This week, Rihanna takes on her biggest acting role since pretending to be interested in Drake, as one of a ragtag gang of jewel thieves in Ocean’s 8. She plays Nine Ball, a computer nerd, who helps Sandra Bullock and Cate Blanchett upset Anne Hathaway while James Corden is somewhere in the background being annoying. On paper, it’s a character that feels at odds with the Rihanna we know and love — she’s certainly not like anyone in my computer group — but, as with all semi-successful pop star-to-actor pivots, there is enough of her there to fit the brand and signpost where she might be going next.
In a recent interview, Rihanna’s hairstylist Yusef Williams revealed it was the Sex With Me hitmaker’s decision for her character to sport dreadlocks, a move that kept things “cool, chill and very minimal”, all buzzwords that also apply to her last album, Anti. Williams also mentioned using “kinkier, looser textured hair [extensions] for a reggae feel”, which ties in with the news that Rihanna is making a reggae album inspired by Bob Marley (Nine Ball sports a Marley T-shirt in the film). So, yes, it’s Oscar-buzz worthy acting but it’s also brand-cementing and foreshadowing.
There will be more of that later this year when Lady Gaga ramps up the earnest, authenticity jamboree that was 2016’s Stetson-sporting Joanne album in Bradley Cooper’s remake of A Star Is Born, a role originally pencilled in for fellow part-time actor Beyonce. If the trailer is anything to go by — all sepia-tinged swilling, auburn wigs and throaty lung-busting — Gaga is just one MOR single away from heading off on tour with Mumford & Sons. It could be said that Justin Timberlake’s role in Woody Allen’s recent atrocity Wonder Wheel mirrored a period of poor decisions for the pop star — see: Man of the Woods. (He did, however, excel playing the smarmy egomaniac Sean Parker in The Social Network.)
Alongside Timberlake, the only pop star so convinced of their acting abilities despite evidence to the contrary is Madonna, who has somehow appeared in 18 films, playing roles as varied as a baseball player (A League of Their Own), a fencing instructor (Die Another Day) and a showgirl called Hortense Hathaway (Bloodhounds of Broadway). Perhaps the reason her acting has rarely clicked is because it’s tough to find a role big enough to make you forget the fact you are watching Madonna, an icon of modern popular culture. It is no coincidence that the only role Madonna’s played that approached positive reviews was the powerful and critiqued female figure Eva Peron, a career move she foreshadowed via the video for the 1995 single You’ll See. Unfortunately, she followed Evita with a role in The Next Best Thing, a risible “comedy” film, and affirmation that pop’s lure always wins out in the end.
