Architecture, songwriting, knitting: The surprising creative side passions of actors and celebrities
Tributes to Alain Delon, who died last week at the age of 88, have honoured the heartthrob actor as one of France's most memorable leading men.
But fans may have been surprised to read about his forays into furniture design. Most notably, he conceived a collection in the 1970s for the rarefied French design house, Maison Jansen.
It turns out he wasn't so unusual for having a double artistic passion. They may be global icons who’ve carved a path to the pinnacle of their creative professions, but some of the world’s biggest stars have also led a creative double life away from their day jobs.
Jonny Depp has a sideline in songwriting
Music has always been a relaxing pastime for some of the silver screen’s biggest names, keen to explore the full range of their creative potential away from the film set.
Hollywood actor Jonny Depp is a passionate guitarist who has collaborated with some of rock and roll's legends. He’s performed with Brit pop icons Oasis, rock royalty Aerosmith and Iggy Pop and even created sweet music with his ex-partner French singer and actress Vanessa Paradis.
Depp went to 11 on Paradis’ fourth album Bliss, in 2000. He co-wrote two songs, played guitar on a track, painted some of the album’s artwork and directed two videos for the album.
A year after the couple split in 2013, Paradis released the album Love Songs featuring Depp and their daughter Lily-Rose.
Brad Pitt has an eye for architecture
When Brad Pitt, the star of Fight Club, Interview with the Vampire and Bullet Train, isn’t setting hearts racing on the big screen, he can be found indulging his love of architecture.
Pitt is so committed to his unusual passion that he briefly put his acting career on hold in the early 2000s to study computer-aided design at the LA offices of Frank Gehry, the superstar Canadian American architect who created the iconic Guggenheim Museum Bilbao.
"I'm really into architecture, structure and design. Give me anything and I'll design it. I'm a bit nutty with it," Pitt told Vanity Fair in 2004. "I've got a few men I respect very much and one would be Frank Gehry. He said to me, 'If you know where it's going, it's not worth doing.' That's become like a mantra for me. That's the life of the artist," he added.
Back in 2004, Star Wars actor Hayden Christensen revealed he was considering giving up acting for architecture. At the time he didn’t hide his disdain for Tinseltown saying: "I don't find Hollywood interesting, so I'm thinking about studying architecture instead. A film is a product and as an actor you can only sell it if you sell yourself.” Sadly, the architectural force wasn’t strong enough in Christensen, so he’s still making films today.
Sylvester Stallone and Sharon Stone like to pick up the paintbrush
Painting is another creative pastime of choice for thespians exploring their alternative creative passions.
Basic Instinct star Sharon Stone took up painting during lockdown and has gone on to sell her work for tens of thousands of dollars. Influenced by artists including Wassily Kandinsky, Joan Miró, and Claude Monet, Stone has gone international, exhibiting in the US and Europe.
Lord of the Rings and Green Book star Viggo Mortensen is very serious about creativity. As well as being a painter, photographer, musician and poet, in 2002 he was a founding member of Perceval Press, a publishing house whose aim is to be an outlet for artists whose work may otherwise not be published.
Tinseltown hard man and Rocky creator Sylvester Stallone is a seasoned painter who has exhibited his mixed-media work across the world.
With a background in painting, he’s on record saying that before he got his big break in movies, he’d sell his paintings to feed himself. Those days are long gone. Stallone’s work, mostly abstract pieces with bright, vivid swirls of paint, now command six-figure price tags.
Stallone cites the works of Jean-Michel Basquiat, Francis Bacon, and Kazimir Malevich as his key influences, as well as Andy Warhol, for whom he famously posed in a series of photographic portraits in the 1980s.
Tom Daley has turned to knitting to combat stress
Moving away from the movies, one celebrity pastime has been the subject of recent viral social media videos. During the Paris Olympics, British Olympic diving medallist Tom Daley, was often seen in the Aquatic Centre crowd knitting a blue Paris 24 jumper.
Daley took up the pastime during the Tokyo 2020 Olympics as a way to manage the stresses of everyday life and competing at the very top of his sport. At Paris, in addition to the jumper, Daley knitted pouches for his diving teammates’ medals.
A social media star, Daley’s Instagram account dedicated to his knitted and crocheted creations madewithlovebytomdaley boasts 1.4million followers.
Triple Oscar winner Meryl Streep - the iconic star of The Devil Wears Prada, Mamma Mia, and Sophie's Choice - also loves knitting, preferring the age-old craft to attending the glamorous parties and events that come with the territory when you are Hollywood royalty.
Meryl has said that she knits all the time on set and even shared her passion with her co-star Amy Adams on the set of the film 2008 film Doubt. Adams turned to the hobby to help calm her down between takes.
Oscar-nominated actor Ryan Gosling, who starred as Ken opposite Margot Robbie in the 2023 blockbuster Barbie movie, is also a knitting fan, having learned the craft on the set of quirky 2007 film Lars and the Real Girl.
Speaking to GQ Australia Gosling said, “If I had to design my perfect day, [knitting] would be it. And you get something out of it at the end. You get a nice present. For someone who wants an oddly shaped, off-putting scarf.”
A well-known joker, some question whether Gosling was being totally serious when he made the comment.
