Sound And Vision: It's the Same Old Song for Thespians Who Sing — and Chances Are It's Not a Hit!

posted in: Pop

Though Susan Boyle helped make music’s mainstream safer for the mature crowd, her chart-life-begins-at-nearly fifty success story remains a rarity. But perhaps in the case of Jeff Bridges, who won an Oscar for playing an alcoholic country singer in Crazy Heart, a music star could have been born at the ripe old age of 61. Alas, it was not to be. His debut album, Jeff Bridges, entered Billboard’s Top 200 album chart at No. 25 the week after its August 16 release and then tumbled to No. 58.

Thankfully, Bridges is in no danger of losing his day job.

These are hard times for actors and actresses moonlighting as recording artists. Back in the ’80s, the biggest movie stars usually were guaranteed at least one big pop hit if they bothered to try. Eddie Murphy, Bruce Willis, Don Johnson and Patrick Swayze all did, and each managed one trip to the Top 10 on Billboard’s Hot 100. But that was then. By the ’90s, mega-stars like Johnny Depp, Keanu Reeves and Russell Crowe were forming rock bands that went nowhere on the charts.

More recently, Jared Leto’s 30 Seconds to Mars has approached a level of heat commensurate with that of his acting career (which, considering his overall filmography, isn’t as impressive as it might sound), but there hasn’t been a movie star who’s been able to consistently score on the music charts since Jennifer Lopez made her seamless transition to pop diva in 1999 with the No. 1 hit “If You Had My Love.”

A handful of TV stars have done slightly better. Just in time for the September 18 Emmys, House star Hugh Laurie, an Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series nominee, sees his debut album, Let Them Talk (produced by Joe Henry, Madonna’s talented brother-in-law, and released in the U.S. on September 6, months after its successful spring launch in Europe), enter the Billboard Top 200 album chart at No. 16. Meanwhile, the single “Police Dog Blues” debuts at No. 58 on the Hot 100 — respectable, if not spectacular. But does his chart career have long-term potential? At first, Hilary Duff‘s seemed to, but her music career stalled nearly a half-decade ago (her one-time nemesis Lindsay Lohan‘s never really took off), and Miley Cyrus, who had to make her initial cross-over to pop as her small-screen alter-ego Hannah Montana, is in flux after tanking last year with Can’t Be Tamed.

Recently, Scarlett Johannson tried and failed to seque into music with 2008’s Anywhere I Lay My Head, which despite the vocal involvement of David Bowie, peaked at No. 126, and 2009’s Break Up, a collaboration with Pete Yorn. Gossip Girl‘s Leighton Meester went Top 10 singing on Cobra Starship‘s “Good Girls Go Bad” in 2009, but it’s been her only chart hurrah to date. Meanwhile, her costar Taylor Momsen has had some UK success with her band The Pretty Reckless, which will tour with Evanescence in the autumn, but for now, she’s still best known as Jenny Humphrey on the CW series.

Why is it harder for actors to transition into music than it is for singers to launch successful acting careers? It boils down to billing. Many factors contribute to the artistic quality of an album, but in the end, it rises and falls on the strength of the performer whose name is on the cover. And if it doesn’t at least go gold, the artist gets the F for flop.

Meanwhile, expectations are lower for all but the top tier of actors. Will Smith, Queen Latifah and Mark Wahlberg are all former rappers who have earned Oscar nominations for acting this millennium, while Beyoncé, Tim McGraw, Ice Cube and Ludacris are just a few of the recording artists who have enjoyed mid-level success in Hollywood. But of all those music stars-turned-thespians, only Smith is expected to carry the hit every single time.

That makes it easier for someone like Justin Timberlake to earn bragging rights as having successfully negotiated the transition from pop star to movie star. He has has gone three for three in Hollywood in the last year”with The Social Network, Bad Teacher and Friends With Benefits”but check out the posters for each one of those films. He wasn’t alone. In fact, Friends With Benefits might be the only one that wouldn’t have been a box-office success without him. Then again, Ashton Kutcher played what was basically Timberlake’s Friends role in No Strings Attached earlier this year, and that film enjoyed comparable commercial success. If Timberlake’s next album doesn’t sell, everyone probably will declare him “over” on the charts, but if his upcoming film In Time (out October 28) doesn’t click, they’ll simply say, “better luck next time.”

Too bad Bridges didn’t have Matt Damon or the Coen Brothers, both of whom shared above-the-title billing in 2010’s True Grit and contributed to its box-office haul, to carry some of the burden of selling his debut album. As a movie star, he’s never really had to bear it alone. Tron: Legacy succeeded last year more on the strength of its name brand (it was the sequel to a 1982 cult classic) than Bridges’ box-office clout, and Crazy Heart was considered a hit mainly because of its Oscar nominations, not because it made a truckload of cash. In Hollywood, only the big-budget genre flicks have to make tons of money to be considered a hit. Good reviews are pretty much all it takes for smaller art-house fare to reach “hit” status.

Think of all the actors whose stardom is based more on talent and acclaim than moneymaking potential (Cate Blanchett, Kate Winslet post-Titanic, Nicole Kidman”the latter two of whom, incidentally, have scored Top 10 singles in the UK). In music, all the critical plaudits in the world won’t help you escape the fact that your album didn’t sell. Actors can remain gainfully employed for years, decades even, without ever appearing in a major box-office hit. Meanwhile, a singer is only as good as his or her last platinum record. Any pop star with as many flops as Nicole Kidman would be out of a recording contract, but Kidman can produce and star in a money loser like Rabbit Hole and still look good because of her Best Actress Oscar nomination.

Which might explain why Gwyneth Paltrow, who has had several singing movie roles, a recurring part on Glee and several charting singles on various Billboard charts, continues to drag her feet when it comes to committing to music full-time by releasing an album. (And she no doubt noticed Glee costar Matthew Morrison’s recent underperforming self-titled debut.) If it flopped, it would be all on her. She hasn’t headlined a hit film in more than a decade, yet because she’s always been more of a critical than commercial darling, she remains one of Hollywood’s biggest stars.

She’s not Sandra Bullock or Reese Witherspoon, so it wasn’t her fault that last year’s Country Strong wasn’t a smash. She can work with top directors (like Steven Soderbergh in the new thriller Contagion), sing on Glee, chart with the cast and be married to one of the biggest rock stars on the planet (Coldplay‘s Chris Martin), while blaming all of her failures on everything but the girl whose name is above the title.