You can read the story of how I ended up in this Land Rover commercial here.
Being a fan of music videos ever since the incarnation of MTV, I have always wanted to appear in one. As with several dreams of mine, this one has come true. And not once, but five times!
1. Here I am playing a bad boy on the NYC subway in French pop singer Leslie’s music video for her song “Hier Encore” taken from her 2010 disc “A La recherche du bonheur.” I come in early at the :35 mark and have a star-making close-up at :48. Don’t I look menacing?
2. Back in Los Angeles – in another time and place in my life – I appeared in another music video that took place on a New York subway train, although it was all filmed on a soundstage in Hollywood. You can really see the difference, L.A. is just so fake. I make an appearance as an AIDS victim (check out my makeup) at the :46 mark.
This is “Goodbye” by Def Leppard off their seventh studio album entitled “Euphoria” (1999).
3. Also in L.A., I played another AIDS victim with gross makeup – yet again, talk about typecasting (see why my acting career went down the toilet out there?) – in “Naked” by the Goo Goo Dolls from the hit album “A Boy Named Goo” (1996).
The shoot was pretty cool and since I was working for the William Morris Agency at the time and the band was a client, I was able to meet them. They were sweet. Oh, I have several cameos in this clip, including one of the last major shots of the video, where “Jesus” is looking down on me and the camera swirls down and around. Whoa. I remember sipping on my coffee in the morning before heading out to work and watching myself on MTV in the Clip of the Week or whatever they called it back then. Yeah, I felt pretty cool. Directed by hot-shot video maven Dave Meyers and starring the über-cool Udo Kier!
4. Undoubtedly the coolest music video I ever had the privilege of being involved with was for one of my favorite New York-based bands, the Scissor Sisters. I had seen them perform in small venues downtown and caught Babydaddy (Scott) and Del Marquis (Derek) at the Phoenix and the Hole bars. Obviously, this was back in the day before they blew up and became international superstars. Several of my friends were involved in the making of this 2005 video as well, and to make matters even more intense, the brilliant actor, singer, and director John Cameron Mitchell helmed the video. Unbelievable. (Click the link to watch the video.)
http://www.mtv.co.uk/scissor-sisters/videos/filthygorgeous
5. Wow, I found a music video where I get to arm wrestle the musician Bitch – who I lose to! – from the band Bitch and Animal at the :24 mark in The Butchies’ video for “Send Me You” from the album “Make Yr Life,” also from 2004.
Apparently, that was a good year for me to be in music videos! Made up of Team Dresch guitarist and frontwoman Kaia Wilson, bassist Alison Martlew, and drummer Melissa York, The Butchies have been referred to as “queercore crusaders.”
6. Don’t blink or you’ll miss me! In this music video, I play a stalker camped out in front of the (in)famous Mann’s Chinese Theater in Hollywood. I’m shown briefly at the 1:45 mark where I zip up my tent in a paranoid fashion and then at the 2:00 mark, you can find me sitting outside the tent and looking super happy to be drinking a large fruity cocktail. Go figure.
FYI, the music video for Naked’s song “Mann’s Chinese” was directed by Francis Lawrence in 1996. Lawrence went on to direct three out of four “Hunger Games” films (“Catching Fire” and “Mockingjay – Parts 1 and 2”) as well as the upcoming “Red Sparrow,” both starring Jennifer Lawrence (no relation). To be honest, my memories of shooting this video have faded into obscurity, just like the band itself. Ouch – too soon? My main takeaway is that I ended up buying the t-shirt and pair of pants that wardrobe had me to wear in the video; where they are now, nobody knows. After all, this was 22 years ago…