Rock Stars Who Tried Acting (And Failed Hard)

That's probably for the best, because every moment he's onscreen is excruciating. Not only does every line sound like he's bored out of his mind, but he also barely looks at the other actors (or blinks, for that matter), instead constantly staring down at his own feet like he taped the script to his shoes. His acting debut turned out to be such a disaster that it was pulled from European cinemas after two weeks, and it was never even shown in America. It was then buried so deep in the direct-to-VHS bargain bin that it was rubbing elbows with most of Steven Seagal's career.

But life's all about second chances, whether you deserve them or not. Dylan was allowed to squander his in 2003, when he starred in Masked And Anonymous, an indie movie about a benefit concert in a war-torn country. The movie was co-written by Dylan, who plays Jack Fate, an aging rock star released from prison on the condition that he go to a war zone to perform a dangerous concert.

The movie featured a whole slew of amazing actors, including John Goodman, Penelope Cruz, Ed Harris, and Jeff Bridges, who all took a pay cut to share scenes with the legendary Dylan. Of course it turned out to be one of the worst movies ever made. When the movie was screened at the Sundance Film Festival, people stood up when Dylan entered the room. And they kept right on standing ... to make a swift exit from the theater. Only half the audience was left by the end credits.

In 1967, Orbison starred in his one (and, if you've seen it, quite understandably only) foray into the world of film, The Fastest Guitar Alive. In this comedic musical western, he plays Confederate spy Johnny Banner, who attempts to rob the United States Mint in San Francisco to fund Robert E. Lee's war effort. And to show how much times have changed in the past 50 years, he was supposed to be the hero of this story.

MGM StudiosYeesh. Those sunglasses suddenly make a lot of sense.

The movie's feeble attempt at comedy relies almost entirely on prop gags that were clearly scavenged from a Three Stooges set, and Orbison has no idea how to make them funny. Well, not intentionally, anyway ...

MGM StudiosThis may also be a Spielberg remake, in which all the guns have been replaced with musical instruments and walkie-talkies.

The movie further boasts one of the most offensive scenes to Native Americans ever put on film ... not that there were many on set to complain. Most of their roles went to actors in redface, like comedian Ben Lessy as a chief:

MGM StudiosIt turns that being in this movie was what gave him the ability to cry on command.

In Yes Giorgio, Pavarotti plays Giorgio Fini, a world-renowned Italian opera singer who makes rock-star-like demands like ... eating ice cream in a sauna? Rock stars have different priorities in Italy, clearly. Although truth be told, Pavarotti's not horrible .... whenever the movie takes place in Italy, where he can speak in his native language. But then Giorgio travels to America, where he loses his voice and needs to be nursed back to health by his doctor (and love interest). And the moment you hear Pavarotti seduce a woman in English, you'll wish his voice had stayed lost for the whole movie.

Between the horribly unromantic dialogue, Pavarotti's inability to remember more than a few lines in English, and the filmmakers painfully awkward attempts to hide Pavarotti's tenor-appropriate wide frame in every shot, Yes Giorgio might be the most self-conscious and unsexy romantic comedy since whatever Woody Allen threw together that year.

Jagger's first movie was the 1970 period piece Ned Kelly, in which he played the eponymous Australian outlaw. The movie was such a bomb that the director said of it: "Ned Kelly was like having a stillborn child." Jagger himself was so embarrassed that he didn't show up to the premiere. And for good reason. Jagger is easily the worst thing about this terrible movie, sporting a ridiculous Amish beard and an even more ridiculous Irish accent, neither of which are period (or place) accurate:

And that's one of the better scenes from the film. While the movie was not a musical, it certainly had musical elements. Take this scene from, remember, an ostensibly serious story about the life of a cherished national folk hero:

For a killer so badass that he went out in a blaze of glory dressed like a medieval tank, Jagger sure portrayed Kelly as a self-conscious dandy, with plenty of flailing around and grabbing of his own ass.

United Artists"Pleased to meet you, won't you guess my name?"

Jagger's performance was so bad that he didn't act in another movie for decades. And then 1992 brought us Freejack. This time Jagger was the villain, a billionaire whose mind and body have been so polluted by drugs that he needs a new one. Clearly this was a part that did not require a lot of acting on Jagger's end, and yet he still managed to bungle his way through the movie like he was reading the script off of his co-star's heads.

Freejack was a box office bomb, but Jagger was singled out as being the only entertaining part -- because he was so over-the-top terrible. Having finally learned his lesson, Jagger now only cameos in movies as himself, rock legend Mick Jagger. And if you look at his cameos and still think Mick Jagger is bad at acting, he has two films that prove that's exactly how you should should play Mick Jagger.

Sara Philip is a freelance writer and copywriter. You can find her on Twitter.

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