Ben Barnes opens up about true feelings in new career

Ben Barnes found it equally overwhelming and heart warming to lean into his other creative gift.

The 43-year-old star, who is currently finishing the U.S. leg of his headlining tour, shared that getting on stage and singing his won songs was really challenging at first.

The Shadow and Bone actor told Us Weekly, “I think a lot of actors are actors because they like to tell other people’s stories and become someone else for a period of time, and they can, if not hide behind, certainly investigate life and look at it through the lens of someone else.”

Commenting on the changes he experienced while switching careers, he added, “With music, there’s not really any hiding. It’s you on the stage. It’s you singing things that you’ve written about your life. To have people come and support that, and I found the music community very loving and supportive in that way. They’re like, ‘Yes, I’ll come and play on that. Yes, I’ll sing that song with you.’ … It’s really rewarding.”

The Dorian Gray actor was also filled with encouragement seeing fans enjoy his music.

“Watching people do covers of it or dance in their kitchen to it or do little reels of them hugging their best mates to the songs or pole dancing or whatever it is that they were doing to the songs — an awful lot of pole dancing, I dunno where that comes from — but it was just so great to see people kind of taking the cue from me,” he said.