A fifth Pirates of the Caribbean movie is about to drop anchor, even if attempts to raise its profile have been overshadowed by the scuttlebutt surrounding Johnny Depp’s financial affairs. Perhaps to help get the good ship Salazar’s Revenge (AKA Dead Men Tell No Tales) back on an even keel, Paul McCartney recently used the #PiratesLife hashtag to confirm his appearance in the swashbuckling cinquel. The alarming sight of the world’s most affable hitmaker sporting crusty dreads studded with skull beads suggests Macca might be a less-than-perfect fit for Jack Sparrow’s grog chorus. For musicians, there is an art to making a successful film cameo. Here are the rockers who did good, and bad.
HIT – Keith Richards in Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End
McCartney is, of course, following in the hallowed bootprints of Keith Richards. While doing press for the first two Pirates films, Depp’s default anecdote was explaining how he had based the perma-sozzled and heavily accessorised Captain Jack on his old Rolling Stones mucker. For the third film, Richards acquiesced to an appearance, giving fans a brief glimpse of the Platonic ideal of pirating in the form of languid seadog Captain Teague. Lured back for fourth instalment On Stranger Tides, Richards seemed nonchalant to the point of active disinterest, and has apparently jumped ship for voyage number five.
MISS – Rita Ora in Fast and Furious 6
By the time the Fast franchise revved up to number six it was well on its way to becoming a global cultural juggernaut. Bagging a cameo must have seemed like a priceless profile-raiser for plucky pop perennial Ora. A shame, then, that her split-second appearance involved officiating an illegal drag race in short-shorts, saying “This is London, baby!” and dropping a handkerchief. (Poor Iggy Azalea didn’t fare much better in Fast 7, where she had the dubious honour of briefly welcoming Vin and Letty to a Burning Man-style gearhead gathering called Race Wars.)
HIT – Bruce Springsteen in High Fidelity
The original plan was apparently to try and get Bob Dylan to guest-star as the sage spirit guide conjured up by the excitable mind of music obsessive John Cusack. In the end, it was blue-collar godhead Springsteen, effortlessly jamming on his guitar while encouraging Rob to reconnect with his old girlfriends. It is such a casual, laidback, lived-in performance the only real surprise is that it barely lasts a couple of minutes – usually the Boss would play for three hours and take requests from the crowd.
MISS – Tom Jones in Mars Attacks!
Tim Burton’s enthusiastic, irreverent 1996 alien invasion movie was already so star-stuffed that chucking in Tom Jones as himself probably didn’t seem like that much of a risk. The Welsh mega-blaster proved to be a convincing physical presence, shooing away murderous Martians as they gatecrash his climactic version of It’s Not Unusual during a swanky Vegas residency. Things only really go wrong when Jones is required to speak rather than sing. His rather distracted acting style is further sunk by a clunky script, lumbering him with lines like “I saw you fight in Cardiff, Wales” which doesn’t sound like something a Welshman would ever say.
HIT – Alice Cooper in Wayne’s World
The headbanging comedy starring Mike Myers and Dana Carvey turned 25 recently and while some of its schoolboy humour has not aged particularly well, it still features probably the wittiest rock star cameo of all time. The core gag – that the diabolical shock rocker responsible for School’s Out is actually a cultured autodidact who prefers post-gig consciousness-raising to hedonistic hellraising – is inherently funny, but it is elevated to another level by Cooper’s performance, patiently correcting his bandmate Pete’s pronunciation of Milwaukee while wielding a black leather riding crop.
MISS – Tom Petty in The Postman
Kevin Costner’s plodding 1997 post-apocalyptic potboiler – in which the director/star reignites the flame of liberty by pretending to be a mailman – has all sorts of problems. Whether you buy into its syrupy vision or not, one of the most bizarre moments comes when Costner has to negotiate safe passage through disputed territory with the mayor of Bridge Town. Not only does this wry civic leader look rather like Tom Petty, it is strongly implied that he actually is Tom Petty, which raises more questions than it answers. “I know you, you’re famous,” says a bemused Costner. “I was once, sort of,” replies Petty. “Not any more.” Despite living in a shattered world, Petty really can’t stop smiling, which rather ruins the effect.
