“We are all just characters in each other’s lives,” Corey Feldman sings in his new song “Characters,” which arrived June 22. And in his new music video for the track, which Billboard is premiering on the actor-singer’s birthday on Wednesday (July 16), the former child star takes viewers through various characters he’s portrayed throughout his decades-long career.
“This new music video … serves as a creative time capsule that highlights many of the most memorable characters I’ve played in my over 50-year career in both film and music,” Feldman, who directed the visual, tells Billboard.
The video begins with a young boy resembling Feldman walking to the center of a stage to sit down on a stool highlighted by a stage light. As he begins singing, the little boy morphs, and his appearance changes from some of the actor’s younger roles (the cherubic blond child from his first acting gig in a McDonald’s ad, to little Regi with his baseball cap in Bad News Bears) to his famous tween and teen parts (The Goonies, Stand By Me, The Lost Boys) and roles in his adult years (Queeny in Corbin Nash and channeling late friend Michael Jackson in his own music video for “The Joke”).
The star shares that when he was first conceptualizing the idea for the “Characters” visual, his first thought was, “I could never afford it!” And then it hit him that he could do it. “Rather than trying to film myself in different costumes and makeup, I immediately gravitated toward the concept of an all-AI video. I loved the artistic statement in that contrast between old and new,” he explains. “I also thought about starting the video with the imagery of myself as a kid, like in that McDonald’s commercial from way back.”
Source: billboard.com/Anna Chan
