- Bradley Cooper’s musical chops are the talk of the town after his performance as grizzled rock star Jackson Maine in “A Star Is Born.”
- He’s not the first actor to achieve mainstream musical success.
- From Jeremy Renner’s EDM collaboration to Jason Segel’s Oscar-winning song, here are 17 actors that have added successful musician to their resume.
When the song “Shallow” from “A Star Is Born” was first dropped in September 2018, everyone was pleasantly surprised by Bradley Cooper’s singing. But when the entire movie was released the next month, audiences were blown away – Cooper truly holds his own against the classically trained mega-pop star Lady Gaga. It shows that he spent months learning the craft.
Cooper’s multiple nominations for “A Star Is Born,” while very deserved, aren’t a total anomaly. There are plenty of actors who have ventured into the music industry. While not all of them are total hits, a fair few could probably make the switch completely and have a healthy singing career.
Keep scrolling to see which actors have some serious pipes.
Nobody knew Bradley Cooper could sing, but he’s currently nominated for two Grammys, including Record of the Year, for his work in “A Star Is Born.”
A star was born, and it wasn’t just Lady Gaga’s acting career – it was Cooper’s singing career! The multi-hyphenate added another skill to his resume when he trained for months to believably become the damaged rock star Jackson Maine in “A Star Is Born.”
The movie's showstopping duet, "Shallow," is nominated for Record of the Year, Song of the Year, Best Song Written for Visual Media, and Best Pop Duo/Group Performance at the Grammy Awards, and won Best Original Song at the Golden Globes. It's also been certified platinum, along with the entire album.
The movie's soundtrack debuted at number one on the Billboard 200, making it Lady Gaga's fifth number one album, and Cooper's first.
Jennifer Lawrence had a top 20 hit with "Hanging Tree" from "The Hunger Games."
Though Lawrence claims to hate singing, she clearly has a knack for it. The eerie ballad "The Hanging Tree" played an important part in "The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1," and audiences loved it.
The song was released as a single, and reached 12 on the Billboard Hot 100, and 10 on the Top 40 - and was eventually certified platinum. Critics also praised the song, as well as Lawrence's performance. The Washington Post wrote that she "sounds good on the track with her raspy voice matching the dark narrative and Appalachian style of the music."
Idris Elba has a thriving DJ career, and is even performing at Coachella in 2019.
Elba, also known by his DJ name DJ Big Driis, has always been involved in the music scene, though in a low-key manner. He started experimenting with music back in the '80s before focusing on acting in the '90s and beyond.
He was featured on the 2016 Macklemore & Ryan Lewis album "This Unruly Mess I've Made," rapping on the song "Dance Off," which he also co-wrote.
Even though he hasn't been hiding his music career, people were still surprised to find him on the 2019 Coachella lineup.
Per the Hollywood Reporter, he's performed at Glastonbury, had a set at Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's wedding reception, and has released multiple EPs since 2006, when his first one came out.
Anne Hathaway has appeared on five movie soundtracks, including the Grammy-nominated soundtrack for "Les Misérables."
Hathaway has appeared on the soundtracks of "Les Misérables," "Ella Enchanted," "Hoodwinked," "Rio," and "Rio 2."
The albums for "Rio" and its sequel hit numbers 11 and four on the Billboard Soundtracks chart. The soundtrack for "Les Mis" hit the top spot on both the Billboard 200, and the Billboard Soundtracks charts.
Hathaway's showstopping performance as Fantine won her an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress, and her big song "I Dreamed a Dream" peaked at 69 on the US charts.
Few people knew Zachary Levi could sing until "I See the Light" from "Tangled" was nominated for an Oscar and a Golden Globe, and won a Grammy.
Levi was best known for his acting when the 2010 animated film "Tangled" was released, but once people heard him sing the duet "I See the Light" with Mandy Moore, that quickly changed. Their performance of the song at the 2011 Academy Awards was named one of the best moments of the night by Rolling Stone.
The song itself was nominated for Best Original Song at the Oscars, Best Song at the Golden Globes, and won Best Song Written For Visual Media at the Grammys.
The movie's soundtrack was also nominated for Best Compilation Soundtrack for Visual Media at the Grammys. It peaked at number 44 on the Billboard 200.
Since then, Levi has branched out into musical theater, and was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical for his performance in "She Loves Me."
Leighton Meester had a top 10 hit in 2009, and appeared on the certified gold soundtrack of "Country Strong."
The "Gossip Girl" actress released her own solo album, "Heartstrings," in 2014, which didn't make much of an impact, but she found success as a featured artist on the 2009 single "Good Girls Go Bad," by Cobra Starship. The song peaked at number seven on the Billboard Hot 100, and eventually went platinum.
Meester also showed off her country chops in the 2010 film "Country Strong," in which she played an up-and-coming country star. She sang on four songs off the soundtrack, including the duet "Give In to Me" with Garrett Hedlund, which made it onto the Hot 100 as well.
Ewan McGregor sings on the Golden Globe nominated song "Come What May" from the movie musical "Moulin Rouge!"
Though McGregor and his co-star Nicole Kidman sing many covers throughout "Moulin Rouge!," the duet "Come What May" is the only original song in the film. It was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Original Song, and the album's soundtrack was nominated for a Grammy for Best Compilation Soundtrack for Visual Media.
McGregor has appeared in other movie musicals, like "Velvet Goldmine" and the 2017 live-action remake of "Beauty and the Beast" in which he plays sentient candlestick Lumiere. The soundtrack for "Beauty and the Beast" peaked at number three on the Billboard 200.
Gwyneth Paltrow has multiple hits from her time on "Glee."
Paltrow's version of "Forget You," her debut musical performance on "Glee," remains the second best-selling song in "Glee" history, with over 780,000 downloads. It also peaked at number 11 on the Billboard Hot 100.
Paltrow also appeared on "Glee's" version of "Landslide," which Vulture ranked 35th on its list of the 50 best "Glee" performances of all time.
Additionally, it inspired thousands of youths across the country to check out the original version by Fleetwood Mac, and the 2002 cover version by the Dixie Chicks. Both versions re-entered the charts after the episode aired in 2011, 36 years after the original was released.
Jason Segel wrote and performed multiple songs in comedies "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" and "The Muppets."
Segel showed off his musical chops - and his love for "The Muppets" - in the 2008 movie "Forgetting Sarah Marshall," which he wrote and starred in.
Writing the movie required Segel to write the lyrics for songs by the fictional rock band Infant Sorrow, and songs for his character's fictional puppet Dracula musical. Infant Sorrow, and its front man Aldous Snow, would return for the spin-off movie "Get Him to the Greek," for which Segel also wrote music.
Segel also performed music in his version of "The Muppets" in 2011, including the Academy Award winning song "Man or Muppet." The album reached 38 on the Billboard 200.
Anna Kendrick, and the entire cast of "Pitch Perfect," hit mainstream success with the music from the movie, including the ubiquitous "Cups."
A cappella had a real renaissance in the late-aughts with the success of "Glee" and "Pitch Perfect," which went on to spawn two more sequels.
In one scene, Anna Kendrick's character Beca tries out for an a cappella group at her college campus, and performs the song "Cups," which is a slightly tweaked version of the 1931 song "When I'm Gone," with a cup used for percussion. While simple, the song blew up, peaked at six on the Billboard Hot 100, and at number one on the US Adult Contemporary charts.
The rest of the cast, along with Kendrick, appeared on the soundtrack, which hit number three on the Billboard 200, was the best-selling soundtrack of 2013, and was certified platinum. The sequels were equally successful.
Seth MacFarlane has been nominated for five Grammys, and has released four albums.
The "Family Guy" creator is uniquely adept at impressions and voice work, so it is not much of a surprise to find that he's a talented singer as well.
After a 2006 Grammy nomination for Best Comedy Album for "Family Guy: Live in Vegas," MacFarlane pivoted towards covering classics. His debut album, "Music Is Better Than Words," consists of covers of songs ranging from the '30s to the '60s. It was nominated for a Grammy for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album.
His two other albums were nominated for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album as well, and his 2014 Christmas album "Holiday for Swing" peaked at 51 on the Billboard 200, and at eight on the Top Holiday Albums chart.
Nicole Kidman had a number one hit in the UK in 2001 with her duet with British pop royalty Robbie Williams.
In addition to appearing in the movie musical "Moulin Rouge!" alongside Ewan McGregor, Kidman also released a single in 2001. The duet with Robbie Williams, a cover of the Frank Sinatra and Nancy Sinatra song "Somethin' Stupid," was the lead single of Williams' fourth album "Swing When You're Winning."
It was a number one hit in the UK, New Zealand, Italy, and Portugal, and reached number eight in Kidmans's home country of Australia.
Jeremy Renner was featured on the tropical house song "Heaven Don't Have a Name," by DJ Sam Feldt in October 2018.
Maybe that's where Renner was during "Avengers: Infinity War" - recording a single with DJ Sam Feldt.
The unexpected collaboration was released in October 2018, and has amassed over 500,000 streams on Spotify. "I love how the vocals are romantic and dramatic, and how they are complimented by a cinematic-style break and typical Sam Feldt drop," Feldt said of the song.
Hailee Steinfeld first sang in "Pitch Perfect 2," and now has a thriving music career with multiple platinum singles.
When Steinfeld was cast in the 2015 sequel to "Pitch Perfect," few people knew she could sing.
Two months after the movie debuted, Steinfeld released her first single, "Love Myself," which has since been certified double platinum. Her other platinum singles over the past few years include "Starving," "Most Girls," and "Let Me Go."
In November 2018 she also released a single for the new "Transformers" movie "Bumblebee," which she stars in, called "Back to Life."
Kristen Bell has three songs that have charted on the Billboard Hot 100 from the instantly iconic 2013 film "Frozen."
Bell plays Princess Anna in "Frozen" - a role she will reprise in 2019 for "Frozen 2" - and while she doesn't sing in the movie's runaway hit "Let It Go," the three songs she is featured on all appeared on the Billboard Hot 100.
Her duet with Santino Fontana, "Love Is an Open Door," cracked the top 50, and her other two songs "For the First Time in Forever" and "Do You Want to Build a Snowman?" reached 57 and 51, respectively.
"Gossip Girl's" Taylor Momsen left behind acting to focus on her band "The Pretty Reckless."
Today, Momsen is probably more well-known for her band, The Pretty Reckless, than her role as Jenny Humphrey on "Gossip Girl, considering it ended almost a decade ago in the show's fourth season.
The Pretty Reckless has released three albums, and is currently working on its fourth. The band has also been nominated for an Independent Music award, an iHeartRadio award, and won the Best Hard Rock Band at the "Alternative Press" Music Awards.
Jamie Foxx has released five albums, and has won two Grammys.
Foxx originally started out as a comedian in the late '80s, but quickly began releasing music as well. His debut album "Peep This" came out in 1994, at the height of his "In Living Color" fame.
Over the next three decades, Foxx released four more albums, and was a featured artist on more than a few smash singles, including the seven-time platinum Kanye West song "Gold Digger." Foxx won his first Grammy in 2009 for the song "Blame It."
The singer was also revealed to be the mystery voice on Ariana Grande's 2015 single "Focus."
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