Nashville season 5: Meet Rachel Bilson, Kaitlin Doubleday’s characters

When Nashville season 5 premieres on CMT next month, there will be more than just new stories — there are also new faces! Specifically, Rachel Bilson and Kaitlin Doubleday are going to be debuting in significant new roles, ones that will last for the remainder of the season and potentially even longer depending on the overall direction of the story.

Without waiting any longer, there are also some ways now to check out some further information all about them. The video below gives you a brief sighting of both parties, who will impact the story in some different ways. For example, Bilson’s character of Alyssa is a Silicon Valley marketing guru brought in to help Highway 65, and she’s absolutely an outsider to this world. Speaking to Entertainment Weekly, executive producer Marshal Herskovitz had the following to say about the character:

“We were very interested in the business of Nashville … The idea of bringing in another character who’s not from the business and who has to learn the business as we’re learning the business just seemed fascinating to us. We love Rachel. I’ve been a fan of hers for a very long time. I love the fact that she’s funny and that she’s charming and that she’s smart. It brings a slightly different color to the show that I just am really enjoying.”

Meanwhile, Doubleday is Jessie Cane, a country singer who is returning to the scene after a relationship and personal scandal caused everything to fall apart for her. This effectively, per Herskovitz, took her off the map for a couple of years:

“This is a person who had a career, whose career was essentially destroyed by a personal catastrophe,” Herskovitz says. “There’s a moment when we first meet her where she says, ‘I took a few years off to ruin my life,’ and one of the other musicians nearby says, ‘Welcome to Nashville.’ The collision between being an artist, trying to have a life, and trying to succeed in the business is endlessly difficult and endlessly fascinating in terms of drama. So the idea of someone trying to start again was very appealing to us.”

Given that both of these actresses are super-talented and were wonderful in their previous jobs, there is plenty of reason to be excited for them here.

Want some further insight into the future of Nashville season 5? If you head over to the link here right away, you can see some more updates. (Photo: CMT.)