Mick Jagger the Time-Traveling Assassin, Ringo Starr the Grunting Caveman & Other Weird Rock Star Movie Roles
When we think of rock stars who have crossed over to film, our minds naturally go to the most outstanding examples — David Bowie‘s portrayal of a timelessly cool vampire in The Hunger, Meatloaf’s turn as a doomed everyman in Fight Club, Lady Gaga singing her heart out as a soulful club chanteuse in A Star is Born, or Tom Waits‘ performance as a jailbird with a soft side in Down by Law.
But many, many rock stars have turned their attention to the silver screen through the years, and not all of have landed in films that are quite so impressive, or enjoyable, or even watchable. For every David Johansen in Scrooged, there’s a … Ringo Starr in Caveman.
Here are some of the weirdest movies rock stars have ever appeared in.
Ringo Starr in Caveman (1981)
Everett Collection
Ringo Starr has always had a breezy, comedic charm, so it makes sense that he decided to star in a comedy. It makes less sense that it was a comedy about prehistoric cavemen, in which almost all dialogue is delivered in wordless caveman-style grunts. Directed by Carl Gottlieb, who is best known for writing the script for Jaws, Caveman features pre-fame performances by Shelley Long and Dennis Quaid alongside Starr, and maybe they all did a great job. It’s tough to tell in a movie where all the dialogue is delivered in gibberish! Despite not-terrible box office earnings, it was the first and last major Hollywood film to go with the “all-grunting” approach, and Starr’s future performances all involved actual words.
Bob Dylan in Hearts of Fire (1987)
Everett Collection
In the late ’80s, Bob Dylan was looking to come back from his poorly-received gospel phase. But we will likely never have an answer as to why he decided to accomplish that through appearing in Hearts of Fire, a musical dramedy where he appears as a washed-up rock star with a dangly earring, caught up in a love triangle involving Rupert Everett and the singly-named Fiona.
The film was so poorly received it was pulled from UK theaters after two weeks, and only given a one-week release in the US. Perhaps that was because Dylan fans heard “musical” and “Dylan,” and assumed the film would primarily focus on Dylan singing. However, most of the singing in the film is done by Fiona, an aspiring rock starlet, and Rupert Everett, who plays an eyeliner-smeared, New Wave-type singer. Dylan barely sings, and despite a deal to write four new songs for the soundtrack, he only delivered three, one of which was a cover.
Or perhaps the film was poorly received just because it was so bad Dylan barely remembered making it. As he told the BBC during a promotional interview for the film, “I don’t even know the scenes in the movie, to tell you the truth. They’re all good, I guess.”
Gene Simmons in Red Surf (1989)
Gene Simmons has long had a fun sideline in B-movies, playing a radio DJ in the cheapie 1986 horror movie Trick or Treat and the intriguingly named Velvet Von Ragnar in the 1986 action flick Never Too Young to Die. Simmons’ time in Red Surf is similar to his previous roles — a small character part that doesn’t require him to do much more than act coolly grizzled — but it’s notable for its other star, a post-Facts of Life but pre-ER George Clooney, who plays a young, drug-dealing surf thug looking to make one last big score before he becomes a family man. Things go predictably poorly for Clooney and his associates, including Simmons, who plays an older dealer named Doc. Quentin Tarantino is an avowed fan of the film, which is probably proof that it’s a very weird movie; but he liked it so much he asked Clooney to audition for Reservoir Dogs based on his performance in it. Clooney didn’t get that job, but I think things turned out okay for him, anyway.
Mick Jagger in Freejack (1992)
Mick Jagger has a strong film track record — his 1968 performance in, um, Performance set the bar for portrayals of decadent rock stars on film, and his turn as a 19th century criminal in 1970’s Ned Kelly showed that he could play characters who didn’t have their own guitars or groupies. The roles he almost landed are just as intriguing: He was cut from the profoundly troubled production of Fitzcarraldo, and almost played Dr. Frank N. Furter in Rocky Horror. So in an acting career primarily dedicated to art and prestige films, his appearance in the 1992 time travel action movie Freejack is a bit of a head scratcher.
Warner Bros./Courtesy Everett Collection
First, there’s the movie’s plot: In a not-too-distant future, wealthy people who are on death’s door hire time-traveling assassins to go into the past and kidnap healthy people who are about to die in freak accidents. Then, they transport said healthy people to the future, where they are murdered, so the terminally ill person’s consciousness can be placed inside their dead body. Do you follow? Well, if so, you’re the only one, as the film currently has a 25% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
The question of how exactly Jagger ended up in this — he plays the lead time-traveling assassin, who hunts Emilio Estevez through a post-apocalyptic New York City — might be answered by an interview he did with Entertainment Tonight to promote the film. Jagger said he was given the script, and then told he had to give the producers an answer within a week, “because it starts shooting in three weeks. So I said, okay, I’ll do it. If I’d had six months to think about it, I probably would have turned it down, said, ‘Oh, no, it’s not quite the one.'”
Also, if you were curious what Mick Jagger and Emilio Estevez would do if left in each other’s company, this interview also provided an answer: go to strip clubs together in Atlanta during nights off from set. Hey, I mean, what would you do with Mick Jagger on your off night?
Art Garfunkel in Boxing Helena (1993)
Orion Classics /courtesy Everett Collection
Art Garfunkel‘s post-music career in film had a number of high points — he was nominated for a Golden Globe for 1971’s Carnal Knowledge, and his work in the divisive 1980 Nicolas Roeg film Bad Timing was acclaimed, even if some people thought the movie was scandalous.
But it turns out whatever scandal Garfunkel courted with Bad Timing was barely a rumble compared to the controversy around 1993’s Boxing Helena. Why was it so controversial? Well, first, there’s the plot, which concerns a surgeon who kidnaps a woman, holds her hostage in his mansion, and slowly amputates all her limbs so she can’t run away. Sound like a gory slasher film? It wasn’t supposed to be; directed by David Lynch‘s daughter Jennifer, it was supposed to be in the vein of the high-budget erotic thrillers that were popular in that era.
The film’s controversial profile rose before it was even filmed when both Madonna and Kim Basinger backed out of the title role — Basinger at great personal expense, as the producers sued her for several million dollars and won.
Garfunkel had a supporting role as a colleague of the kidnapping surgeon; however, you’ll likely never get a chance to assess his performance, as the film is not only not streaming anywhere, but isn’t even bouncing around the internet in bootleg versions. If you’re a Garfunkel fan, that’s probably for the best; remember him from “Bridge Over Troubled Water,” not this.
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