From Spider-Man on Broadway to a concert in SLO, Reeve Carney mixes acting and music

With his warm brown eyes, pale, expressive face and stylishly slim figure, it’s easy to see why Reeve Carney has earned a devoted fan following.

He’s sported spandex as the star of Broadway musical “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark,” showed some skin as ageless playboy Dorian Gray on Showtime’s “Penny Dreadful” and brought sex appeal to the role of Riff Raff in Fox’s “The Rocky Horror Picture Show: Let’s Do the Time Warp Again.”

But, in addition to meticulously tousled hair and a well-curated wardrobe, Carney has some serious singing and guitar-playing chops.

Acting and music “definitely feed one another for me,” said Carney, who’s touring with blues star Jonny Lang.

“There are times when I approach a scene thinking about the way” he would perform a song, Carney added. “There’s just a certain approach to art that develops your performance, that inspires (excellence) in you.”

Show business is unquestionably in Carney’s blood. Raised in a hippy household in Manhattan’s West Village, the New York native is the great-nephew of Academy Award-winning actor Art Carney of “The Honeymooners” and “Harry and Tonto” fame.

“When I was 8 years old, I told my mom I wanted to be an actor,” recalled Reeve Carney, who’s 33 but looks years younger. “For some reason it seemed like an exciting thing to do.”

But it was his younger brother, Zane, who broke into show business first — landing a role on the CBS sitcom “Dave’s World.” His family relocated from New York City to Los Angeles, and Reeve Carney proudly attended every taping of the show.

He also did some modeling. Then, at age 12, “I fell in love with the guitar and lost pretty much any interest in anything else,” Reeve Carney said.

He credits his parents, both professional musicians, with feeding him a steady diet of David Bowie, Bob Dylan, Prince and Queen, among others. That may explain why he has a soft spot for music released before 1978.

“Really, if I had to pick a favorite band, I’d pick the Beatles,” Carney said. “There’s never been anyone better in terms of … musicianship and composition and vocal strength.”

Reeve and Zane Carney eventually formed a blues rock band called — what else? — Carney, which released its debut album in 2010. (Their sister, Paris Carney, is also a singer-songwriter.) The same year, Reeve Carney appeared as Prince Ferdinand in the movie “The Tempest,” directed by Julie Taymor.

Carney’s background landed him the lead in “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark,” also helmed by Taymor. Besieged by budget problems, on-set injuries and an ever-rotating cast and creative team, the ambitious, technically complex show — which features music and lyrics by U2’s Bono and The Edge — opened on Broadway after several delays in 2011.

“They didn’t want someone who came from Broadway. They were looking for someone who came from a rock and roll background,” explained Carney, whose band opened for Arcade Fire and U2 in 2011.

Carney logged more than 900 performances as nerdy photographer Peter Parker and his superhero alter-ego, Spider-Man, a role that required him to act, sing and swing through the air.

“It was amazing,” said the performer, a longtime fan of stunt shows.

Although several performers were injured during the Tony Award-nominated run of “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark” — including his friend Christopher Tierney, who fell more than 20 feet from a piece of scenery — Carney said he never personally felt at risk.

“You always want to be careful in any sort of athletic activity,” he said. “I’m more worried about (the safety of) football players than I am about Broadway performers.”

Carney has continued to heighten his profile with a series of on-screen roles — starting with his turn as the tattooed bad boy who seduces Taylor Swift in the 2012 music video for her song “I Knew You Were Trouble.” (Here’s evidence of Carney’s hipster fashion sense: He wore mostly his own clothes in the video.)

On “Penny Dreadful,” which wrapped up its third and final season in June, Carney played the charismatic, immortal Dorian Gray, inspired by Oscar Wilde’s novel “The Picture of Dorian Grey.”

The actor channeled a glam rock butler in Fox’s “Rocky Horror Picture Show” remake, which aired Oct. 20.

Richard O’Brien, who created the musical “The Rocky Horror Show,” originated the role of Riff Raff the handyman on stage in 1973 and reprised it in the 1975 movie adaptation, “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.”

In tackling the part, “I wanted to make sure I respected everything I loved about the original,” Carney said, while putting his own spin on the character. (There’s at least one discernible difference; while O’Brien’s Riff Raff is nearly bald, Carney’s Steven Tyler-esque version sports a full head of black and bleached-blond hair.)

Carney is no “Rocky Horror” superfan — “I’ve only seen it a few times,” he acknowledged — but he holds the musical in high regard. “It always gets better with each viewing,” he said.

Asked how he approaches working with established properties, Carney stressed the importance of making each role one’s own.

“You don’t want to trace something,” he explained. “You can look at an image and walk away from it, and draw it in the way that feels right to you.”

That’s the same philosophy Carney has followed as a musician.

Although it’s easy to hear echoes of his blues, jazz, rock and soul heroes on his debut solo album “Youth Is Wasted,” released in October on Scissorhand Records, “I wasn’t so much trying to deliberately pay tribute to those influences,” Carney said. “Those are sounds that inspire me.”

And, he added, he draws just as much inspiration from his fans.

This story was originally published December 15, 2016 at 11:47 AM with the headline "From Spider-Man on Broadway to a concert in SLO, Reeve Carney mixes acting and music."