Vincent Gallo - Films

Films

Gallo has modeled, most notably for Calvin Klein, and been photographed by Richard Avedon, Steven Meisel, Steven Klein, Terry Richardson and Anton Corbijn. He first began painting, then racing motorcycles, performed music, acted in films and finally became a filmmaker.

During Gallo's artistic period in the 1980s, when he worked as a musician and painter in New York City, he also began experimenting with film. He made the short film "If You Feel Froggy, Jump" and appeared in a film called "Downtown 81" (1981) with painter Jean Michel Basquiat. In 1984, Gallo acted in The Way It Is (1984), which included actors Steve Buscemi and Rockets Redglare. After starring in the obscure 1989 film Doc's Kingdom, he began acting in small parts in more well-known films such as Goodfellas, The House of the Spirits, and The Perez Family. French director Claire Denis hired Gallo to act in several films such as the "short film Keep It for Yourself, the made-for-TV U.S. Go Home, and its follow-up feature Nénette et Boni (1996)."

Gallo acted in the film Arizona Dream, with Johnny Depp, in the cult comedy Palookaville, and in The Funeral, and had a lead role in the film Truth or Consequences, N.M..

In 1998, his debut film Buffalo '66 was nominated for, but did not win, an award for "Best First Feature" at the Independent Spirit Awards. Gallo made this drama for $1.5 M, serving as writer, director, lead actor, and composer/performer of the soundtrack. The release of Buffalo '66 "gained him a solid fan base." Gallo proceeded to act in the crime drama Freeway 2: Confessions of a Trickbaby, the science-fiction drama Stranded: Náufragos, the thriller Hide and Seek, and the romantic comedy Get Well Soon. Gallo appeared in another Claire Denis film, an erotic/horror movie called Trouble Every Day.

In 2003, Gallo starred in and directed the film The Brown Bunny, which chronicles a motorcycle racer's cross-country road trip, and co-starred Chloë Sevigny. The film, which contained a scene of Sevigny performing unsimulated oral sex upon Gallo, received an overwhelmingly negative critical response to its Cannes premier and became a media scandal, in part due to Gallo's use of a still image from a sex scene on a promotional billboard. According to Andrea LeVasseur of Allmovie, The Brown Bunny "premiered to much derision at the 2003 Cannes Film Festival."

A war of words erupted between Gallo and popular film critic Roger Ebert in 2003 regarding Ebert's statement that The Brown Bunny was the worst film in the history of Cannes. Gallo retorted by calling Ebert a "fat pig with the physique of a slave trader" and put a hex on Ebert, wishing him colon cancer. Ebert then responded – paraphrasing a statement made by Winston Churchill – that, "although I am fat, one day I will be thin, but Mr. Gallo will still have been the director of The Brown Bunny." Later, in his book Your Movie Sucks, Ebert details a conversation he had with Vincent Gallo after the latter made significant edits to the film, and praised its quality, and remarks that the pair parted on amicable terms.

Sony Pictures Entertainment acquired multi-territory distribution rights for the film in February 2004, and released the film on DVD in North America in August 2004.

Gallo appeared as the title character in Francis Ford Coppola's 2009 film Tetro.

In 2010, Gallo won the Volpi Cup for Best Actor at the 67th Venice International Film Festival for his role in Essential Killing, although he doesn't have a single line in the film. He did not attend the ceremony to accept his award in person, leaving the duty to the film's director Jerzy Skolimowski, who tried to get the actor to reveal himself, leading the audience in a chant of his name. Gallo was not in attendance.