We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Adam Kiss a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Adam, appreciate you joining us today. Do you feel you or your work has ever been misunderstood or mischaracterized? If so, tell us the story and how/why it happened and if there are any interesting learnings or insights you took from the experience?
I feel that most great artists are misunderstood. We often hear the term: “misunderstood genius”. For example, a lot of great writers, painters and musicians were appreciated after their time but not while they were alive. Maybe the same will be said of me—and if it is that’s ok, because I don’t create art for recognition or to impress other people. Art is very subjective and it is opinion based. That’s why it’s impossible to fairly judge it, and why awards shows are so controversial. At the end of the day there is no such a thing as a best movie or best actor. There is no “winning” in art like there is in sports! I pride myself on being an out of the box thinker and unique. My film: My Last Words was hailed as an extremely original work. In a modern cinema landscape that is full of remakes and sequels I wanted to create something fresh and new! In my feature film, I purposely left some aspects of the story open to the interpretation of the audience. In my opinion everyone who watches the film can take something else from it, so it is not possible for the film to be misunderstood because every opinion is valid. Therefore, at the end of the day although I believe artists can be misunderstood—I think art can’t be misunderstood!
My guidance counselor in high school told me that I had a better chance of playing for the Yankees than I had of being a successful actor or singer. In a way you could say that this guidance counselor was somebody who totally misunderstood me and what I’m capable of. You could say that this was a life altering moment for me. I immediately left high school, switched to homeschooling and finished my last two years of high school in six months so that I would have more time to focus on my career and what really mattered to me. I have always loved when people underestimate me–because that only motivated me more to prove all the naysayers wrong!
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
My Mom Christina Kiss is a world-renowned concert pianist who raised me as a single parent. Because she raised me in this way, she had to make a lot of sacrifices and put her career on hold–in particular turning down offers for many international tours. Because I was raised by my Mother, music was always in the house as she also taught piano lessons in her studio at home and I was constantly exposed to the great music of Liszt, Chopin, Schumann, etc! My Grandmother on my Mother’s side was named Ilona Kiss and was also a concert pianist and teacher and my Grandfather Jozsef Kiss was an amateur tenor so I played both the piano and clarinet from a young age. I was always a very shy kid but always came into my own whenever I was performing! Additionally, I was always more nervous talking to someone one on one than when I was performing onstage in front of hundreds or thousands of people. Interestingly enough, in my entire childhood (or life so far) I have never ever played a video game—it never interested me. At about twelve I discovered Shakespeare and began reading his plays. I loved them with a great passion, and that’s how I got interested in acting and so I began training in acting and performing in musicals. It was through musicals that I discovered that I had an operatic voice and so for a while I trained and performed as an opera singer. During the pandemic when performances stopped, I shifted back to film and haven’t looked back since. I am so proud and happy that I have such a wide background, and personally think it helps me constantly. The wealth of live stage experiences that I have to draw from is huge. I am a better writer and director because of that!
I call myself a filmmaker, which is a wide term and encompasses many things. I like the term because it is intentionally ambiguous. If you get into specifics I am a producer, director, writer, actor and singer. But together—the term filmmaker encapsulates many of those things! I like the term because it implies a level or artistic control—I make films that I want to make and so far nobody has told me how to make them. I believe that cinema is an art form and one of the greatest. That is because it encapsulates so many of the arts. You have acting, directing, writing, lighting, camerawork, framing, set design, etc! The list goes on. Ultimately it is a collaborative medium, but that’s all noise unless there is a strong vision guiding the production. I find it is my job to have that strong vision, stick to it, and communicate it to my entire team! I have always been incredibly passionate about acting, but that passion has led me to my desire for directing and writing and “producing”. That is particularly important because a producer is ultimately the biggest boss on a film, even above the director. As a filmmaker I like to encapsulate all of these roles together and like to consider myself the “auteur” (a cinematic term for author) of my films because I have so much creative control and involvement in every aspect of them!
How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?
It is a complete and profound paradox that an artist has to be both incredibly stubborn and flexible at the same time! I can only speak from my personal experience to say that, as an artist. I go into every single project with a very strong creative vision. I believe in fighting for that vision with everything I have, so that it can be fully realized exactly as I envision it. However, that is not a realistic goal—we never reach the perfection that we think we desire. And thank God we don’t—because nothing is so boring as perfection. It’s in the flaws and the cracks that anything becomes interesting. There is a saying that if you want God to laugh, you tell him your plans. And that hits on something profound—often we don’t know what’s best for us. Sometimes our original vision is not as perfect as what we end up with because we were turned in different directions, or hurdles forced us to change plans. I believe in using your limitations and hurdles to your advantage and embrace them instead of hating them.
But I digress—the point is that being flexible is very important! Throughout my life, I was trained in both acting and music, but as I got into my teenage years it was discovered that I had a great voice, and so I went into musicals, and then into opera.I went to Manhattan School of Music for voice, and then to Curtis Institute of Music for opera. I graduated right in the middle of the pandemic. There were suddenly not many performing options, and just doing nothing was not an option for me. So I pivoted back to my acting career and made a further turn into filmmaking. I never grew up with dreams of directing a film—that was the farthest thing from my mind. Likewise with writing I was an avid reader of classic nineteenth century literature but never seriously considered it as a career. In the beginning I started with short films, it was literally just me acting and directing and my Mom Christina Kiss was the cinematographer and sole crew member! Then it grew and in my recent feature film I sometimes had as many as twenty crew members on set under my command on any given day. Knowing when to change course and when to stand firm is the greatest wisdom you can learn in life, in my opinion!
For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?
There is a famous quote that says that it is possible to live without art, but is it worth it? I think that art is what makes life worth living. I’m a storyteller at the end of the day—and storytellers serve an important role in society. They have to entertain the world while also perhaps bringing awareness to some of the problems of society . However, entertainment is the most important goal of a storyteller–and any message has to be delivered subtly and not forced on the audience so that they can make their own inference about the exact message.
Being an artist and a storyteller is what I consider a noble purpose and endeavor in life. An artist can never be selfish—and the art itself is more important than any artist. Often when I’m writing a script and then shooting the movie, certain of my favorite scenes have to be cut—they are sacrificed for the film as a whole. Sometimes certain scenes can be magnificent on their own but when you see the whole movie together, that one scene may mess up the pacing and have to be cut. These are decisions that I constantly have to make as a filmmaker!
And finally, the most rewarding thing I’ve experienced recently was when I saw the finished product of my last feature film “My Last Words” premiere at a film festival in Manhattan! My Mom Christina Kiss was also there to support me—she served as an actress in the film, composed and performed the soundtrack, and served as my fellow producer and I could not have accomplished this incredible milestone without her help!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://adamkissofficial.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adamkiss.official
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AdamKissOfficial
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adamkiss100
- Twitter: https://x.com/realadamkiss
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@adamkissofficial
- Other: IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm13045533/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@adamkissofficial
Instagram: @adamkiss.official, @adamkissproductions
Tiktok: @adamkissofficial
Facebook: @AdamKissOfficial
X: @RealAdamKiss
Youtube: @adamkissofficial
Image Credits
Adam Kiss, Christina Kiss, Lev Gorn, Douglas Gorenstein, Kenna Beban, Beth Heller, Lara Barker