When Actors Sing

Actors tend to do stupid things. They drive drunk (I’m looking at you Amanda Bynes), they buy dinosaurs skulls for $276,000 only to find themselves broke soon after (I’m looking in your general direction NICOLAS CAGE), and sometimes they try to sing. It only takes one coked-out member of an actor’s entourage to suggest they record a covers album of Dolly Parton hits to convince them that they have oodles of untapped musical potential. Sometimes this can go horribly wrong, but sometimes they can surprise you. Here’s a list of a few actors who, it turns out, can carry a tune or two.

Cary Grant

If you thought that Cary Grant couldn’t get any more awesome, then you’re WRONG BUDDY.

His good looks and debonair charm weren’t the only things to swoon over, because on the odd occasion he would belt out a tune at the piano in some scene where he’s trying to woo a girl or whatever. (See below for a scene just like that.)

Now, Cary obviously didn’t technically have a great voice, but it’s freakin’ Cary Grant singing. Screw the haters (if you exist). And anyway, none of the big male leads of Hollywood musicals of around about that time ACTUALLY had amazing voices. Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire had passable pipes, but mostly relied on some sick dance moves to distract from their voices (I can’t believe I just described Kelly and Astaire’s dancing as ‘sick’.)

James Stewart

Ah, Jimmy Stewart. Another member of my Deceased Future Husbands Club.

Turns out that his talents weren’t restricted to acting and being tall and handsome, but he also proved to be quite the music man in his college days, performing with the Princeton Triangle Orchestra (which ironically, did not have any triangles in it.) You can watch a rare recording of him performing with the PTO with the song ‘Day By Day’ right here.

His major onscreen singing debut was alongside Eleanor Powell in the 1936 musical Born To Dance. The story goes that while both actors’ voices were to be dubbed over, the song’s composer Cole Porter liked Stewart’s voice and kept it in (sucks to be you, Eleanor Powell – stick to the dancin’ LOSER). ‘You’re So Easy To Love’ went on to become a jazz standard, and Stewart remarked that the song was so good that even his singing couldn’t hurt it. Oh Jimmy, don’t be like that.

WARNING: I could only find a YouTube video of the song that includes the censored lyric, ‘So sweet to waken with/ So nice to sit down to eggs and bacon with’. Raunchy stuff.

Ava Gardner

I may be a bit biased here, because Ava Gardner is one of my favourite women in the world. I don’t know why, but it may have something to do with the fact that she’s a babe and she knows how to make fried chicken.

Gardner claims in her autobiography (which I highly recommend reading, it’s a hoot) that she would often perform with her second husband Artie Shaw’s band, and that her singing voice was perfectly fine. Despite this, she would be dubbed over time and time again throughout her film career.

She starred in one of MGM’s most popular musicals, Showboat, and was again dubbed over with a vibrato heavy soprano voice that doesn’t seem like it’s coming out of her body at all. You can hear her real voice performing ‘Bill’ from Showboat below. (For an extra special treat, go here and watch her sing in the film Pandora and the Flying Dutchman. And yes, a movie called Pandora and the Flying Dutchman actually happened.)

Colin Firth

Let’s skip ahead to some modern day actors who have impressed us with their unexpected talents. We all know that Colin Firth is a very talented actor – I mean, remember that time in Pride and Prejudice where he acted all posh and then he was nice? And remember that other time in Bridget Jones’ Diary where he acted all posh but then he was nice?

Now, we all know that Mamma Mia happened. Let’s not talk about it. I wasn’t too convinced of Firth’s singing talents after seeing that film, however I do remember a song he sang with Rupert Everett in the 2002 adaptation of The Importance of Being Earnest. Even though his voice is as weak as a…weak thing (I googled similes for weak and all I got was ‘kitten’ and ‘baby’), his voice still holds an endearingly awkward charm that gets the people GOING.

Ewan McGregor

This dapper Scotsman proved he could belt out a tune in Baz Luhrman’s Moulin Rouge! opposite Nicole Kidman, another actor who can sing who once released a weird duet with Robbie Williams that no one ever explained.

I can’t remember whether or not I actually like this movie – all I remember was cringing so hard that my face hurt when they would sing ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ and Baz would be all like ‘hey, this is so wacky!’ (the is also the way I feel watching every single episode of Glee.)

Something I do remember is that Ewan has a surprisingly good voice that made it a bit more bearable to hear him sing ‘Your Song’ without wanting to die of embarrassment.

SIDENOTE: I may have re-enacted ‘Come What Way’ in my lounge for research purposes. It’s very hard to sing a two part harmony by yourself.

Daniel Day Lewis

In the 2009 Rob Marshall musical Nine, Daniel Day-Lewis tried his hand at singing and dancing because he got bored of cobbling shoes.

I am a true believer in the fact that Daniel Day-Lewis can do anything he puts his mind to – the man can nail anything. I mean, he can wear two gold hoop earrings all the time and nobody asks questions, apart from maybe “hey Daniel, where’d you get those earrings because they are dope”.

In Nine he plays Guido Contini, a character loosely based on the great Italian director Federico Fellini. It’s sort of like if 8½ were a musical that had Kate Hudson in it and was way shittier.

It’s hard to say why the film flopped – was it the casting? Was it Rob Marshall? Was it the fact that it seemed to be a billion hours long? I don’t know. Despite all of this, I did really enjoy seeing DDL do something different, and he’s actually good. WATCH.

ANOTHER SIDENOTE: I couldn’t talk about this movie without mentioning that Kate Hudson and Penelope Cruz do a great job and that Marion Cotillard is a goddess who can sing and dance and wear liquid eyeliner really well.

EXTRA FEATURE: What… what is this? What is happening?

Let’s have a look at some of the more bizarre instances of actors giving singing a crack.

Emma Stone

Back in the days before she was the sassy girl from Easy A or Spiderman’s love interest, Emma Stone was just another girl in Tinseltown, desperate to get her big break. So desperate in fact, she participated in the VH1 contest In Search of The Partridge Family. She won the part of Laurie, filmed a pilot, and thankfully it never got picked up. Here she is with another gal singing ‘We Belong’. Stick to acting girl.

Kate Winslet

Okay, this is a real weird one. In 2001, Kate Winslet put her voice talents to an animated film Christmas Carol: The Movie, a movie that looks like something you’d buy for $2 at The Warehouse DVD Bargain bin sale. Winslet recorded a song for the film’s soundtrack, with all proceeds going to charity (bless her).

Word is that she was hoping it would get to the number one spot on the Christmas charts, only to be beaten by fellow actress Nicole Kidman with her weird duet with Robbie Williams that I mentioned before!!!1!!

Also, apparently there was a dance remake of this song. I hope to never hear it.