Eszter Balint has an independent streak

Story By SCOTT CULLEN
Photos By MERRI CYR

Talk about challenging career choice . Eszter Balint has made two - actress in mostly independent films and independent recording artist. Since leaving acting a half dozen or so years ago, the 36-year-old has focused her creative talents on music, and earlier this year released her second CD, “Mud,” on the Hoboken, New Jersey-based Bar None label. But thanks to her role in director Jim Jarmusch’s art house classic “Stranger Than Paradise,” Balint’s name remains on the radar of cult movie aficionados and fans of the unconventional director’s work.

Talk about challenging career choice . Eszter Balint has made two - actress in mostly independent films and independent recording artist. Since leaving acting a half dozen or so years ago, the 36-year-old has focused her creative talents on music, and earlier this year released her second CD, “Mud,” on the Hoboken, New Jersey-based Bar None label. But thanks to her role in director Jim Jarmusch’s art house classic “Stranger Than Paradise,” Balint’s name remains on the radar of cult movie aficionados and fans of the unconventional director’s work.

Her role in “Stranger” led to a handful of other films, including Steve Buscemi’s directorial debut, “Trees Lounge,” but with the exception of small roles in Woody Allen’s “Shadows and Fog” and an episode of “Miami Vice,” she made little else of note in the mainstream. Living for a spell in L.A. was the antidote to the acting bug, and Balint began to fully pursue her musical muse in the mid 1990s.

“I became disenchanted with the film world and what the possibilities were,” says Balint. “I needed to take control of my life and it was an inspiring time for music and seemed like a logical progression.”

That progression from acting to music evolved over the next few years with Balint pining away in various bands in Los Angeles and back in New York, singing harmonies and playing violin both in live performance and on other artist’s recordings. In 2000 she released her first CD “Flicker.”

UNDER THE INFLUENCES

Born in Hungary, Balint became involved in the arts at a young age. Her parents were founders of a theater group that captured the attention of the Hungarian government despite doing plays that were not that political. The troupe eventually moved to Paris, which served as home base for a number of years. In the early 1980s, the group - Eszter included - was invited to perform in a theater festival in Baltimore, which resulted in the troupe settling in the United States and setting up shop next to the legendary Chelsea Hotel in New York City.

Considering her background, it’s somewhat surprising that Balint’s music has such a rootsy Americana feel to it. Her sultry vocals add to the mystique of the music and are a perfect complement to her lyrics, which lean toward the dark side.

Asked about her musical influences, Balint rattles off names like Dylan, Neil Young, Randy Newman, and the Beatles. “I’m a song person. I get into good songs even more than cool, interesting sounds,” she says. Over the years, she’s gone through different musical phases. “In my late teens and early twenties I was into opera. Go figure.” Classical music has also been a big part of her life. She’s played the violin since age six.

She does listen to new music too and has even gone through a Beck and Bjork phase. “The reason I constantly go back to the sixties and seventies stuff is that time was so much more about songs,” she explains. “When you can [listen] to something ten years after you first heard it, and there’s still something new about it because it has its own little mysterious world that lasts forever.”

As for her own mysterious musical world, Balint creates music that leaves a lot of open space for the lyrics, her imagination, and the listener’s imagination, and where what’s not being said plays as important a role as what’s being said. “There’s a simplicity and dark mystery to it,” she says.

ALWAYS A STRANGER

Balint has positive memories of “Stranger Than Paradise,” a film she made when she was just 15 years old. “I think it’s a great film.God knows I can say that 20 years later.” Although she concedes it’s been attached to everything she’s done since then. “It has a wonderful aspect to it and it has a tiresome aspect to it too,” she admits. “How long can you talk about the same thing?”

Does she miss acting? “I think about it now and then,” concedes Balint. “If something great ever came my way I wouldn’t be dead set against it. But I don’t really yearn for that as a lifestyle or a career.”

Still, Balint is pragmatic about her acting past. “I was part of a few great projects but it wasn’t anything I ever consciously decided to do. A lot of it was happenstance, which is fine because that’s how a lot of life is.”

THE IMPORTANCE OF NOT BEING EARNEST

When asked if there’s a difference between acting and music, she responds that the best acting and musical performances require what she calls a “healthy distance.” “In that distance is a lot of honesty,” says Balint. “Honesty is such a dangerous word because I don’t want to sound like I’m trying to be the earnest songwriter girl,” she explains. Rather than being “earnest” she says it’s all about “authenticity.” “It’s always been important for me to be authentic in my acting and that’s true for my songwriting.”

Balint acknowledges the hazards of plying the acting and music trades. “They’re not the easiest rackets,” she says. “But in music there’s more of a sense of controlling your destiny. You can do your work no matter what else happens, and that’s important. I found acting incredibly stifling and frustrating. You were totally at the mercy of projects that may or may not happen, or you may or may not like.”

Independent recording artists build an audience one listener at a time, and Balint has been doing that throughout New York and the East Coast, the West Coast and Europe touring in support of the new CD. She plays violin and guitar and performs with a full band or as a duo with her husband Michael DuClos who plays bass, guitar, banjo, and shaker. “There’s a lot of texture going on for two people,” she says describing the duo’s live sound.

Balint describes her audience is people like herself who appreciate songs on a basic level. The feedback so far has been positive and immediate, which she says is one of the nice things about performing live.

Meanwhile, “Mud” continues to receive positive critical praises from the likes of Billboard, The New York Times, and Entertainment Weekly. “I’m flattered by that and that’s definitely propelling me forward,” says Balint.