He may be best known as the young caballero who stole Hannah Montana’s heart, but Lucas Till has always had more-serious acting aspirations. “It was all I wanted to do,” explains the 19-year-old, who was born in Texas and raised in Georgia. Till’s big break came in James Mangold’s 2005 Johnny Cash biopic, Walk the Line, in which he played Cash’s older brother, Jack, whose death had a profound influence on the Man in Black. But it was another kind of southern icon—Miley Cyrus—who transformed Till’s own life, when he was cast as her love interest in last spring’s Hannah Montana: The Movie. While Till’s brush with the Montana juggernaut has helped earn him more work—including a role in the Jackie Chan action-comedy The Spy Next Door—it hasn’t sweetened his view of Hollywood. “It’s a people thing,” he explains. “One of the epiphanies I’ve had out here is that I had a happy childhood. All that really matters is when my boys say, ‘Dude, we saw your movie, and it kicked ass.’”