Aug 182008
The following example, and our first entry in this Last Man Standing, is an example of about how liberal we may stretch the term “well-known actors.” Beside the musicians, just about everyone acting in a rock music video is an actor to some degree, but if we cannot easily name the person or cite him as “The guy/girl in ______,” as I can do by citing the actor playing the father in this video as “The guy from Animal House,” the actor does not count for this contest. Get it? Good. Let’s get it on!
Christopher Walken in Fat Boy Slim’s “Weapon of Choice”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMZwZiU0kKs
Courtney Cox-Arquette in “Dancing in the Dark” by Bruce Springsteen
TB
Chevy Chase in Paul Simon’s “You Can Call Me Al”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTPF65RUtb4
Johnny Depp in Tom Petty’s “Into the Great Wide Open”.
TB
Just for argument’s sake, I’m assuming that another rule would be movie soundtrack songs. For example, the Ghostbusters video, or Chevy and Dan Akyroyd in Macca’s “Spies Like Us” video.
What’s my deal with Paul these days?
TB
Kate Moss pole dances in the White Stripes “I Just Don’t Know What to Do with Myself” video.
Sadie Frost co-stars in the video for Pulp’s “Common People”!
Scarlett Johansson in Bob Dylan’s “When the Deal Goes Down.”
Alicis Silverstone and Liv Tyler in those Aerosmith videos. I won’t count Liv, but Alicia should…count.
TB
Phil Daniel (Fetch the rat in “Chicken Run”) in Blur’s “Parklife”
Rae Dawn Chong in Mick Jagger’s She’s the Boss movie. Remember the video for Just Another Night? That’s her. He made about a 25 minute promo video for that album, and it’s generally awful.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTo5zlyPKDo
Jack Black in Beck’s “Sexx Laws”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XC7ucvAAVvw
Bob Odenkirk and David Cross in Yo La Tengo’s “Sugarcube.”
Ron Jeremy in Sublime’s “Date Rape”.
TB
As TB mentioned, yes, I think we should rule out movie soundtrack videos. The song and video has to have eminated from the artist. The actors in any Wings of Desire (and its follow up film), for instance, do not count when seen hanging around with U2.
Likewise, actors appearing in videos for their own original songs, such as Eddie Murphy, do not count.
Nicole Kidman in Robbie Williams’s “Somethin Stupid”
Eddie Murphy and a bunch of other idiots in Michael Jackson’s “Black and White.”
Matt Dillon in the Pogues’ “Fairytale of New York”
Larry “Bud” Melman in Run-DMC’s “King of Rock”
Kim Basinger in Tom Petty’s “Mary Jane’s Last Dance.”
Jack Black in the Eagles of Death Metal’s “Boy’s Bad News”.
Dennis Quaid in Bonnie Raitt’s “Thing Called Love”
Milton Burrow in Ratt’s “Round and Round”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5gMeXz2YMw
Keenau Reeves in that awful Paula Abdul song
Randy Quaid in Dire Straits’ “Heavy Fuel.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVT8t0oHdWY
The things one learns from copious amounts of VH1 Classic.
Dick Van Patten in Wierd Al’s “Smells Like Nirvana”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixyTNd-Ln38
Courtney Cox-Arquette (again) in Counting Crows’ “Long December.”
Al from Happy Days (look his name up yourself) in Weezer’s “Buddy Holly”
If formerly well-known actors count, for some bizarre reason, Rosie Perez is in the Little Jackie video.
I was holding on to Milton Berle for the Ratt video. Dang it.
Dick Van Patten in Weird Al’s “Bedrock Anthem”. And I’ll go ahead and call Dick in all the other Weird Al videos in addition to the previously mentioned Nirvana.
TB
Zach Galifianakis (of “Into the Wild”) in Fiona Apple’s “Not About Love”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krTE0AJkqj4
I also nominate this video for best use of beard and gut in a music video.
I hate that I know this, but Kirk Douglas is in a cruddy ’90s Don Henley video, “The Garden of Allah.”
Christie Brinkley in the “Uptown Girl” video.
LeVar Burton in Cameo’s “Word Up”
Matt LeBlanc in a video made in the ’90s for Seger’s “Night Moves.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zN1_3zHjhW8
Michael J. Fox in Julian Lennon’s “Stick Around” video.
One I almost used as my kick-off example: Captain Lou Albano in numerous Cyndi Lauper videos.
Peter Dinklage in U2’s “All I Want is You.”
Would John Goodman in the “Wild, Wild Life” video not count by the movie-related rule?
Wesley Snipes getting intimidated by Michael Jackson in the video for “Bad”, which might also qualify (Snipes/Michael Jackson and Scorsese/Michael Jackson) for the current Battle Royale.
You wanna star? I mean, a big star? Angelina jolie in The Stones’ massive turd, Anybody Seen My Baby. If any of you had the bad fortune to see them try to play that live, even if you thought the song was okay, you’ll know why I think it’s such a turd.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GyTzn3YrwmA
Robert Downey, Jr. in Elton John’s “I Want Love.”
Natalie Portman in Paulie’s Dance Tonight
Mackenzie Crook in Paulie’s Dance Tonight!
Penn and Teller in Run D.M.C.’s “It’s Tricky”.
TB
Danny Aiello – “Papa Don’t Preach”
Ben Stiller in P. Diddy’s “Bad Boy for Life.”
Benicio del Toro in Madonna’s “La Isla Bonita”.
TB
I can’t find a confirmation, but I’m pretty sure I remember Esai Morales in the “Beat It” or “Bad” videos.
Wasn’t Joe Pesci also in Julian Lennon’s “Stick Around” Video?
Dennis Harper and Danny DeVito in P-Diddy’s “Victory”
Dennis Hopper, Hopper. Nothing to do with Harpers the magazine
Pamela Anderson in Lit’s “Miserable”. I think the band was in their own video. I was distracted and don’t remember for sure.
Ian McKellen in Guillemots “Falling out of Reach”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1AkCRcwhFQQ
Gary Oldman as the devil in the video for Guns ‘n Roses’ cover of the Skyliners’ “Since I Don’t Have You”
Keith Allen (Shallow Grave, De-Lovely, The Others, but most notably for me, the big time heroine dealer in Trainspotting)
in Blur’s Country House:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ci0fyRAw21Q
Ben Affleck in Jennifer Lopez’s “Jenny From the Block.”
Ian McKellen again in The Pet Shop Boys’s “Heart”
Robin Williams (and Bill Irwin) in the video for the beloved hit “Don’t Worry, Be Happy”
Halle Berry Berry through the bottom of the whiskey glass in Missy Elliot’s “Work It”
Kevin McDonald in Outkast’s “Roses.”
Eric Idle in Travelling Dinglberries’ “Willbury Twist”
Sara Michelle Gellar in the Stone Temple Pilots’s “Sour Girl”
Can’t believe Mr Mod didn’t get this one – John Stamos in BB’s Kokomo
I was trying to hold out on using Stamos, Andyr. Well played on your part!
Okay. I’m bound and determined to win one these things. I want to be THE LAST MAN STANDING!
Christopher Lee and James Coburn in Macca’s “Band on the Run”.
It had to be Macca.
TB
John Malkovich and Hugh Laurie in Annie Lennox’s “Walking on Broken Glass”:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUm5ilVYV1Y
Eddie Murphy, Iman and the great thespian Magic Johnson all appeared in Michael Jackson’s “Remember the Time” video. Amazingly, not a career low for any of them except Iman.
However…there’s also “You Rock My World”, featuring Michael Jackson, Michael Madson, Billy Drago (aka the guy who played Nitti in The Untouchables), Chris Tucker and what I will always believe was a CGI Marlon Brando:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3wShd_bX8A
Hard to believe, but 2001 was an even worse year than you remember.
Dennis Hopper again and the other guy from Quantam Leap in Gnarls Barkley’s “Smiley Faces”