Ask director Joseph Kahn to name-check his inspirations and the Houston native rolls off usual suspects Spielberg, Scorsese, Lynch and Bertolucci.
Yet for the 30-year-old, who's risen up the ranks to rule as one of music video's more consistent and eclectic image-makers, the career choice was provoked more by his inability to pick up chicks than his dream of directing the next Godfather.
"In the early days, I figured that if I didn't become relatively famous and powerful, I would never get laid," admits Kahn, whose satisfied clientele includes U2, Janet Jackson, DMX, Moby, the Wu Tang Clan and Eminem. "[Directing] gave me a level of quasi-popularity"—as he found out when, for one of his first videos, he cast a bunch of bouncing cheerleaders: "I remember walking down the hallway and all these cheerleaders screaming out, 'Hi Joseph!"' |
