Listicle: 10 celebrities with cool artistic side gigs

We’ve loved her since Charlie’s Angels and Kill Bill. But only superfans knew that she wields a paintbrush as skilfully as a sword. Liu’s practice spans collage, sculpture, silkscreen and installation, much of which explores her identity as a child of immigrants (Liu’s parents were born in China). She’s been creating art since the 2000s, but had her breakout moment in 2019 with a series of erotic works.

Underneath those muscles is the soul of an artist. Stallone has been painting for more than 50 years, and has exhibited in Russia, France and the US. His art is abstract and busy: Loud colours, graphic lines, quirky symbolism, but it deals with such heavy themes as death, loss and fame. His favourite muse? Rocky! He painted the first Rocky-themed work before the script was even written, using a screwdriver to carve the boxer’s eyes and “capture the sadness”. He’s also painted Rambo, Michael Jackson, Marilyn Monroe and Edgar Allan Poe.

Brody’s dedication to his day job – he’s won two Oscars – makes it seem like he has no time for anything else. But at Art Basel Miami in 2015, he exhibited Hot Dogs, Hamburgers, and Handguns, a work that is as literal as the title, and showed up with a toy gun and a McDonald’s pendant around his neck. Other works depict a French fry box stuffed with cigarettes, teddy bear gunfights and a suicidal Starbucks mermaid. Subtlety? Never heard of her.

In 2022, he debuted as a sculptor, and we all secretly hoped he would flop. But his show at a Finnish gallery impressed fans and critics. It was original and visceral: A Neoclassical frieze-style sculpture with men shooting each other to pieces; a bronze coffin, with bodies straining against it; a man sticking his head in a vise. The work is a result of “brutally honest” self-reflection, says the man who once played Death on screen.

In a 2017 video titled I Needed Colour, Carrey shared that he took to painting after a bleak New York winter in 2010. Around the same time, he dove into mindfulness, Christ consciousness and the Bhagavad Gita. The work reflects it all. Sunshower, a digital work, is large and colourful, a reminder to stay in the “present moment” he says. He’s also produced scathing Trump cartoons. Now, he mostly paints mangoes, he says.

The man has managed to keep two marriages a secret – we’re not surprised he has a side gig too. The Nobel Laureate sketches, paints and sculpts. His muse: The American landscape. He’s depicted an ever-busy Times Square and Manhattan Bridge, deserted motels, winding roads, truck stops, railroad tracks, cafes and sunflowers. In 1968, Bob Dylan painted the cover art for The Band’s debut album, Music from Big Pink. His work also appeared on the cover of his own 1970 album, Self-Portrait.

It started with paint-by-numbers during the pandemic. By 2023, Stone had hosted her first solo exhibition, Shedding, at an LA gallery. After surviving a brain haemorrhage, a divorce, and losing custody of her son, the show represented her letting go of old pain and embracing her new skin. Hence, the snake symbolism. Her bold, dreamlike art tackles topics from fat-shaming to climate change. She’s got that Basic Artistic Instinct.

Ziggy Stardust, Thin White Duke, movie star. Oh, and also neo-Expressionist painter. Bowie debuted his artistic side in 1995, with a self-portrait on the cover of his album, Outside. He’s been featured in art galleries across the world, and is best known for his Afro/Pagan Ancestors series, and Turkish Father and Son, which he painted while writing Yassassin. One self-portrait fetched 22,500 pounds in 2016.

He’s rebranded himself after #MeToo, but he says he’s been working on painting, video and performance since at least 2005. Franco’s 2012 piece, Francophrenia, had critics confused and annoyed. He played Franco the human, the performance artist, the movie star and the inner monologue. Meta much? His 2024 Zurich show, Hollywood in Hell, was a chaotic mix of pandemic-era LA, broken masculinity, and a deconstruction of Hollywood mythology. Exhausting.

On-screen, he terrified us as Hannibal. Off-screen, he is a shy artist who paints bright, innocent landscapes with a palette knife and thick dabs of colour. His first exhibition’s proceeds went to charity, and by 2009, his work had toured galleries across North America and Europe. His painting motto, a quote by Henry Miller, is peak grandpa energy: “Paint what you like and die happy”.