I wanted to be a painter, somewhere between Abstract Expressionism and Pop.
I am obsessed with the painter Jonas Wood, but I don't think I'll ever be able to afford one of his paintings. He's an L.A.-based painter; his stuff is incredible.
Now almost every artist outside of New York is connected with some school or some museum school, and even in New York the majority are. That's an interesting fact when you take the idea of making money, making a living selling paintings. Only a dozen or two painters do that.
All those crazy Impressionist painters in France were friends but they would write about how jealous and competitive they were. That's what makes good art.
Most artists - painters or writers - I think create out of stress or negative situations. Look at rock music. It's about getting things off of your chest, and it's a means of venting in many ways. That's what my work is about.
Hands are the tool of the painter, the artist.
I wanted to study painting and become a painter, but I had a huge flip-over in my life when I was about 18 or 19. I was part of a criminal environment; I got arrested and convicted, and I had to start thinking in a new way.
Why is the feeling of insecurity so prevalent in this field? Because the actor is such a dependent person on other people. If I am a painter, poet, composer, I am not really dependent on others.
I like, for instance, 'Serpico.' I enjoyed playing Serpico because Frank Serpico was there. He existed. He was a real life person and I could - I could embody him. I could, you know, I could work and get to know him and have him help me with the text, the script and become him. It's almost like a painter having a model to become.
My father was a painter. There was a lot of singing. We hung around with a lot of folk musicians. My family knew a lot of great folk musicians of the time, like Woody Guthrie, Paul Robeson, Leadbelly. They were all people we knew.
