30 times A-list actors starred in major music videos
From Gary Oldman teaming with David Bowie to Tom Hanks lip synching for Carly Rae Jepsen, these videos pack serious star power
Music Features Childfree
A-list actors making appearances in music videos has been a tradition since the earliest days of MTV. But what started mostly as simple cameos has long since evolved into intricate storylines, mini-movies, and star-studded group appearances—all in an effort to lure more viewers. We combed through the video vaults to find 30 clips featuring an array of famous faces, including Academy Award winners like Gary Oldman playing a priest in David Bowie’s “The Last Day,” Tom Hanks lip-syncing to Carly Rae Jepsen’s “I Really Like You,” and Christopher Walken gettin’ down (and gettin’ airborne) in Fatboy Slim’s “Weapon Of Choice.” While some of these music videos will be immediately familiar to many fans, others may have slipped under the radar. Either way, now they’re all assembled in one handy list.
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Really? No Chris Tucker in Michael Jackson’s “You Rock My World?” Feels like the most “organic” entry (no movie tie in, no actor “before they were famous” or “in the twilight of their career,” no dubious “A Lister” status) akin to Chevy Chase appearing in “You Can Call Me Al.” Christ Tucker was releasing Rush Hour 2 the same year as this video and well Michael is Michael if on the tail end of his relevance.
“Remember the Time” by Jackson should be here as well. It features Iman, Magic Johnson, and Eddie Murphy still in his prime. But I guess they wanted to confine the list to bigger stars like Florence Henderson.
And the “Liberian Girl” video, featuring:
Steven SpielbergJohn Travolta
Dan AykroydBeverly JohnsonMalcolm-Jamal WarnerSherman HemsleyOlivia Newton-JohnMayim BialikBrigitte NielsenPaula AbdulCarl WeathersWhoopi GoldbergQuincy JonesJackie CollinsAmy IrvingJasmine GuyRosanna ArquetteLou Diamond PhillipsCorey Feldman
Debbie GibsonRick SchroderBlair Underwood“Weird Al” YankovicSuzanne Somers
Lou FerrignoDon King Virginia MadsenDavid CopperfieldBilly Dee WilliamsRichard DreyfussDanny GloverOlivia HusseySteve Guttenberg
Did you really call him “Christ Tucker”
All over the internet people ask why they stopped making awesome music videos. “Bring back MTV!”.Music videos were expensive commercials made to sell records.People stopped buying music.
Really stretching the meaning of “A-List” on a lot of these entries…
No Milton Berle? Round and Round was huge.
Yeah, hair metal was great for celebrity cameos. Shannen Doherty in the Slaughter video for “Real Love”, Little Richard in the Cinderella “Shelter Me” video, Mark Metcalf in the Twisted Sister videos, Nancy Parsons (Coach Ballbricker in the Porky’s movies) in the Britny Fox “Girlschool” video, Sofia Coppola in “Sometimes Salvation” by The Black Crowes, and on and on.
Oh, and not hair metal, but Heather Langenkamp in the ZZ Top “Sleeping Bag” video!
Tawny Kitaen in Here I Go Again was pretty epic to youngfred. Granted she wasn’t A-List except in the looks department.
Yeah, I think A-list is often in the eye of the beholder. Tawny Kitaen and Jessica Hahn (Nuclear Assault & Sam Kinison videos) were probably both A-list to a lot of 80s metal fans
Ah, Jessica Hahn. Best origin story you’ll find.
Man Cinderella. Underrated band.
Keifer’s voice is gold. Don’t know how his throat survived all that (and vocal cord paralysis to boot!)
He sounds like a Muppet to me and I can’t get past it.
so was his cock, apparently. OF COCK
Florence Henderson is A-List?
And I’ll fight anyone who says otherwise.
She was one of the most popular TV wessonalities of the 20th century.
How dare you.
Liv Tyler and Alicia Silverstone in Aerosmith’s “Crazy”, and Silverstone was in at least two other Aerosmith videos.
I feel like they were both music video stars first. Though I guess that would apply to Courtney Cox, too.
Yeah, at first I thought this was going to be established A-list stars in videos, but when they led off with then-unknown Courtney Cox I figured it was anyone who was ever famous before or after the videos.
Surprised there is no mention of Aerosmith’s Crazy which featured both Liv Tyler and Alicia Silverstone. If Graham Chapman is an A-lister those two certainly are as well.
agreed. A different Aerosmith option: Mila Kunis in “Jaded”
Didn’t the videos pre-date Silverstone’s movie stardom?
I believe so, but that doesn’t seem to be a criteria for this list. Courtney Cox was far from an A-lister when she was in that Springsteen video.
Fair point. I feel like the intention of the list was stars at the time of the video, but she is a counterpoint.Also, One is a big stretch.
I would have believed the same thing based on how the headline is written, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. There are other examples of the same thing such as Angelina Jolie and Zooey Deschanel. I don’t think either were well-known at the time of those videos.
She hasn’t even been in He-Man yet
Most of the videos listed pre-date the stars’ stardom.
Eh, maybe a third of them.
No Orbital : The Box? With a young Tilda Swinton ?Also Matt Lucas in Ben Fold’s Jesusland?
Tilda was also in Bowie’s The Stars Are Out Tonight.
This doesn’t qualify under A-List standards but the recent’ish interactive music video for Bob Dylan’s “Like a Rolling Stone” is one of my favorites, and features Marc Maron, Drew Carey on the “Price is Right” set, the Property Bros., as well as several other recognizable TV hosts. Really fun.
Christopher Walken, man. Movies need more big dance numbers.
Absolutely
Well that was somethin’ else.Baffled I’ve never seen this.
Steve Martin’s Pennies from Heaven is incredibly dark and weird.And then there’s some delightfully disturbing shit like this thrown in.
It must’ve blown some minds in 1981while Martin was (I think) in his goofy Wild and Crazy Guy period.
This is still the greatest Steve Martin appearance in a music video:
This may be the greatest thing I’ve ever seen. Thank you.
The pairing of Jepsen and Hanks was likely conceived to play off of their nice person personas.SZA’s lyrics reflect feeling like an outcast sometimes and were also inspired by the experiences of a young Drew Barrymore.He is a man who wants to live his life to its fullest no matter what. Mumford & Sons wanted to try something different with this video, and as its star and director, Idris Elba did just that.
“In conclusion, Libya is a land of contrast.”When “You Can Call Me Al” was filmed in 1986, […] Simon was becoming a major solo artistExcept he had already released multiple solo albums in the 70s that went platinum…? This is like saying that Christopher Nolan was “becoming” a major director when he released Dunkirk. Seriously, what is this trash.At this point I’m really wondering if AI-written content would be better than this.
I would have put Walken in Madonna’s Bad Girl before Fat Boy Slim. Also no Kim Basinger in Last Dance With Mary Jane?Hell, Ian McKellen was in a Pet Shop Boys video.
And Joss Ackland was in Pet Shop Boys’ “Always On My Mind.” I mean, he’s A List in my book.
If Eric Roberts can be counted by the standards of the list, so can Joss Ackland.
“I’m a bilingual. I’m a bilingual illiterate. I can’t read in two languages.”That video was basically edited down from their movie It Couldn’t Happen Here in which he had a role.
Dancing Walken is the best Walken.
Is it really an A-List cameo when the celebrity is an unknown starting out in their career?
I’m not sure songs from a movie with stars/clips from that movie should count either.Unless you put all the songs like Danger Zone from Top Gun on the list.
Keanu Reeves in Paula Abdul’s “Rush Rush”. Also need to check out “Reach” by Martini Ranch. Basically the entire platoon of Marines from Aliens (less Apone), but also including Kathryn Bigelow and Judge Reinhold.
Keanu was also in Anthrax’s Safe Home video
Donald Sutherland in Kate Bush’s “Cloudbusting”.Also I think Hugh Laurie (along with other actors who at-the-time were mostly well known to UK audiences only) was in Ms. Bush’s “Experiment IV” video.
If you’re going to go the Hugh Laurie route you can always have bonus John Malkovich.
We have John Malkovich at home
How much did Rick Springfield pay you to include him as an A-list actor?
When I think about this topic, the videos that instantly come to mind are the Cryin’/Amazing/Crazy Aerosmith Videos with Alicia Silverstone & George Michael’s Freedom 90 w/ Cindy Crawford & every other supermodel of the moment.
You list Tracey Ullman as one of the guests in a Paul McCartney video, but years earlier McCartney had made a cameo at the end of a Tracey Ullman music video:
It kind of looks like she’s in the back seat.
I guess they didn’t know
I have one. Sia’s Fire Meet Gasoline with Heidi Klum
AND Pedro Pascal (post-GOT, Pre-Narcos).
No Patricia Arquette in the video for Dokken’s Dream Warriors?!? Literally the first major label music video included on home video, and New AV Club ignores it.
No Traveling Wilburys? Their Wilbury Twist video had John Candy, Eric Idle, Whoopi Goldberg, Woody Harrelson – probably a bunch more, it’s been decades since I saw it.
During Weird Al’s tour for his last album, he would do the one-shot Tacky concept live. The show would open with a live video feed of him walking through the venue (in the case I attended, a casino) while singing the song, into the audience, and finishing on stage.Here’s one of them
First three I thought of upon seeing the title aren’t in here.Milton Berle: Ratt, “Round and Round”Johnny Depp: Tom Petty, “Great Wide Open”Keanu Reeves: Paula Abdul, “Rush”
In the Carly Rae Jepsen video when she’s texting with Tom Hanks and finds out he’s running late she tells him to hurry and sends a line with three pictures: a man running, a tree, and the running man again.“Run, Forrest, run”That’s just adorable.
Carly Rae Jepsen dudes are weird to me but they don’t seem to be hurting anyone except for Max Landis. I think we can all agree fuck Max Landis.
I just realized that next August is going to mark a decade since we lost him. Still feels fresh.
RIP, Robin.
Bill Irwin is also featured in that video.
I was going to mention the Bob Dylan “Like A Rolling Stone” interactive music video but it’s no longer available on the site. That was always a treat to check out. Other than that, MJ’s Remember The Time is omitted from this list and should/could have been #1 on this list.
I mean if we’re doing Tom Petty videos there’s this, with Kim Bassinger.
That’s my favourite Tom Petty song!
Ah yes, I remember when a young solo Paul Simon was just on the cusp of stardom in the mid 80s. Will he make it? Who knows?
The original version of Puff Daddy’s Victory music video features Danny DeVito and Dennis Hopper.
“A-List”I don’t think you know what that means.
I don’t know if she counts as an A-Lister but I was all about Sarah Michelle Gellar being in Stone Temple Pilot’s Sour Girl video.
She’s always A-List in my heart. I was hoping she’d be on here too.
That’s the one I was looking for.
Wow. Incredible. Haven’t looked at that in decades. That video belongs in a museum. The grimacing, the edgy teletubbies rip off, the fake goth SMG. Perfection. A perfect time capsule.
Fiona Apple’s “Not About Love” features Zach Galifianakis
We’re counting Eric Roberts as A -list?
How do you not have Whitesnake with Tawny Kitaen dancing on the hood of a Jaguar?!?
If you can only pick one video per artist, how the hell do you choose Mumford’s “Lover of The Light” over “Hopeless Wanderer?”
True, but I’ll always have a soft spot for the former because it was filmed about a 30 minute drive from my house.
Fun fact, the house that Idris “lives in” has about a twelve month waiting list and will cost you $5000 just to rent it for a weekend.
https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/holidays/wales/rhossili-old-rectory
You failed to mention the coincidence that “Weapon of Choice” is full of DUNE references and that Christopher Walken is playing the Emperor in DUNE Pt. II.
Seth Rogen, Elijah Wood, Danny McBride, John C. Reilly, Will Ferrell, Jack Black, Stanley Tucci, Susan Sarandon, Adam Scott, Alicia Silverstone, Amy Poehler, Chloë Sevigny, David Cross, Jason Schwartzman, Kirsten Dunst, Laura Dern, Mary Steenburgen, Martin Starr, Maya Rudolph, Orlando Bloom, Rashida Jones, Rainn Wilson, Shannyn Sossamon, Steve Buscemi, Ted Danson, and Will Arnett. Rashida Jones, Mile Ventimiglia, and Mike Mills.
Surely…
Some of these are a stretch—using footage from a movie or soundtrack will obviously give you actors. And Rick Springfield in Jesse’s Girl 2? Wow. Wouldn’t have guessed that one…(plus is he an A-list actor?)
One of my favorite performances is Rosamund Pike in Massive Attacks’s Voodoo in My Blood:
Nimoy was a close family friend of Susanna Hoffs. When they were starting to get big, she called him and asked him if he would be in the video and he agreed.Just as an aside, the song is a cover of a tune written and originally performed by Katrina and the Wavves (who would of course have a one hit wonder with “Walking on Sunshine”)
Again not an A-List actor but surely an A-List music video actor…Lysette Anthony in 5 Bryan Adams videos and one Depeche Mode.
George Harrison-”Crackerbox Palace” (Most, if not all of Monty Python)Gorillaz-”Stylo” (Bruce Willis)Brandi Carlile-”Party Of One” (Elisabeth Moss)
Thought of Stylo, too. Also the Gorillaz video where Jack Black shows up in the video, when he’s not even in the song.
Unrelated, but Coheed & Cambria is a great band who deserves better animation in their videos. They’ve gone with this stiff rotoscoping in a couple videos, and it’s not my cup of tea at all.
I wonder what the timeline was for Chapman in the Iron Maiden video and his cancer diagnosis. I’m trying to figure out if it’s the makeup and the gloom of the set making him look that way or if its the months of chemo. He died the next year.
Also, seeing Laura Bailey’s name in the Paul McCartney video really threw me until I realized.
Not a great slideshow, aside from one amazing thing.Dancing Jason Statham. I had no idea.
What I love about that video is they obviously filmed a bunch of beautiful under-dressed women dancing around also, but then decided to maximize the amount of oily dancing Statham they included in the video, because he had more charisma than any of them, including the band.
That pretty much turned me gay.
More, you say?He does an awesome standing backwards flip in this one. But then again, it’s what you get when you do diving – WARNING, TRIGGER WARNING: FOLLOWING FOOTAGE CONTAINS IMAGES OF JASON STATHAM WITH HAIR, SPECIFICALLY AN EPIC GARY-OLDMAN-AS-DRACULA WIDOW’S PEAK:
No Vincent Price in Thriller?
Strange that you would select Rupert Gint as an A-List star in an Ed Sheeran video, when he did a video with an even bigger star (and an Academy Award nominee).
Looks like the AV Club is too square to remember that Macaulay Culkin was in Sonic Youth’s video for “Sunday,” which was on “A Thousand Leaves.” For extra nineties hipster cred, the thing was directed by Harmony Korine. And Wikipedia tells me that the Yoots covered Nirvana’s “Moist Vagina” on the b-side.I was probably insufferable during the Clinton administration.
Alison Brie was in that one very fun Beck video
When Paul Simon released You can Call Me Al, I was 9 years old. I had no idea who Paul Simon was, but loved Chevy Chase from National Lampoon’s Vacation and Fletch. For years afterwards, I thought Chevy Chase was a singer, who once had a hit song with some random dude. I even knew who Simon & Garfunkel were, but didn’t put two and two together. *smh*
Christopher Lambert in Princes of the Universe by Queen. I know he’s not A list but I wanted to have a reason to mention that awesome fucking song.
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Not to include Leonard Nimoy in not one, but two music videos is unforgivable:
Limp Bizkit’s “Eat You Alive”. The song sucks, but the video has the band as a bunch of backwoods horror rednecks kidnapping Thora Birch while being hunted by an angry mob led by Bill Paxton.And you probably don’t want to repeat celebs, but there’s AC/DC’s “Big Gun”, with Arnold dressing up in Angus Young’s schoolboy outfit and carrying the guitarist on his shoulders. Fun times.Speaking of Arnold, he’s also on Bon Jovi’s “Say It Isn’t So”, where the band plays on a movie set, along with Matt LeBlanc and Claudia Schiffer.
No Cate Blanchett in The Girl is Crying in her Latte?There are some pretty niche artists on this list and Sparks is any more niche than they are.
Ahh I see we have a new definition of “A-list actor.”
I guess that explains why you left off “Everything Turns Around” by Dogstar which famously stars Keanu Reeves, noted B-list actor.
What’s that? He doesn’t count because he’s in the band?! I guess it’s cool to list Arnold in “You Could Be Mine” despite it being from a soundtrack and effectively a trailer for the movie.
David Straithairn and Sissy Spacek in one of the best music videos ever, LCD Soundsystem’s “oh baby.”