Okay, my wife and I were discussing this, and I thought that I’d share it with your folks.
For whatever reason, it seems as though rappers are the only musicians in recent years to have any success in crossing over to film (movies and tv). Ice Cube, Ice Tea, Will Smith, Marky Mark, DMX, have all had reasonable to good success in acting, and by that i don’t just mean box office returns- some of them are actually fairly talented. Ice Tea in New Jack city, as well as Law and Order, Ice Cube in Barbershop, Marky Mark (Mark Walberg) in Boogie Nights, The Perfect Storm, and several others, and DMX has had several supporting roles in recent action flicks. The ladies of R&B, like Aliyah and Jennifer Lopez have also been successful…though their acting has not been great (IMHO).
Just curious as to what we can atttribute this success, especially with the failures of other ‘mainstream’ pop stars like Britney Spears and Mariah Carey.
Refutations of my basic premise are also welcome- this just sort of popped out at me, so my observations are far from complete.
Cause those other bizatches suck.
Seriously though, I think it’s because most rapper/actors don’t try to hit one out of the park the first time they make a movie. In contrast, movies like Glitter or that Britney film are generally created for the purpose of launching their acting careers before it is determined whether they can actually carry a film. In business school, there was a name for that. It’s called “great man/womans disease”. It’s where someone who was sucessful as a CEO or basketball player thinks that they can carry that success into other non-related fields like being the mayor of NY or baseball.
Wahlberg, by comparison played a minor supporting role in movies like The Basketball Diaries, and Renaissance Man before he hit it big with Boogie Nights. And even then, Boogie Nights was not billed as “the Marky mark” movie.
The bar is also a little lower with the action movie genre compared to touchie-feelie chick films where the acting has to carry the story.
Eminem apparently got lucky his first time out.
Moral of the story, if you are a rapper and want to make movies, be talented, start off slow, and don’t believe da hype. The world does not need another “Cool as Ice”.
I don’t recall what show I was watching and can’t offer a link. However I do recall on some sort of panel discussion show two gentleman talking along these lines. Not so much about why Brittney and Mariah aren’t good actors but about why many rappers are.
The point I remember one man making is that in order to have a successful Rap career one needs to develop and maintain a persona, in essence acting all day every day.
I think there might be a sort of chicken/egg analogy one could make. I just looked at imdb at Crossroads because I did not in fact see it. They list as one of the working titles, “Untitled Brittney Spears Project” The “Lets build a movie around the flavor of the month” approach seems more likely to flop than taking a chance on hiring someone with no film credits to be in what would be a good movie if someone else had that part.
Many rappers have been playing gangsters for years on record before going on to play them on film, so it’s not surprising they’re good at it.
Then there are people like Will Smith, who spent a long apprenticeship in television before becoming superstars.
Compare that to Mariah Carey who seems to have difficulty playing a human being in real life, never mind in Glitter, and comes over as a cross between a diva and an 8 year old girl.
I think the most successful singer-turned-actor of all time was Frank Sinatra, who also had a very well sculpted persona as a young singer (the cool loner/tough guy image). David Bowie also managed by being as weird on film as he is in life. The key is that if you’re playing the same thing on film as in life, you’ve got a good chance.
I think the guys suggesting rap has a lot in common with acting are onto something. I wouldn’t say Eminem just got lucky - for one, he’s very popular, two, 8 Mile told a pretty classic story (in a somewhat unconventional setting), and maybe most importantly, unlike many of these other movies, 8 Mile wasn’t made by total morons. Curtis Hanson is a good director, etc. That surely made a lot of difference - if you’ve actually seen Cool as Ice, you know it was conceived by the marketing department and written by illiterate pygmy goats. Who were drunk on Jim Beam.
Oh, I forgot- it was also directed by a man who had an addiction to paint-thinner. Or so I’m told.
This seems to be divided along gender lines, as well as musical style. Has anyone seen Barbershop? Was Eve good in that?
Mos Def is another rapper that seems to be doing well in front of the camera. Ludacris is in that new car movie, let’s see if that starts anything. Tricky, while not a rapper in the strictest sense of the word, was in The Fifth Element. As I remember, he wasn’t any “good” (in the strictest sense of the word), either.
Before she was labled a “singer”, JLo was supposed to be an actress. She was in Selena. I haven’t seen it, but it doesn’t get thrown in her face at all, so I suspect she gave a palatable performance.
A lot of rappers came to prominence within the hip-hop community through their freestyling skills, which are extremely applicable to acting.
Comfort in front of crowds/cameras, confidence in their ability to memorize/improvise, sense of humor, interplay with an antagonist/partner, and projection of personality are all key factors for success in freestyle battles. All of these are ingredients that make for a good actor. Whoever mentioned Sinatra backs this point up as well, the Chairman was freestyling and bantering all the time. The guy could own a room.
Just my two cizzents.
Just wanted to add Snoop Dogg to this list. I haven’t seen him get a really serious role (rizzole), but he’s done well with what he’s been gizziven.
Another rapper who’s done well as an actor is LL Cool J. Granted he hasn’t tackled Shakespeare, but he’s convincingly played a number of characters in action and comedy roles.