You may have noticed that Tyler Perry’s new movie I Can Do Bad All By Myself, opening today, co-stars both Mary J. Blige and Gladys Knight. And their characters aren’t called “Nightclub Singer” or “Gladys Knight” either. They’re both playing honest-to-god roles.
And that got me thinking…. sometimes rock stars turn out to be great actors. More often than they turn out to be great politicians, at least.
With that in mind, the good folks at Only Good Movies invited me to write about the 10 Best Movie Performances by Rock Stars. Let me know what you think of my choices!
12 responses so far ↓
1 Laura Mc. // Sep 11, 2009 at 2:36 pm
Ooh!
1. Tim McGraw in Friday Night Lights was so natural! I really believed he was an abusive alcoholic Dad.
2. Courtney Love in Trapped, which was a little bit lame on the whole, but she was an excellent abused girlfriend and grieving mother. Honestly, I IMDBed to see which actress looked like Courtney because I was sure she was too drugged out to be so on point and sharp. She rocked it. The plot of the movie was majorly manufactured and predictable, but yeah, she was great.
2 Mark Blankenship // Sep 11, 2009 at 4:55 pm
You know, I haven’t see Courtney Love act in anything but “The People Vs. Larry Flynt,” but I still remember her performance. I was kind of disappointed that she didn’t get an Oscar nomination.
3 Laura Mc. // Sep 12, 2009 at 1:32 am
I am really interested in this cross-over of musicians who act. I try to keep my eyes peeled. Remember when Jewel played a settler or a cowgirl or something, and it wasn’t so well-received? Ride with the Devil.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0134154/
Puff Daddy in Monster’s Ball. Another dead-behind-the-eyes moment unfortunately. What was that? Puff seemed to think acting was another notch on his belt.. but he was never very good at it.
Will wrap up with Alicia Keys, Jennifer Hudson, and Queen Latifah in The Secret Life of Bees. I *really* enjoy Alicia K as an actress, and I think she was literally the only redeeming thing in Smokin’ Aces. But in regards to Bees, all of them are enjoyable even if the movie lacked in a lot of ways.
I like that more often than not musicians who become known for their music are not specifically trained actors (like duh), though they are occassionally useful in acting roles because of their charisma and underlying need to communicate emotionality. I definitely dig.. so long as the material is within the musician’s grasp.
(God. Gwen Stefani was so bad in The Aviator.)
4 katy // Sep 12, 2009 at 8:58 am
You forgot Ice Cube, who you might remember for that special little family film Are We There Yet?. But he was really legitimately outstanding in Three Kings, and also in Boys N The Hood, back in the day.
Mos Def has also shown some versatility. Remember when he was in Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy? Weird. And how about Ice-T on whatever Law and Order spinoff that is?
Thesis: rappers have made the musician – actor transition better on whole. Marky Mark and Will Smith are, after all, the best known success stories we can think of. Discuss.
5 Laura Mc. // Sep 12, 2009 at 11:06 am
Too soon to tell, Katy, I think. Rappers who act are a phenomenon of the last decade or so, though I could believe a rapper’s finesse with spoken language is a good foundation for memorizing lines and whatnot. I think that need to communicate emotions in a heartfelt (and consequently convincing) manner still puts broken-hearted rockers like Courtney Love at the top of the pile.
But all in all, the acting crossover is only indicative of which genre of musicians is currently the best produced, the best managed, and the most popular. In the end, I am reluctant to ascribe talent, drive, or genuine capability to any celebrity’s “second” career. Sometimes, the bullseye is scored, and the audience is happy for it, but I still like the idea that there are actors who are trained to act, and then (remarkably) do act. I know they’re a dying breed, and the new kind of celebrity demands this diversified pan-appeal.. but purists still provide the thrill of really knowing the craft and building the role from that skill-set. Giovanni Ribisi is quite exciting for me.
BUT. I like Alicia Keys’ acting a lot, and I think she shows promise if she keeps challenging herself. Also, Jennifer Lopez was always very very natural to me in her pre-twins movies. I think it is safe to say she has de-railed by this point, but I never really understood why her acting was so sharply criticized. The movies were lame and pre-packaged as all hell, but she was not so bad.
6 Laura Mc. // Sep 12, 2009 at 11:37 am
An addendum: I am reluctant to ascribe talent, drive, or genuine capability to any celebrity’s “second” career ** if the original reason they became famous still pays the bills.
(i.e. Scarlett Johansson is not a singer in my opinion. She is an actor with an album or two, which provide her brand some security.)
7 Rachel // Sep 12, 2009 at 1:30 pm
“Queen Latifah, Daddy!!”
8 Michael // Sep 12, 2009 at 11:00 pm
Diana Ross in Lady Sings the Blues!
(When will you do “Best Acting Performances by Standup Comedians?”)
9 Michael // Sep 12, 2009 at 11:02 pm
(Laura: Would you praise any regular actor for being “very, very natural”?)
10 Mark Blankenship // Sep 13, 2009 at 10:25 am
@Michael… When an actor is traveling over from another medium, I’d say “very, very natural” is a valid critique. Sure, it suggests that we have diminished expectations for performers we first met in other arenas, but so long as we don’t grade on a curve and falsely elevate “decent rock star acting” to the level of “great film acting,” then I don’t it’s not a problem.
For instance, I thought Will Smith’s performance in “The Pursuit of Happyness” was great, not just “rapper-turned-actor great.” In “8 Mile,” however, I thought Eminem did a surprisingly credible job for a rapper making a movie. He was, as Laura says, “very, very natural,” and that was all I needed him to be. I wouldn’t say he deserved an Oscar nomination or even a film career, but I’d say he acquitted himself very well.
I realize there’s a little bit of “you throw great… for a girl” in what I’m saying, but it’s warranted in this situation. The skill set that makes you a great country singer or football player or supermodel does not necessarily make you a great actor, anymore than being a great actor makes you a great rock star. I would imagine that few rockers-turned-actors would suggest they’re the next Jodie Foster. I’d imagine that while they know “very, very natural” would be faint praise for a trained and/or full-time actor, it is indeed a high compliment for them. Unless you’re P. Diddy, I think you know when you’re moonlighting.
@Katy… You make an interesting point about rappers. I’m not sure we can call the entire game in their favor just yet—rap’s pretty young, after all, and I’d say Sinatra’s success story is just as well known as Marky Mark’s—but it’s interesting to notice how many rappers end up on screen. L.L. Cool J is the star of “NCIS: Los Angeles,” premiering in just a few weeks, which will give Ice-T a buddy on network television. Eve had her own show for years, and Ludacris pops up in movies all the time.
I feel like it has something to do with rap’s natural affinity with acting. It’s more like talking than singing, after all, so when a rapper wants to emote, he or she has speak rhythmically and with great emphasis. That’s a core skill of acting, too.
11 katy // Sep 13, 2009 at 11:44 am
Well, I’m not that committed to the rapper thesis … but I mean, rap’s not so new you can’t compare plenty of rappers with other musical artists who have crossed over in the past 2-3 decades. (If you really wanted to prove or disprove the thesis, you’d go through the past twenty years and categorize every singer-actor crossover by genre and mark them as successful or unsuccessful and see what genre dominated. I’m tempted, Mark, but I’m also not insane.)
And it’s also interesting that Frank Sinatra was originally a performer from the streets. I know that’s not universally true of rappers. But it might suggest that sometimes individuals with gifts for performance are channelled into certain paths depending on what their backgrounds are. And maybe in certain contexts pursuing being a musical artist has more credibility than pursuing being an actor.
It’s also interesting to think about cases when the artist explicitly used their music to gain entry into acting, and cases when they didn’t. Frank Sinatra definitely did, but then he became famous at a time when film musicals made the lines between pop star and movie star even more blurry. (Bing Crosby? He was really both.) Will Smith *sorta* did that, if you think about the singles that came out with his big 1990s summer blockbusters. Marky Mark really didn’t, since he seems to like to pretend he wasn’t Marky Mark ever. Miley Cyrus? Hard to say — that’s more of the old Bing Crosby singer-actor simultaneous fame model.
12 Ripley // Sep 14, 2009 at 9:43 pm
…does Keith Richards in the third Pirates movie count? Because he was the reason I watched it at all.
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