10 most out-there acting performances from musicians

published 5 October 2024

Joker: Folie à Deux is one of the hottest films of the year. It's the follow up to the movie that won Joaquin Phoenix his one and (so far) only Oscar.

What’s most interesting about this second slice of crossover comic book drama, however, is its co-star. The actor chosen for the role of Harley Quinn is none other than Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta, better known to her fans as Lady Gaga.

It’s not like the star is new to this acting game. After early roles in Machete Kills and Sin City: A Dame to Kill For, she was Oscar-nominated for her 2019 role in A Star is Born.

Of course, you could argue playing a budding musician isn’t too much of a stretch for the Poker Face singer. Inhabiting the role of a deranged therapist-turned-partner-in-crime to one of the most iconic comic book villains of all time most certainly is.

All of which got us to thinking about all those musician-turned-actor performances that threw us for a loop. All musicians are performers, of course, but the following roles either sprung out of the blue, went completely against type, or otherwise confounded audiences.

Which is your favourite out-there acting performance from an established musician? Be sure to vote below.

10 most out-there acting performances from musicians

Back in 1999, Meat Loaf was far from a washed up act. It had been only four years since his last platinum-selling album, and just six since the chart-demolishing Bat Out of Hell II: Back into Hell. That makes his appearance in David Fincher’s dark, twisted movie about frustrated masculinity and the evils of consumerism all the more remarkable. Meat Loaf’s role as a corpulent cancer survivor and founding member of an underground fight club isn’t one you’d expect a mainstream rock star to sign up for.

After two films of gritty, off-kilter post-apocalyptic action set and filmed in the Australian outback, just about the last person in the world you’d expect to be cast in film number three was Tina Turner. The soul music legend plays a surprisingly major role as Aunty Entity, the matriarch of a thriving but contested town, as well as contributing two songs to the project. The whole tone of the movie was far more ‘Hollywood’ than previous entries, but Turner’s appearance still strikes a somewhat discordant note.

As the bass player for West Coast rock jocks The Red Hot Chilli Peppers, you’d think Flea (real name Michael Peter Balzary) naturally has his fill of theatrics and showmanship. That hasn’t stopped him from making a number of small but memorable movie appearances over the years, however. His role in The Big Lebowski stands out, which is really saying something considering the sheer number of memorable performances in the Coen Brothers classic. Flea plays a member of a nihilistic European gang, complete with outrageous German accent.

OK, so Selena Gomez was a child actor well before she became a pop star, and she continued to act in the lead up to 2012’s Spring Breakers. But her signature achievements up to that point had definitely been in the pop realm, and Harmony Korine’s raunchy crime comedy represented a sharp break from her hitherto Disney-friendly image. Though she plays the appropriately named Faith – the devout Christian among a bunch of young friends cutting loose on spring break – the film proved an eye-opening experience for Gomez die-hards.

Debbie Harry was one of the coolest people in music in the early ’80s, so it shouldn’t have come as too much of a surprise to see her appearing in one of the hippest films of 1983. However, this was David Cronenberg’s Videodrome, an immensely weird and downright provocative film that any modern day pop star would think twice about putting their face to. However, Harry’s icy psychiatrist Nicki Brand slots effortlessly into the slinky, emotionally detached tone of the movie.

It’s one thing for a musician to have a cameo role in a movie. It’s quite another to play the lead role for an auteur like Lars Von Trier. That’s precisely what Iceland’s own Björk did with Dancer in the Dark back in 2000. The whole film rests on her performance as an all-but-blind woman who daydreams of a brighter life via the medium of a Hollywood musical, all while working a thankless factory job to fund a sight-saving operation for her son.

Tom Waits has appeared in so many movies over the years, you might wonder whether he’s actually a musician at all, or rather a jobbing character actor who releases the occasional album. On a long list of delightfully eccentric cameos, his appearance in Bram Stoker’s Dracula has to be one of the most out-there. He plays the famous vampire’s asylum-bound familiar, Renfield, as a raving, bug-chowing madman. In the process, Waits turns a potentially forgettable bit part into an unnerving highlight.

At a time when many people saw Morgan Freeman as the one and only choice for the role of God, Kevin Smith – ever the outsider – decided to cast Alanis Morissette. That’s the very same Alanis Morissette who was ruling coffee shop airways in the mid to late ’90s with her polished brand of alternative rock. We’re tempted to make a joke about Morissette’s angelic voice at this point, but her take on the Judea-Christian deity makes just a single major utterance in the film – and there’s nothing heavenly about it.

Legendary proto-punk pioneer Iggy Pop has popped up in numerous films here and there, not to mention an episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Even so, the former The Stooges singer's role as a zombie in Jim Jarmusch’s gonzo horror-comedy was a delicious surprise for anyone going into the movie cold. It isn’t just that the septuagenarian rocker is playing a shuffling member of the undead, but that this particular zombie is as obsessed with coffee as they are human flesh.

David Bowie dabbled with acting several times throughout his long career, and you could see where the casting agents were coming from with his role as a booze-addled alien in The Man Who Fell to Earth, not to mention the mischievous king of the goblins in Labyrinth. Playing Pontius Pilate, cynical interrogator and executioner of Jesus Christ, though? Few would have picked the flamboyant rocker for such a part, but Martin Scorsese evidently saw things differently to the rest of us.

Jon Mundy is a freelance writer with more than a dozen years of experience writing for leading tech websites such as TechRadar and Trusted Reviews.

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10 most out-there acting performances from musicians

10 most out-there acting performances from musicians

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