The Drunken Severed Head Meets DPK

Part 1 of some excerpts from an interview conducted by Max The Drunken Severed Head with my adopted actor, David Patrick Kelly.

The interview was conducted in Pittsburgh on May 19th, 2007. It has not been published to this date.

Yes, this is brand new, never-before-seen interview material with my adopted actor! Thanks again, Max!


Max, The Drunken Severed Head:
My first question would be, basically, how did you become interested in acting? What were the circumstances?


DPK:
I think it was the Catholic Church. I had a happy upbringing. I was an altar boy in the 50's, and saw all that ritual, and the costumes, all the vestments and everything else. There was something about it that was mysterious and great.

My father was a painter, so we always had painting going on in our basement. There were big scenes. He painted the furnace to look like a tree, and the walls were always covered with paintings, so I think it was just an environment. My mother taught me music. And it was a combination of these twin things in my family, art and music.

So I think that combination made it obvious, just combined to make that all interesting for me. And then, literature too. My family was always bookish. So the combination of all those things made it happen. And the first thing that I was interested in was Samuel Beckett and things like that. And Dostoevsky in high school. These were great characters.

I'll always remember a kid saying to me once, "You're an actor," just out of the blue. I was just playing in bands in high school, and things like that. And he said "You're an actor" and it sort of stuck. It was sort of prophetic.

So, the combination.

The biggest influences on me growing up in Detroit was MUSIC, really. 'Cause I'd seen these great acts. My high school friends and I, we had the MC5 -- I don't know if you know them -- and Iggy (Pop) were around, in Detroit, and the MC5 played at our junior high school dance. You know, this theatrical, amazing group of people with this powerful thing. But then we would journey around. I saw Jimi Hendrix, and the Beatles. I saw The Doors at Cobo in Detroit.

And this was a very theatrical time. All my friends and I, we wanted to go to the circus school. For some reason, circus was a big influence. Going down to Ringling Bros. and Barnum and Bailey. But then, just reading the literature, and getting involved with Shakespeare in college, at the University of Detroit, where I graduated. My first show in Detroit was a combination of music and theater, HAIR.