More than a decade before Tim McGraw starred with Sandra Bullock in the Oscar-winning film The Blind Side, Trisha Yearwood appeared with the actress in a movie that has mostly been forgotten.

Yearwood played herself in director Peter Bogdanovich’s 1993 film The Thing Called Love, which starred River Phoenix as James Wright, a rising but troubled country singer in Nashville. Samantha Mathis co-starred as Miranda Presley, who traveled from New York City to Nashville to audition at the world-famous Bluebird Cafe. A then-little-known Bullock portrayed Linda Lue Linden, a beauty queen who wants to write songs, but has no particular talent for it.

In Yearwood’s scene, Mathis’ character goads a fellow struggling songwriter — played by Dermot Mulroney — to gain Yearwood’s attention by leaving a cassette of one of his songs in her car. The pair get caught breaking into her car, prompting a late-night visit in jail from Yearwood herself. The Thing Called Love opened in theaters on Aug. 27, 1993.

Much of the movie was shot at the Bluebird in Nashville, with country singer K.T. Oslin playing the cafe’s owner. Pam Tillis, Kevin Welch and Jimmie Dale Gilmore also had cameos, but the film was a box office flop, and is now most notable as the final film Phoenix completed before his death in October of 1993.

Sterling Whitaker is a Senior Writer and Senior Editor for Taste of Country. He focuses on celebrity real estate, as well as coverage of Yellowstone and related shows like 1883 and 1923. He’s interviewed cast members including Cole Hauser, Kelly Reilly, Sam Elliott and Harrison Ford, and Whitaker is also known for his in-depth interviews with country legends including Don Henley, Rodney Crowell, Trace Adkins, Ronnie Milsap, Ricky Skaggs and more.