Fox Searchlight Pictures

Director Scott Cooper (left) is shown on the set of "Crazy Heart" with actor Jeff Bridges. The film opens today at the Grandin Theatre.

Fox Searchlight Pictures

Maggie Gyllenhaal, right, plays Jeff Bridges' love interest in "Crazy Heart." Both have received Oscar nominations.

The Oscar-nominated, independent film "Crazy Heart" is steeped in images and music of the Southwest United States. But the movie's roots extend to Southwest Virginia.

Writer-director Scott Cooper was born and raised in Abingdon, which he called "the artistic crown jewel of Southwest Virginia." He grew up steeped in the musical culture of the mountains, where his parents introduced him to the sounds of bluegrass and country and carried him to festivals and concerts.

"I literally cut my teeth on Bill Monroe, Ralph Stanley, Doc Watson," said Cooper, 39, ticking off the bluegrass pioneers he saw as a young man during an interview last week. His family's Cadillac dealership even counted Stanley as a regular customer.

"I listened to bluegrass as a kid in the '70s before it was de rigueur."

That affection for roots music stayed with Cooper after he left Abingdon to pursue an acting career in New York City. So it's not surprising that he would make his directorial debut with "Crazy Heart," the story of a down-and-out country singer still traveling that lost highway lined with booze, women and songs. The movie opens today at the Grandin Theatre.

An Oscar favorite

Jeff Bridges has been nominated for the best actor Oscar for his portrayal of Bad Blake, a 57-year-old singer of "outlaw country" music, who still drives his '78 Chevrolet Suburban stuffed with his gear to gigs at bowling alleys and honky-tonks, a fifth of bourbon in the passenger seat. The character is an amalgam of hard-bitten legends such as Waylon Jennings, Merle Haggard and Townes Van Zandt, with a dash of Kris Kristofferson's weathered good looks.

The role could finally bring Bridges the Oscar that has eluded him. He has been nominated for best actor four other times but has never won. He has already won the Golden Globe, Screen Actors Guild and Critics' Choice awards for the role.

The movie is a classic redemption story of a man whose star has faded, whose personal life is a mess and whose demons are about to kill him. Enter love interest Maggie Gyllenhaal, also Oscar-nominated for her role as a single-mom reporter who tries her best to save the alcoholic outlaw.

"For a first-time director, I have to say the actors really seemed to embrace" their roles, Cooper said. "Jeff and Maggie gave such strong performances, I really hope they're rewarded for their work."

Bridges is a musician who does his own singing for the film (as does co-star Colin Farrell). Cooper said a non-musician could not have adequately played Bad Blake.

A musician "understands the craft of a song," Cooper said. "Music comes through your body. If you're making a movie about a skater, and if the guy can't skate, he'll look like he can't skate. Jeff's singing feels 'lived in.' He owns the song. Onstage, he was most comfortable."

The film's studio, Fox Searchlight, held a hometown screening in Abingdon a few weeks ago for an audience that contained "about 170 of my parents' closest friends," Cooper said.

As an Abingdon youth, Cooper regularly attended productions at the Barter Theatre, but he did not tread the boards of the venerable playhouse as an actor. Cooper did perform as a child actor for a theater company in Kentucky, before turning his attention to sports.

He was a standout tennis and basketball player at Abingdon High School in the 1980s, then attended Hampden-Sydney College before heading to New York to study acting at the Lee Strasberg Film and Theater Institute.

He earned small roles in the late 1990s, which included an appearance in "The X Files" and "Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me." His first screenplay was 2009's low-budget "For Sale By Owner," in which he also starred.

The movie's patron saint

"Crazy Heart" is based on the 20-year-old novel of the same name written by Thomas Cobb. Cooper heard about the book from a friend and he quaffed the whiskey-soaked tale of Bad Blake. He quickly optioned the book for film, then wrote the screenplay.

To get the picture made, he turned to one of his best friends in the business, legendary actor and fellow Virginian Robert Duvall. The two met during the filming of the Civil War epic "Gods and Generals," much of which was shot in Lexington, Rockbridge County and the Shenandoah Valley in 2001. Even though most of Cooper's scenes were cut, he and Duvall became fast friends and have remained close. Cooper got married on Duvall's farm in The Plains in Faquier County.

He sent Duvall a script, which contains echoes of Duvall's own movie about a washed-up country singer, 1983's Oscar-winning "Tender Mercies." Duvall agreed to produce "Crazy Heart" through his Butcher's Run Films production company. He also has a small role as a bar owner who is Bad Blake's confidant.

"He's the patron saint of the movie," Cooper said of Duvall. "He's unfiltered. He's a guy who speaks the truth. If he hadn't liked the script, he would have said so. If he didn't think I was the right guy to direct it, he would have said so."

The right kind of music

Music is a cornerstone of the film, and Cooper, a guitarist himself, knew the songs had to be good for Bad Blake's legend to seem believable.

Cooper enlisted the services of T Bone Burnett -- the producer/musician who shepherded the Grammy-winning soundtrack to "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" -- and Texas troubadour Stephen Bruton to compose the original music. Bruton, who had worked with Kristofferson for 40 years and was a well-traveled Texas musician and performer, died of cancer before the film was released.

Burnett also partnered with rising country star Ryan Bingham to write the Oscar-nominated and Golden Globe-winning song, "The Weary Kind (The Theme from 'Crazy Heart')."

Cooper lives in Los Angeles with his wife, Jocelyne, and his daughters, Ava and Stella, but he still has family in Southwest Virginia that he tries to visit every year or so.

"I have a sweet tooth for Virginia," he said. "I want my daughters to have that Virginia soil between their toes. I want them to swim in a pond, swing in a tire swing. That's not something you get to do in Los Angeles."