The music and film industry might not be intimately entwined, but they do collaborate together on certain occasions. One such example would be when celebrities from one industry set foot over into the other, either permanently or temporarily. Everybody knows Will Smith as a blockbuster movie star now, but many know that he first came under the limelight as a rapper by the name of The Fresh Prince and even had his own TV show.
Similarly, singers like Rihanna and Justin Timberlake are known as pop icons and best-selling music artists but boast quite an impressive and lengthy list of movies that they've starred in. The following list looks at 10 such people who haven't limited their artistic skills to just one medium, for better or worse.
8-Mile (2002) - Eminem
Some people have Grammys. Some people have Oscars. Eminem has somehow managed to get both of them throughout his career spanning generations. It's not that there aren't other people out there who can boast the equivalent or even greater feats, but this doesn't take away from what an accomplishment it is on Eminem's part.
What's more, 8-Mile isn't just a movie he acted in, but it was for the most part based on his own life and it depicted his struggles rising up in a society that refused to, at first, accept him.
Training Day (2001) - Snoop Dogg
The Doggfather of contemporary rap culture, Snoop Dogg played a supporting role in 2001's Training Day, written by Suicide Squad director David Ayer in the very second screenplay of his career.
Lead actor Denzel Washington won an Oscar under the Best Actor category for his role, while his co-star Ethan Hawke earned a nomination for Best Supporting Actor. Snoop Dogg, on the other hand, won the MTV Movie Award for Best Cameo.
Dunkirk (2017) - Harry Styles
Like countless bands before them and countless many more to come, in spite of all the success and fame, One Direction ultimately broke up in 2016. Since then, all the members have gone solo, each enjoying their own respective levels of success.
As if topping the charts as an artist wasn't good enough for him, Harry Styles also took up acting in 2017 debuting in Christopher Nolan's Dunkirk. The film maintains a non-linear narrative following the events surrounding different groups of people, and Styles plays one of the many on whom the plot focuses from time to time, a soldier trying to survive World War II.
Crossroads (2002) - Britney Spears
Britney Spears's first appearance in a film was in the 2001 comedy, Longshot. But Crossroads, directed by Tamra Davis and written by Grey's Anatomy creator Shonda Rhimes, marked her first time playing a full-feature role.
Starring Spears, alongside Anson Mount and Zoe Saldana, it is a coming of age film about a group of friends reuniting and taking a cross-country road trip. With a 14% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and 3.5/10 on IMDb, it cannot be said that the film was received with the same acclaim that her music usually earns.
A Star Is Born (2018) - Lady Gaga
A role undeniably suited to her as an accomplished industry icon, Lady Gaga plays an up-and-coming singer Ally in A Star Is Born, who is helped by another veteran artist whose own career is on the verge of failing.
The original concept of the film comes from the 1937 romance-drama of the same name, which has, to date, been remade four times including this iteration. Before Lady Gaga was cast in the role, several other popular musicians were being considered as well, including Selena Gomez and Demi Lovato, and even Beyoncé was set to star at one point, but she left the project.
Evita (1996) - Madonna
Eva Perón was an important political figure in Argentina around the mid-1900s and the First Lady of the country for eight years. Based on her life, a concept album by the name of "Evita" was produced by Andrew Lloyd Webber, which in turn spawned a musical in 1976, and then a drama film in 1996, where Madonna plays Eva Perón.
Critics and audience response to the film varied, but Madonna's acting was one of the praised aspects of it and earned her a Golden Globe award.
The Smurfs (2011) - Katy Perry
It is fitting that a person known far and wide for her voice made her acting debut in a voice acting role. Katy Perry voices Smurfette, the female protagonist of the group of small, blue creatures, in both the 2011 film and its sequel.
Sony rebooted the franchise in 2017 with the fully computer-animated (in contrast to the previous films, which were a mix of live-action and animation) Smurfs: The Lost Village, where Katy Perry was replaced by yet another popular singer, Demi Lovato.
Poetic Justice - Janet Jackson & Tupac Shakur
Written and directed by Boyz n the Hood director, John Singleton, Poetic Justice justice tells the story of a poet, played by Janet Jackson, and an aspiring musician, played by Tupac, as the two bond together on an unlikely road trip.
Although the two of them produce (produced) vastly different kinds of music and come from different backgrounds, their on-screen chemistry was highly applauded by audiences. Janet Jackson was nominated for an Oscar for her song "Again" from the film.
Ocean's 8 (2018) - Rihanna
Besides Justin Timberlake and Lady Gaga, Rihanna is one of the only present-day musicians with a film career almost as extensive as her music career, if not just as successful. Alongside many of Hollywood's top actresses such as Cate Blanchett, Anne Hathaway, and Helena Bonham Carter, she appears in the role of a hacker in Ocean's 8, as a part of a team of con-women planning a heist.
Heists are what Steven Soderbergh's iconic Ocean's films are famous for, and Ocean's 8 tries to shake up the formula by presenting a full female cast of characters in contrast to the past films.
The Social Network (2010) - Justin Timberlake
As one of the best-selling musical artists in the world, Justin Timberlake definitely doesn't need to act to pay the bills, but as he himself has explained, he does it love of the art, and not for any monetary or social benefits.
His most critically acclaimed film is David Fincher's The Social Network, about the life of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, where Timberlake played Sean Parker, the first president of Facebook. Zuckerberg may have created the website, but it is Timberlake's character, Sean Parker, who came up with the plans that made the company what it is today, as seen in the film. It remains the highest-rated role of his career to this day.