Acting, music compete King’s time
WHERE: Chelsea’s Café
ADMISSION: $10
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Chris Thomas King, Grammy-winning recording artist, actor and film composer, was wearing one of his many hats Friday at Louisiana Media Services, a local movie post-production company. Standing in front of a screen showing scenes from the crime drama Killing Point, the Baton Rouge native and Prairieville resident re-recorded several of his Killing Point lines. The movie’s editor listened in from Vancouver, where the film was shot.
King plays a police detective in Killing Point, co-starring as Steven Seagal’s partner. He expects the film to be released theatrically abroad — especially in Asian markets where Seagal has a big following — and shown domestically by a cable network such as HBO or TNT.
“Normally, I would have had to travel to Los Angeles or somewhere else to do this type of work,” King said after the two-hour recording session. “But now that Louisiana has some studios that cater to Hollywood’s needs, it means that I can live in Prairieville and drive to a studio and then be home.”
King and Seagal became friends during the production of Killing Point.
“I wouldn’t call it a buddy movie, but it’s kind of a buddy-cop movie where we’re a team,” King said. “And Steven’s a really good musician himself. He loves the blues.”
In 2002, King won a Grammy award for his contribution to the multi-million selling soundtrack for O Brother, Where Art Thou? He also co-starred with George Clooney in the latter Coen Brothers film; played blues star Lowell Folson in the Oscar-winning Ray Charles biopic, Ray; and appeared in the Martin Scorsese-produced PBS series, The Blues.
King’s recent film work includes the original score for Animal, a 2005 prison drama with Ving Rhames and Terrence Howard, and two animated short films for children, Dem Bones and The True Story of the Three Little Pigs (featuring Oscar nominee Paul Giamatti as the wolf).
Killing Point represents a departure for King. Rather than play a character who’s also a musician, his role is strictly dramatic.
“As an actor, it’s really important to show Hollywood that I don’t have to only play a musical character,” King said. “It’s a co-starring role where there isn’t any musical contribution from me.”
Even if he is playing a musician, a part in a film can give a blues artist far more exposure than he normally gets, even during the course of years of personal appearances.
“When Ray came out, the movie played to millions of people the first weekend,” King said. “In my genre of music, blues, I’d have to outdo B.B. King as far as how many dates I do on the road. Even if I worked every night, it would take 15 years for me to play for that many people.”
The only downside of his film work, King said, is that it’s taken him away from his music. “People don’t see me perform live very much and I don’t tour a lot.”
Performing during the annual Baton Rouge Blues Week, however, King plays a hometown gig Saturday at Chelsea’s Café. It’s his new-release show for Live On Beale Street, a seven-track collection recorded in 1997 in Memphis. The disc is available from iTunes and other digital music distributors. It’s available in the traditional CD format at King’s performances.
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