We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Kevin Kinkade a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Kevin, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Do you wish you had started sooner?

I started out as an actor in school but went on to pursue music and sports. I had applied and been accepted at Potsdam University’s music department but was unable to afford tuition, was unable to get a student loan or grant and so therefore, went to work in the steel plant at the age of 18. I was living in Buffalo, New York at the time and traveled to Seattle, where once again, I was working in the steel plant. At the prompting of family members, I traveled to Houston, Texas, where I worked in outside sales for a medical accounting company and then started performing as an actor in local theater productions. I was encouraged to sign with an agent but delayed that decision till I had moved to Austin, Texas, where I signed with two agencies, one in Austin and one in Houston and was auditioning for various movie and TV roles but for some reason, decided that I needed to get serious and get a real job so I went to work in the sales support division of Apple Computer. Worst choice I had ever made. After six years of working in that high stress environment, I decided to start shooting my own movies and created two erotic art films, Damiana and Loss of Innocence. A woman I had hired as a photographer and I decided to create an erotic horror film titled Voices of the Dead. It was there that I was introduced to a friend of hers who signed me with his talent agency and I started auditioning for movie and TV roles again. I went on to sign with other agencies and a talent manager and am continuing to audition and perform in TV, movies and commercials. I am a lot older now and often wonder how the trajectory of my career would have taken had I signed up with an agency way back in those theater days in Houston or if I had not left the business to work for Apple. I’m much wiser now and a better actor than I was back then but it’s much harder to get a foothold in the business at this age. Would I have made more progress had I not taken that time off to work for Apple or signed with a talent agent earlier, back when I was younger and performing on stage? I often wonder.

Kevin, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I got into the world of acting when prompted to audition for a local play in Houston, Texas. Performing on stage is like jumping off a cliff into unknown waters. At first, it’s terrifying but then it becomes addicting. You can’t wait to get back on stage and feel that rush of energy from the crowd and the synergy of working with other actors. You become hooked. Film acting is much different. You are performing for the camera instead of a live audience. In theater, you rehearse for a few weeks, perfecting the timing and characterization with other actors before taking it to the stage. Then you are out there, in front of a live audience and you feel that exhilarating rush. On camera, you do one scene at a time, over and over again, getting different camera angles. The trick is to do each take fresh. Too often, actors have a tendency to repeat the same lines, over and over again, with the same inflection and they lose the creativity, it becomes redundant. I’ve always prided myself in the ability to let that creative energy flow with each take, which means that each take is fresh and authentic, avoiding redundancy. Sometimes you will be surprised, to see how each take is the same words or even an ad-libbed version but each take is different, all good but different. This gives the director a variety of takes to choose from in the editing process. I also pride myself in the ability to follow direction and take whatever the director throws at me and bring it to life. As a writer and photographer, I try to find great angles and fresh perspectives. It’s all about the creative energy and how it manifests either on the paper, camera lens or movie set.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

My goal as a creative is purely to feel that rush of creative energy.. My mission is to inspire others. The creative process, as I’ve said before, is an addictive one. It’s something that you have to do, have to feel. You will work low-paying, menial jobs, just to have that occasional opportunity to explore that creative world and feel that rush, either as a musician, playing some local dive bar or working as an actor in some low-budget film. As a creative, you want to reach out and make people think. Art, music and literature are far more profound in reaching into people’s minds than plain instruction. It provides information in a way that reaches into their soul. Read the words of a poet like Dylan Thomas or listen to the music of someone like REM and you don’t completely understand the words or what they mean at first but you get a feeling. It reaches into your soul and as time goes on, you gain understanding. This has a much more profound impact than plain instruction.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

One of the most profound lessons I’ve had to learn in life is to not regret past choices. It’s very easy to look back and wonder what might have been had you taken a different route or made different choices at critical moments in your life. I can think of one time, when I was in a film acting class when the class was visited by a producer who was just about to go on location for a movie shoot. I had a bad attitude that day and was not performing my best. Later, I was angry at myself for ruining an opportunity to advance my career. A year later, the movie came out and was horribly panned by the media critics. Stories came back from actors who had worked on the film, telling of what a horrible experience it had been. All of that time being angry at myself was time wasted.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://kevinkinkade.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wildstreetphotography/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@wildstreetstore8852
• Other: https://wildstreetstore.com/ https://www.imdb.com/name/nm5641975/ https://wildstreetphotography.com/

Image Credits
Images are both headshots taken by Viktor Cepeda and action scenes from Queen of the South, The Sauce, Rain, Jerico, Let’s Kill Mom and Cattleville.