Mark Kozelek
Music is the day job, and the screen work has always been a sideline to it. Mark Kozelek fronted Red House Painters, recording six studio albums with the band between 1988 and 2001, and has since worked as the vocalist and primary recording artist behind Sun Kil Moon. Songwriting, guitar, production: that is the career, and the films sit off to one side of it.
Four film credits are attached to this page and none of them asks much. He appeared in Almost Famous in 2000 as Larry Fellows, took a small part in Vanilla Sky the year after, and turned up in Shopgirl in 2005 as Luther. By 2015 he was in Youth, billed under his own name, which is close to an honest summary of what he does on screen.
That is not a complaint. He is comfortable on camera in a way plenty of musicians are not, and he never pushes for more than a scene needs from him. The parts are small, they are honest, and they are a footnote to the records.
Movies (4)
Where to start with Mark Kozelek
Begin with Almost Famous, where he plays Larry Fellows in a film built entirely around a touring rock band. It is also the best film here by a distance, so you lose nothing if the Kozelek angle stops holding your interest halfway through.
After that the order barely matters. Shopgirl gives him a named part with a little room in it, Vanilla Sky a blink of screen time in a film with far bigger things on its mind, and Youth casts him as himself, which is the neatest joke in the set.
If you arrived here from the records, though, the records are the work. The films are a hobby he happened to be good enough at to keep getting asked back.