Actor's CV Includes Music Videos

Eric Roberts has been in hundreds of films, ranging from The Pope of Greenwich Village to The Dark Knight. In later years, he has been involved with music videos as well. This makes up a small--and significant--portion of his new autobiography, Runaway Train.

Many may be surprised to learn that Eric didn't always earn much from such work. It wasn't unusual for him to come home with $150-$300. So he was happily surprised to receive a whopping $25,000 for his contribution to one of Akon's videos.

It is interesting to learn about his interactions with Mariah Carey, Rihanna (who seem to be among his favorite collaborators) and Chris Cornell. In the case of the latter, Eric left Chris a CD--from his musician stepson Keaton Simons. Chris loved it, and invited Keaton on tour with him.

Keaton was not with the Soundgarden and Audioslave singer for his final concert. Eric takes comfort in this, but is unsettled by the video he did with Cornell, in which they played prisoners about to be hanged. It seems to have been a premonition--or perhaps gave the depressed star some ideas.

Eric, who also worked with The Killers and Ja Rule, did an interview about his music video experiences a couple of years ago.