The Boss takes a cameo in the latest-ish episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm. He has maybe five minutes screen time, a couple of scenes, and he’s perfectly okay. Relaxed, natural, and likeably likeable, in a likeable way. The critics raved. It seems like a natural move for him, and in retrospect it’s strange how he hasn’t starred in a Scorsese movie instead of singing Born In The USA sixteen-hundred times*.
He’s not exactly stretched, though – the role calls upon him to play Bruce Springsteen; which, to his credit, he does with likeable conviction. I’d like to see him cast in a tent-pole role which would really propel him into the Oscars. Something challenging. Maybe Helen Keller in a bio-pic remake, or a slave on an antebellum plantation in a Ron Howard musical.
Perhaps you have other casting ideas to pitch?
[*Dai – pse check this on spreadsheet]
Given his famously ripped physique and age-defying stamina, I think maybe the story of an Olympic athlete?
After all, he thinks nothing of performing 3+ hours so a marathon would be water off a duck’s back to someone like him. We could trace the story back to childhood, where he lives 20 miles from the nearest school, but thinks nothing of jogging there and back each day. Hell, folks say he even attended kindergarten in a similar way. His mother said that she couldn’t remember a time when he wasn’t on the go, nipping off somewhere, often covering huge distances – when others were just scampering around the yard. This urge didn’t come from her or his estranged father – who was a bum – he only appeared on the scene after he had won his third consecutive Olympic gold medal…
So the movie would be the story of a young boy that had this uncontrollable urge to move swiftly using just his legs. An urge that was always there and even he can’t explain it.
No idea what it would be called, though!
Maybe….Racing In The Street?
Forrest Gump, innit?
Summer’s here and the time is right for being excellent in Twin Peaks.
“Alf Tupper – Tough of the Track: The Musical”
Caitlin Jenner story it is then.
I think this is the best suggestion – why don’t you have your people run it by his people?
I can hear him voicing a cartoon dog in a Pixar film.
You wanna get up the clinic, mate.
He could play Captain Ahab in a remake of Moby Dick…
I picture him as the owner of a down-at-heel pool hall who is pushed just one step too far when some hoods try to muscle in on his operation.
He dismembers them with his teeth whilst making that “WAAAAAHURRRGHHHH” noise he makes in Backstreets.
Point of order: difficult to make that noise when your mouth is full of flesh and/or entrails.
I think he does the noise when he’s feasted his fill and is broadcasting his triumph to the stars. Y”know, like he does at Wembley.
He coulda been the new Bond, instead of whatshisname: “Jersey needs a shooter… tougher than the rest… brilliant disguise… wreck on the highway… cover me… I’m on fire… no surrender… the last to die… we take care of our own,,, we are alive… death to my hometown!”
The film writes itself.
I have it on good authority that the only reason he didn’t star in a Scorsese movie is that the director insisted he change his name, so he’d be part of the Pacino/De Niro/DiCaprio set. “Springstino didn’t sit right,” Bruce commented at the time.
He could have been The Bosso, a feared gangster whose enemies get sent down to the river or into Jungleland or, in a more risque scene than we’re used to from Scorsese, the tunnel of love.
…but likeable…
To his credit, I can’t think of another actor who could have played the Curb Your Enthusiasm role better. Or more likeably. Except Pacino.
He also “acted” in High Anxiety.
As for playing Born in the USA, I didn’t consult my spreadsheet, but in the current era he rarely plays it in the USA, presumably as he doesn’t want to encourage jingoism.
Eh? The Mel Brooks movie? Late seventies?
Oops High Fidelity
His sister is a former actress
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pamela_Springsteen
The two films could be merged, eg guy gets in his car and is deafened by Dry The Rain by the Beta Band
How many other musicians have managed the transition to acting?
Jagger was stupendous in Performance back in 1970. But after Tony Richardson’s Ned Kelly, the same year, his acting career petered out. But he’s remained interested in film production.
One singer who was equally successful on the silver screen was Sinatra.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Sinatra_filmography
An impressive, very varied list and it wasn’t just musicals. The Manchurian Candidate and the Man with the Golden Arm were serious dramas.
Recently Janelle Monae has had a double career and been involved in some very decent movies such as Hidden Figures and Moonlight. And a few less successful ventures.
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1847117/
Though much later Jagger appeared in The Burnt Orange Heresy (2019) as an art dealer which I caught on television I thought he acquitted himself well in the role.
Ringo? Cliff? Elvis?
A lot do both these days e.g. Justin Timberlake
Nice one, Dai. Timberlake is an excellent example of a successful dual career.
But Cliff hasn’t made a movie for yonks. And Elvis (who was good at playing Elvis but not much else) has been keeping a low profile recently.
Dean Martin. Only a couple of “serious acting” roles, but a long and successful career in the movies, as he had in radio, live performance, TV, and recordings.
I like vampire movies. Not as much as I like zombie movies, and neither genre appeals to me as much as shark movies, but nonetheless I do like vampire movies. Only Lovers Left Alive, Let The Right One In, Nosferatu, What We Do In The Shadows, Interview With The Vampire, The Lost Boys… are all great. But my favourite is The Hunger, with Bowie. Not that Bowie had to do much, beyond whispering “Forever?” and bunging on a load of slap. But he successfully managed not to spoil the film at all.
I recently re-watched Down By Law. Both Tom Waits and John Lurie do a fine job (though Roberto Benigni steals the show). It’s free to watch here and I recommend it for anyone who hasn’t seen it:
https://archive.org/details/downbylawjimjarmush1986bdripx264720pengac3subitamultisuborgazmo
Would anyone like to collaborate on a Zombie Vampire Shark movie, I feel there’s a market out there just begging for one to be made.
The Koreans probably did that about fifty years ago.
If not them , Merchant Ivory.
Merchant/Ivory’s A Bigger Boat Of One’s Own?
Lennon appeared in How I Won the War but wasn’t enamoured with the filming process.
From an article in the New European.
His co-star was of course Michael Crawford.
Some MOTHER DON’T GOOOOOOOOOOO Do ‘Ave ‘Em.
Kris Kristofferson was absolutely excellent as the old sheriff in John Sayles’s “Lone Star” (1996).
Just checked his filmography at IMDB. Oh well. He had to get lucky sooner or later.
Phil Collins went from banging pots in Genesis to being a train robber.
He’d had a film career before ‘Calamity the Cow’ springs to mind.
Uncredited in Hard Days Night and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang to9
David Essex. Not a great stretch for the role he had in TBTD/Stardust, but he was brilliant in it nonetheless. Also a respected stage thesp.
Lady Gaga. Outstanding in A Star Is Born and American Horror Story. Looking forward to her playing Harley Quinn to Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker.
Gaga was also stupendous in House of Gucci. She took method acting to a whole new level.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/nov/15/lady-gaga-method-acting-oscars-jeremy-strong