LOS ANGELES — Gwyneth Paltrow gets to show off her vocal chops. Even co-stars Garrett Hedlund and Leighton Meester are featured performing at the Municipal Auditorium in Nashville. None of them, though, has even come close to selling 40 million records or packing giant arenas with adoring fans.

But being the strong, not-so-silent type who doesn’t sing in the musical drama “Country Strong” is the way Tim McGraw likes it.

“Early on, from when I had first had a record, I would get offers here and there to do small stuff in movies,” says the 43-year-old country star. “I guess people are trying to cash in on success and hopefully sell a movie ticket or two. But I didn’t want to mess around with my music career. I wanted to make sure that thing was pretty established.”

When you talk to McGraw, who is the father of three daughters and has been married to country star Faith Hill for 14 years, you get the sense he likes to think things through.

Except for a small role on “The Jeff Foxworthy Show” in 1995, the year after he had his breakthrough album, “Not a Moment Too Soon,” the singer-songwriter avoided doing films for quite a while.

“I think a musician is taking a chance doing a movie role. He can turn some people off pretty quickly,” he says. “I didn’t want to do that.”

The son of New York Mets and Philadelphia Phillies star relief pitcher Tug McGraw, the singer was raised by a single mother. He didn’t really know his father until he was 18 and the sports star acknowledged paternity. They became close until Tug’s death in 2004 from cancer, inspiring the song “Live Like You Were Dying.”

As a kid, Tim McGraw used to walk around imitating Elvis Presley. “I never got to see him in concert, but Faith did when she was 9 years old,” he says enviously. “It was her first concert, actually.”

Among his other influences, McGraw cites Merle Haggard, Bruce Springsteen, the Eagles and Keith Whitley, whose brief career in the 1980s inspired the Louisiana-raised McGraw to head for Nashville and take a chance. Over the years, McGraw — who always seems to have a cowboy hat on when he performs — has won three Grammys, 14 Academy of Country Music Awards, 11 Country Music Association (CMA) Awards, 10 American Music Awards and three People’s Choice Awards.

By 2004, with his music career firmly established, McGraw was willing to start seriously looking at the film opportunities coming his way.

He got the script for “Friday Night Lights” — the 2004 film about a Texas high school football team, directed by Peter Berg — but didn’t read it for a while. When he finally did, he fell in love with the script, but by that time the part he wanted was cast. So McGraw asked for a meeting with Berg, “who I still think had never heard my name before I called him.”

The pair met over breakfast, but Berg was reluctant to let McGraw even read for the role. The country star persisted and finally talked him into it. A few weeks later, he got the role as a former high-school football star who is abusive toward his son, played by his “Country Strong” co-star, Hedlund.

McGraw’s gamble paid off, and he drew positive notices from the critics. His role was “played with great power,” wrote Roger Ebert.

Since then he hasn’t taken on a lot of parts, but always seems to pick good ones, including starring opposite Sandra Bullock in her Oscar-winning performance in “The Blind Side.”

The singer was happy when he heard that he’d be reunited with Hedlund for “Country Strong.” “I really liked Garrett a lot,” says McGraw. “He can be one of our finest leading men here soon. I think it’s because he’s so open and honest. When you’re in a scene with him or talking to him personally as a friend, he is just a really open and honest kid.”

For Hedlund’s role as Beau Hutton, a gritty country type compared to Texas legend Townes Van Zandt, the actor had to learn how to play guitar and sing. Cast members would turn to McGraw for help.

Paltrow calls McGraw “our reality check.” The actress, who has sung on “Glee” and in the 2000 film “Duets,” plays Kelly Canter, a country diva who has ended up in rehab after being arrested drunk on a Dallas stage. McGraw is James, her husband and manager. He has scheduled a comeback tour for her, and Hedlund’s Beau and Meester’s Chiles, a Carrie Underwood type, are the opening acts.

“We could always ask him ‘Is this real, do the songs sound good?’ or ‘Is this how it would be?’ ” Paltrow says about McGraw. “It was just an incredible gift to have the biggest country star in our movie.”

How big? Well, even Taylor Swift’s debut single is called “Tim McGraw.”

For his part the singer only admits that “I made some suggestions here and there.” McGraw says he wouldn’t have signed on to the movie if he didn’t feel comfortable with the music side of it. He knew he had to do a lot of heavy lifting in playing James, who is the bridge character in the complicated relationship of the quartet.

As for “Country Strong’s” music, McGraw calls Paltrow, Hedlund and Meester “fantastic,” especially considering how far they had to come to be believable as country performers.

“What is authentic about this film is that the music stands alone outside the film,” McGraw notes. “And in the fantasy world it creates, you can believe that these songs could make Chiles a star, and the same thing for Beau … and the songs that Kelly does are songs that could have made her career.”