Famous Actors appearing in Music Videos

Here we present our collection of recent weird, wonderful and on occasion completely off-the-wall music videos featuring some of the biggest names in the movie business…

Famous actors have been appearing in music videos for many years. A trend kicked off in the nineties with many huge bands featuring young actors in their videos such as Aerosmith’s Crazy, starring Alicia Silverstone and Liv Tyler, Bruce Springsteen’s Dancing in The Dark featuring a young Courtney Cox, Tom Petty’s portrayal of a young rock star’s rise and demise played by Johnny Depp in Into the Great Wide Open to name but a few.

Tap any video title to open it in Creation 5.

Beastie Boys – Make Some Noise

The Beastie Boys’ Make Some Noise is a must-see featuring Elijah Wood, Seth Rogan and Danny McBride as the Beastie Boys (mouthing along quite impressively to the words) while they carry on their party throughout town. During the video there is literally a famous actor on every street corner (and a few in a limo) with Rashida Jones, Will Arnett, Rainn Wilson, Jason Schwartzman, Mary Steenburgen, Ted Danson, Amy Poehler, Steve Buscemi, Chlöe Sevigny, Maya Rudolph, Kirsten Dunst, David Cross, Orlando Bloom, Will Ferrell, John C. Reilly and Jack Black in cameo roles.

Ke$ha – Blow

Ke$ha’s Blow featuring James Van Der Beek of Dawson’s Creek and more recently Don’t Trust the B—- in Apartment 23 fame, is a comical portrayal of the two stars at a party. Here, James displays some pelvic thrusting (also known as dancing) and Ke$ha makes out with a unicorn in a suit on their path to a confrontation of amusing insults – resulting in a bizarre rainbow effect laser gun shoot down (!). None of the unicorns were injured in the filming of this video.

Sigur Rós – Fjögur píanó

Sigur Ros’ Fjögur Píanó has Shia LaBeouf showing off his ballet moves in this eerie portrayal of a couples’ post-coital depiction of how they got their cuts and bruises. The journey continues as they go on a magical mystery tour with lollipops! A haunting transformation from the young star’s performance in… Transformers! Lots of butterflies, tears and nudity; be warned.

Eminem – Love The Way You Lie ft. Rihanna

Eminem teams up with Rihanna to give Shia’s Transformers co-star Meghan Fox a run for her acting money in Love the Way You Lie as she portrays a girl in a serious, tumultuous relationship with Lord of the Rings star Dominic Monaghan. Meanwhile, lots of things set on fire and Rihanna is über-cool as ever…very Eminem.

Aerosmith – Jaded

Aerosmith’s Jaded stars a beautiful young Mila Kunis in an ‘Alice in Wonderland meets Eyes Wide Shut’ portrayal of a young girl who appears to have everything but is incapable of feeling. Her inability to experience emotion is the basis of the video until her lost, lonely and jaded self finally ‘finds the forest’ A.K.A her inner self and for the first time she sheds a tear…Hurrah! There are, of course, some classic Steve Tyler leg kicks and microphone hugging to boot.

Justin Timberlake – What Goes Around…Comes Around

Justin Timberlake’s What Goes Around Comes Around stars the stunning Scarlett Johansson in this short film-style music video. The two meet for the first time, the sultry Johansson plays hard to get (for about 5 seconds) but leaves the party with Timberlake after a little persuasion. They subsequently flick from making out clips, her faking a drowning, then make out some more with a few fire jugglers in between and some singing, he then claims she’s ‘the one’ to her and his best friend, does a bit more singing – cue fire jugglers – a lot more making out and then hey presto she cheats on him with said best friend. The result is a nasty confrontation, followed by a car chase between Johansson and Timberlake with a crash and burn ending. Justin proves his karma-based song title choice right as Scarlett gets what she deserves (according to him anyway), and all in just over nine minutes!

Cobra Starship: Good Girls Go Bad ft. Leighton Meester

Cobra Starship’s Good Girls go Bad is a collaboration as well as an acting role for Gossip Girl star Leighton Meester looking stunning and a long way from her prissy role as Blake. The guys from Cobra Starship open an underground club below their convenience store, the entrance being a walk in fridge, where the good girls get the opportunity to go bad. Leighton joins in the fun and throws in shades of her Gossip Girl role spending a lot of time on her phone as “Good Girl”, only to turn out to be an undercover cop who busts the bad boys for their illegal subterranean dance venue.

The Rolling Stones – Anybody Seen My Baby

The Rolling Stones’ Anybody Seen My Baby stars the beautiful Angelina Jolie sporting a shaved head and a Gaultier-esque corset strutting stormily through the streets of New York to evade Mick Jagger’s attempts at finding her.

Jenny Lewis – Just One Of The Guys

Jenny Lewis’ Just One of the Guys stars Kristen Stewart, Anne Hathaway and Brie Larson in a very amusing depiction of them looking rather more like Beastie Boys than beautiful actresses! Anne Hathaway even sports a rats tail (apparently her own styling touch) while Jenny and the girls manage to make tracksuits and moustaches look somehow appealing. Kristen Stewart is spookily good at being a lad…or just one of the guys.

Vampire Weekend – Giving Up The Gun

Jake Gyllenhaal surprisingly stars in a fair few music videos, unsurprisingly they are very diverse; one being Jamie Foxx’s Blame It, featuring TPain and starring the big names of Forrest Whittaker, Ron Howard and Samuel L. Jackson. This is a pretty typical “in da club” type video but worth a look to see all of the above. Another Jake appearance is in The Shoes’ Time to Dance where he turns American Psycho and slaughters lots of people in this seriously grim and gruesome video which doesn’t have much to do with the song! Warning; very gory and disturbing. So we went with a third Jake find where he appears briefly (literally) in some tiny sport shorts playing a monochrome game of indoor tennis against a girl in Vampire Weekend’s Giving up the Gun!

Gorillaz – Stylo

Gorillaz’ Stylo video is basically a car chase involving the cartoon characters and a very Die Hard-esque Bruce Willis. Say no more.

Flying Lotus – Tiny Tortures

Flying Lotus and their Tiny Tortures video features our favourite hobbit Elijah Wood on a spiritual, dreamy journey after magically gaining a robotic arm having apparently lost his own. Interesting!

Lady Gaga – Paparazzi

If you are inspired to watch Lady Gaga being thrown off a balcony by the gorgeous True Blood actor Alexander Skarsgard, then tune in to Paparazzi and get a glimpse of the Swede’s reaction to his on-screen lover as the pair struggle when in the limelight. She, of course, does not die but her stardom is in serious jeopardy, and so after some typical Gaga style costume changes and choreography she eventually gets her own back and poisons Skarsgard, which for some reason regains her stardom status (odd!)…the best part is probably LG’s mug shots at the end.