Vincent Gallo

Vincent Gallo is an American actor, filmmaker, musician, and visual artist whose work crosses independent cinema and contemporary art. Born Vincent Vito Gallo Jr. in Buffalo, New York, in 1961 to Sicilian immigrant parents, he left home at sixteen for Manhattan, where he lived in the East Village painting and DJing alongside Jean-Michel Basquiat in the short-lived band Gray.

He drifted into modeling and acting through downtown connections, appearing in Eric Mitchell's The Way It Is in 1985 and breaking through with Abel Ferrara's The Funeral in 1996 and Claire Denis's Trouble Every Day in 2001. He directed and starred in Buffalo '66 in 1998 opposite Christina Ricci, financing the production himself and shooting in his hometown over twenty-three days.

His second feature, The Brown Bunny, premiered at Cannes in 2003 to a fierce critical reception that he answered with a re-edit and a public feud with Roger Ebert, who later reversed his pan. As an actor he continued working selectively, taking the lead in Jerzy Skolimowski's Essential Killing in 2010 for which he won the Volpi Cup at Venice.

He has released solo records on Warp, including When in 2001, exhibited paintings and photographs in galleries from New York to Paris, and largely withdrawn from new film projects after the early 2010s. He has been outspoken about libertarian politics in interviews with the New York Times and Vice.

The name Vincent is a French and English form of the Latin Vincentius, derived from vincere meaning to conquer. Carried by early Christian martyrs and later by the painter Vincent van Gogh, it gained American popularity through Italian and Irish immigration. He has worn the conquering root with confrontational pride.