Actors vs singers

[telecom_goddess]

There is a lot of crossover with actors being singers and singers being actors. What's you opinion on some people?

Cher -- can't stand her as a singer but I love her as an actress.

Kevin Bacon -- love him in both roles. Besides being a great actor he's a damn good singer and songwriter as well.

Mandy Moore -- didn't really know her as a singer at first (although I had heard of her) but then I saw her in her first movie role and started to like her as an actress. Now I've heard some of her songs and I like her as a singer as well.

Madonna -- I like her sometimes as an actress but overall she's not that great. As a singer I prefer her stuff from when she was first starting out.

[ExRetailDrone]

I like Cher as both a singer and an actress, although I much prefer her older songs from the 70s and 80s. I really liked her in Burlesque, but it was hard to watch her because she's beginning to look like Joan Rivers with all the plastic surgery she's had done >.<

Madonna I love as a singer, especially her older stuff. As an actress I think I've really only seen her in 1 or 2 roles. A League of Their Own is the first time I saw her act I think, and thought she did a pretty good job, even though it seemed that she was playing a 1940s version of herself

Christina Aguilera I think is very talented in both singing and acting. I didn't like her when she first hit the music scene, since she was lumped in with the rest of the teeny-bopper girl singers I couldn't stand. But she stuck out to me because she has really talent. That girl can sing. And I thought she was also phenomenal in Burlesque, so that sold me. Of course, it was a musical, so... yeah

[telecom_goddess]

Yeah A League of Their Own is a great one...she's good and everyone else is just amazing. But I think she was basically playing herself

[muses_nightmare]

He's not really a big name actor or anything but Christian Kane is amazing at both singing and acting, given I've only really seen him in Angel, but still, he played a good evil lawyer and he has an amazing voice.

I have the same opinion of James Marsters.

Mainstream wise I rather liked Christina Aguilera in Burlesque, and I've always been a fan of her singing. Cher was good in that too, but I've never been a huge fan of hers TBH.

[AdminAssistant]

Singers who act have been pretty well covered, so, actors who sing?

The Glee cast - They *are* great singers, although you wouldn't know it due to the excessive use of AutoTune. Several of them came from the Broadway cast of Spring Awakening. As far as their acting? Flat. But Glee seems to be more about the songs and the crazy plots than any actual character development. So, it works. (Also, gotta say this. If Lea Mechele doesn't learn to play it down for the camera, this will probably be her last film/TV job. You aren't on a big stage anymore, hon.)

Johnny Depp was actually surprisingly good in Sweeney Todd. I was very skeptical about the whole project (not the biggest Burton fan) and I was especially wary of Depp. On stage, Sweeney Todd is practically an opera. There are basically no spoken lines. It's also by Stephen Sondheim, who writes some of the most difficult (and beautiful) scores in musical theatre. However, in the film they pared down the number of songs and turned more of Todd's songs into "singy-talk" which worked very well. Sondheim was also involved in the project and auditioned the major cast members. Rumor has it that Sacha Baron Cohen auditioned by singing Fiddler On the Roof. All of it. Cohen was also exceptional in the film, both as an actor and a singer. Helena Bonham Carter was very *meh* and was basically cast because she's boning the director. Alan Rickman has a lovely singing voice, and is, of course, a great screen villain. The two romantic leads are quite the opposite - pretty voices, pretty faces, nothing of substance underneath. But, the story really isn't about them anyway.

Hugh Jackman may surprise some more recent fans. A while back he was on Broadway in a musical called The Boy from Oz about Peter Allen. Here is his performance from the Tony Awards: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3zU2IcVzbc That's Wolverine, folks. He actually hosted the Tony's two years in a row; here's a clip from the second year: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXiOq6ePiFY

ETA: In the second clip, he mentions Bernadette Peters. She never had a ton of success in film, but she is, and for me will always be, the First Lady of Musical Theatre. Nobody can act a part like she can.

[mikoyan29]

I thought Sting has been pretty good as an actor.

[firecat88]

Call me crazy if you want, but I think that, for someone with no prior experience, Gerry Butler did a pretty good job as The Phantom in the movie version of Phantom of the Opera. Was he the best Phantom ever? Not by a long shot. But he was good.

[Andara Bledin]

Rex Smith is a fantastic singer. I really wish I'd caught him doing a run of Pirates of Penzance as the pirate king. I've always enjoyed the movie with him as Frederick.

I didn't know Jackman could sing. I really didn't know who he was before X-Men, but I was very impressed with his acting.

I'm actually a bit surprised that nobody has mentioned Neil Patrick Harris, yet.

I used to have a single by Tim Curry that had I Do the Rock and Paradise Garage. Of course, there's also Rocky Horror, so he did more than just a few songs. It looks like Toxic Love from Ferngully is likely the last song he's recorded.

^-.-^

[Racket_Man]

Hugh Jackman may surprise some more recent fans. A while back he was on Broadway in a musical called The Boy from Oz about Peter Allen. Here is his performance from the Tony Awards: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3zU2IcVzbc That's Wolverine, folks. He actually hosted the Tony's two years in a row; here's a clip from the second year: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXiOq6ePiFY

ETA: In the second clip, he mentions Bernadette Peters. She never had a ton of success in film, but she is, and for me will always be, the First Lady of Musical Theatre. Nobody can act a part like she can.

more than a few years ago (late 1990's I think) Hugh did a revial of Oklahoma on stage that I caught on PBS years ago. the man can SING
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFjxMGM36Hk

[Greenday]

Madonna did a great job with her role in A League of Their Own. Fantastic movie. Though the role didn't seem to out of the norm for her so I'm not too surprised.

Johnny Depp was great in Sweeney Todd. I didn't even know it was a musical going into it but he blew me away. Didn't know he was such a good singer. Nice to see him get away from the more comical characters he has been doing. Honestly, he did better in Blow than most other movies.

[AdminAssistant]

Call me crazy if you want, but I think that, for someone with no prior experience, did a pretty good job as The Phantom in the movie version of Phantom of the Opera.

I assume you're referring to the most recent Gerard Butler....film. Honestly, I thought he was terrible, Rossum was terrible, and the whole thing was an overdone monstrosity. Then again, I think Andrew Lloyd Webber is the Stephanie Meyers of musical theatre, so there's that. (When I heard he was working on a Phantom sequel, my reply was, "If we feed him another soprano, will he stop?")

I'm actually a bit surprised that nobody has mentioned Neil Patrick Harris, yet.

NPH has done a couple of Broadway shows. He followed Alan Cumming as the Emcee in Cabaret and was the Balladeer/Lee Harvey Oswald in Sondheim's Assassins. He does have a really nice voice, but some of his recent appearances at awards shows have been....meh. He's also become a kind of trope or meme, which is honestly a bit weird.

Andara, Tim Curry was recently (well, a few years ago) in the original cast of the Broadway (and perhaps West End) production of Spamalot, along with David Hyde Pierce (also a Broadway regular).

more than a few years ago (late 1990's I think) Hugh did a revial of Oklahoma on stage that I caught on PBS years ago.

I had forgotten about his role in Oklahoma!, but I think that's when a lot of folks realized, "Hey, this hunky Australian can sing!"

[firecat88]

Yeah, I meant Gerry. *goes back to edit her post* Also, I agree completely about Emmy Rossum's performance in the movie. She was horribly miscast as Christine, had all the facial expression range of a dead fish, and I'm pretty sure her singing was about 90% digitized.

And, yes, ALW has pretty much lost his marbles with the whole making-of-a-sequel-to-Phantom-of-the-Opera thing, but that's a rant for another thread.

[ExRetailDrone]

I'm actually a bit surprised that nobody has mentioned Neil Patrick Harris, yet.

I can't believe I didn't think about him, especially since I recently re-watched Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog. I was pleasantly surprised the first time I watched that at how wonderful his voice sounded.

Sweeney Todd was amazing. I've never seen the play, but the movie was fantastic. I need to watch that again, it's been years.

[blas87]

Ewan McGregor excells (in my opinion) in both acting and singing.

[the_std]

blas, I couldn't agree more. Moulin Rouge came out when I was 13, and I would say it was probably the most formative movie I've ever watched, besides The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Ewan McGregor is witty, handsome, oh so charming... But none of that mattered when he was singing. I swear that he was transformed into an angel for that movie, and I cried every damn time I watched it.

Yeah, that all sounds flowery and very teenaged-girly, but I think that I could safely say I have more emotional ties to that movie than I have for any of my high school year books or my first car. It was that damn good.