Actor-artists

I have much admiration for the multi-tasking actor-artist.

Here are some whom I think aren't doing too badly in the over-achieving stakes:

• Viggo Mortensen.  The ultimate actor-artist-painter-poet-photographer who is amazing on screen and just as incredible off it.  Runs his own publishing house for his writing and art.  
  
• Jacqueline McKenzie.  Incredible, riveting actress.  Unfortunately the rest of her art isn't that amazing, but she gets bonus points for trying.  Some samples of her artwork and music (oh dear) on her official website.
• Rhiana Griffith.  Australia child actor most famous for playing a boy in Vin Diesel vehicle Pitch Black. Love her paintings and hope to see more.
• James Franco.  Rose to fame in the eponymous James Dean movie.  Pretty boy but killing it.  Avid painter who exhibited for the first time last year.  Also recent hyper-over-achiever: after finishing his English lit degree at UCLA ten years after he started, he has now enrolled into three masters programs at Columbia, NYU and Brooklyn, studying directing, writing and literature.
• Miranda July.  Quirky writer/filmmaker/photographer/actor who has released a book of short stories and has been published in journals such as The New Yorker and Zoetrope. 
• Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy.  Well, Ethan Hawke's novels might not be high art but he has published two of them and made one into a movie.  Having read The Hottest State with skepticism, I was surprised to discover some heartfelt observations, although as a whole the novel was self-conscious and angsty.  Likewise Julie Delpy's writer-directorial debut 2 Days in Paris is filled with quirky insights into a French-American couple's holiday in France, but as a whole fails to gel.  However, the two of them together are cult filmmaking gold: Before Sunset and its sequel Before Sunrise were brought to life by the pair, sharing writing credit with director Richard Linklater.  Random wanderings around Europe would just not be the same.
• Gao Xingjian. Nobel prize winning Chinese novelist.  (Obviously not an actor), but a playwright, poet and fiction writer, as well as celebrated painter.

Oh to have but a tithe of their talents!

One day I'll resurrect my makeshift painting studio and improve upon my current total of two paintings.  But first I have to white balance my camera.  And finish a story.  Any story.