Die Antwoord were already a pretty weird band, but they got a hell of a lot weirder this week with their co-starring roles in Chappie. Neill Blomkamp’s film is ostensibly about a robot with a soul, but his film gets hijacked by Ninja and Yolandi Visser, who for no reason whatsoever play themselves two years in the future as hardened criminals whose music career has hit the skids.
They’re not the first musicians who played themselves in a movie, and they won’t be the last, but their absolutely bugnuts appears in Chappie has instantly cemented Die Antwoord as some of the weirdest. Usually a musician shows up in a movie as just another actor, playing a completely different character, or just as a little cameo giving a performance in the background. But sometimes they show up to make a weird dramatic statement, or to play off of their iconic status, or just to fuck with the audience’s heads. Sometimes they even star in their own movies, and let their eccentricities take center stage.
Related: ‘Chappie’ Review: Short Circuit Too
But of all the musicians who played themselves, which ones were the weirdest? CraveOnline has scoured our extensive library of off-kilter movies to come up with the following list, ranked by their utter oddness. Did we miss any of your favorite weird-ass musician cameos and starring roles? Let us know in the comments below.
12 Musicians Who Played Themselves, Ranked By Weirdness:
William Bibbiani is the editor of CraveOnline’s Film Channel and the host of The B-Movies Podcast and The Blue Movies Podcast. Follow him on Twitter at @WilliamBibbiani.
12 Musicians Who Played Themselves, Ranked By Weirdness
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12. Billy Idol
From: The Wedding Singer (1998)
1980s rock icon Billy Idol turns up at the end of the Adam Sandler/Drew Barrymore rom-com The Wedding Singer as a first class airplane passenger who gets wrapped up in the mile high dramatic climax. It's an odd cameo, but mostly because the Billy Idol of the late 1990s only looks a little like the Billy Idol who sang "White Wedding" and "Rebel Yell" just one decade prior.
Weirdness Level: 2
Little more than a glorified cameo.
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11. Bruce Springsteen
From: High Fidelity (2000)
The Boss himself turns up in this fantasy sequence from High Fidelity, a film about music geeks whose life and relationships are directly influenced by the artists they listen to. So it makes a little sense that Springsteen turns up to give John Cusack advice about how to get over his romantic baggage, but it comes out of freaking nowhere.
Weirdness Level: 3
Undeniably random, but totally in keeping with the overall tone of High Fidelity.
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10. David Bowie
From: Zoolander (2001)
"It's a walk off," Billy Zane announces, also weirdly playing himself in Ben Stiller's male model comedy. Watching Stiller try to out-strut Owen Wilson is pretty weird too. But weirdest of all is David Bowie, walking in unannounced to judge the competition and declare "old school rules."
Weirdness Level: 4
It's strange, but strangely, it's just the sort of thing we imagine David Bowie probably does in real life.
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9. Arlo Guthrie
From: Alice's Restaurant (1969)
The folk idol doesn't just play himself, he even stars in Anthony Mann's adaptation of Guthrie's iconic anti-draft song, which sometimes operates as a surreal comedy and sometimes a tender drama about Arlo Guthrie coming to terms with hippie culture and his father's legacy.
Weirdness Level: 5
Oddball humor is inherent to Arlo Guthrie's music, there's no surprise there. The most shocking part of Alice's Restaurant is how dramatically effective he is as a leading man.
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8. Alice Cooper
From: Wayne's World (1992)
The comedy classic Wayne's World finds Mike Meyers and Dana Carvey attending what looks like a totally awesome Alice Cooper concert, only to end up back stage in Cooper's dressing room, getting thoroughly schooled in the history of Milwaukee, of all things.
Weirdness Level: 6
The joke comes completely out of the blue, ties into absolutely nothing, and to this day it's still funny as hell. We'd totally take Alice Cooper's history class at Milwaukee community college.
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7. Gwar
From: Empire Records (1995)
Thrash metal gods Gwar show up in their full-on monster regalia in Empire Records, beckoning lovable stoner Ethan Embry into the television to rock out with them. Then they feed him to a giant amoeba or something like that.
Weirdness Level: 6
It's pretty much the kind of thing we'd expect Gwar to do, but what the heck was up with that amoeba? It kind of harshed our buzz, man.
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6. The Spice Girls
From: Spice World (1997)
They were the biggest band in the world, so when the time came to star in their own movie, they went completely nuts with it, with off-kilter meta humor, a fake origin story, explosions and pregnancy races.
Weirdness Level: 7
And yet there's this unsettling sense that the Spice Girls were trying so hard to be weird that they forgot to be anything else. The eccentricity of Spice World starts feeling pretty normal less than halfway into the movie.
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5. Tom Jones
From: Mars Attacks! (1996)
A-hole martians have invaded Earth, sending an unusual and sprawling cast of characters scrambling to survive an an attack from malevolent tricksters with death rays. And stuck in the middle of it all is legendary crooner Tom Jones, whose back-up singers are replaced by aliens before he has to fight his way out of Las Vegas.
Weirdness Level: 8
Why the heck is Tom Jones in this movie? Could he look any more confused? And why do we love this cameo so much? These are mysteries that may never be answered.
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4. The Ramones
From: Rock 'n' Roll High School (1979)
Revolutionary teenaged Ramones fans take over their high school and make the influential punk bad honorary students, even though their music makes mice explode. It's a surreal comedy, and a damned funny one.
Weirdness Level: 8
Those poor mice.
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3. Die Antwoord
From: Chappie (2015)
South African rave-rappers Die Antwoord take center stage in Chappie, which takes place two years in the future, after Ninja and Yolandi have fallen on hard times and started committing armed robberies while wearing their own merch. The fact that Die Antwoord play themselves has absolutely nothing to do with the film's "real" plot, about a robot programmed with a soul.
Weirdness Level: 9
Seriously, it doesn't matter that they're Die Antwoord. They could have been literally any other characters, but screw it, let's just make them play themselves and distract the audience throughout the entire running time. That's some weird shit.
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2. The Beatles
From: Help! (1965)
Help! isn't even the weirdest Beatles movie, but the Liverpudlians don't play themselves in either Yellow Submarine or Magical Mystery Tour, two acid trips on celluloid if ever we've seen them. But they're still plenty bizarre in this broad comedy, evading a homicidal cult, shrinking down for no reason and fighting off tigers just because.
Weirdness Level: 9
The Beatles were renowned not just for their music but for their lovable and imaginative sense of humor. But Help! is weird by anyone's standards. Hilarious and toe-tapping, sure, but undeniably just weird as hell.
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1. Tom Petty
From: The Postman (1997)
After the nuclear apocalypse, Kevin Costner starts masquerading as a postman and accidentally starts a revolution by faking the return of the American government. Also, Tom Petty shows up near the end, playing himself (even though he'd be ridiculously old), just to tell Costner that he's more famous that The Heartbreakers ever were, and to loan him a people mover.
Weirdness Level: 10
Just completely bonkers.
