thrown into the crucible of her first-ever professional screen production was an invaluable learning experience for a performer/creator who plans a career in entertainment.

The experience also represented an eye-opening introduction to the world of big-budget filmmaking.

"I didn't know what the heck was going on, but I went on set and literally had a big personal trailer with a refrigerator and a pull-out couch in it," she said. "And everybody was so nice. You expect people to be nice, but you just never know.

"Basically, my scenes were with Jessica Chastain and Michael Shannon," she said. "Me and Jessica worked together the most, so we got extremely close." As for the intimidating-looking, 6-foot-3 Shannon (who was a rather fearsome King of Rock 'n' Roll in 2016's "Elvis & Nixon"), "I was kind of scared of him," Myrick said. "But then when we first met, he began cracking jokes with me."

Before long, Myrick said, Shannon had become something of a personal acting coach, working on set with her to help her improve her "improv" skills. She said she also bonded with series creator/writer Abe Sylvia and director John Hillcoat (the Australian whose filmography includes the 2009 adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's "The Road").

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'I've always been a doer'

Born in Memphis (parents Liz and Chris Myrick are both nurses), Vivie Myrick grew up in Midtown with her brother, Carson (now in the Navy). A new hospital job in Crittenden County took the family to Marion, Arkansas, when Vivie was about 9, but supportive Mrs. Myrick — in a play on "manager," Vivie calls her mother her "mom-ager" — continued to chauffeur her diligent and energetic daughter across the river for activities in Memphis, including roles in Theatre Memphis and Playhouse on the Square musicals.

Vivie Myrick appeared in such shows as "Cats," "Legally Blonde" and "Million Dollar Quartet." A true trouper, she was happy whether she was front-and-center or in the chorus. During a production of "Shrek The Musical" at the DeSoto Family Theater in Southaven, "I was a tap-dancing rat," she said.

Meanwhile, her mother enrolled Vivie in voice lessons with Bob Westbrook, the Memphis vocal coach whose students included such local kids-turned-stars as Justin Timberlake, Olivia Holt and Lucy Hale. (Westbrook, 72, died in 2020.)

"There's never been a time I can remember when I wasn't singing," said Vivie Myrick.

"She has so much tenacity and belief in herself," affirmed Liz Myrick.

"I've always been a doer," Vivie said. "I find something and I just do it. I've never been a procrastinator."

In Memphis, Myrick applied that "doer" ethos to film. She wrote, produced, directed and starred in a 17-minute short titled "Imprints" that won the Audience Award in August at the Indie Memphis Youth Film Fest at the Halloran Centre. A "dark" story about "a girl who is in an abusive situation," the film reflects what Myrick says is her new interest in telling stories that are "meaningful" rather than simply escapist. (Not that she's against fun films: She co-stars as Graham Brewer's prom date in "Prom Works Out," a comic if poignant short that Brewer — the son of director Craig Brewer — made for the 2019 Indie Memphis Youth fest.)

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From Arkansas to New York

In October of 2021, Myrick, at the suggestion of her Memphis-based agent, Lisa Lax, submitted a video audition for "George & Tammy." It was not her first time to audition for a major project, so Myrick's hopes weren't high. "The likelihood of you getting it is so small, you submit it and then let it go," Myrick said.

For her audition tape, she performed "Here You Come Again," a 1977 No. 1 country hit by Dolly Parton. Obviously, the producers liked what they saw.

"Within a month, I was in a fitting for the show," she said. "It was like a snap of the fingers, then we started the process."

Myrick said show creator Abe Sylvia apparently responded to her authentic Southern sunniness. "I think the thing he liked about me was that I was very laughy and friendly. My personality is pretty big, and I'm a pretty fun person to talk to."

Myrick graduated from the Delta School in May, then moved to New York in August, to better pursue her entertainment ambitions. "I wanted to have the opportunity to live alone and grow up a lot, because living in New York is an insane jump from living with your parents in Arkansas."

She's now a resident of the Park Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn, but she's back home in Arkansas for the holidays — and for the debut of "George & Tammy," with its accompanying hoopla.

Nov. 21, Myrick flew to the red carpet premiere screening of the first episode in Los Angeles. A week later, it was time for the premiere in New York.

But she's not ignoring her hometown. On Sunday, Dec. 4, she'll attend a free public watch party for the debut episode at Black Lodge, the video rental/film screening/live entertainment venue at 405 N. Cleveland.

The show will air at 8 p.m. (Memphis time) on both the Showtime and Paramount networks. Subsequent episodes will air Sunday nights (including Christmas and New Year's Day) through Jan. 8.

For Myrick, the premiere is one step in what has been a lifelong journey. "For me it's like, if I have this talent, I want to use it," she said.

When a woman has that much enthusiasm, Liz Myrick asked, "How can you say to her, 'You need to go into accounting'?"

This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: 'George & Tammy' on Showtime: Memphis actress plays Donna Chapel