10 Best Acting Performances By Musicians

Tom Waits the person is an intelligent, sensitive, socially conscious middle aged man who keeps himself to himself. Tom Waits the singer is a hell raising bawler and brawler who spins yarns about hobos and hoodlums, while also penning some of the all time greatest ballads. Tom Waits the actor is somewhere in between. Over the years he's chalked up a not-insignificant resume of bizarre, Tom Waits-esque characters, normally dispensing wry quips and the occasional nugget of wisdom. And his particular skill set has never been put to better use than in Jim Jarmusch's Down By Law.

Opening on the ramshackle sounds of Waits' Jockey Full Of Bourbon, Down By Law is a shaggy tale of three escaped convicts, played by Waits, John Lurie, and Roberto Benigni. In typical Jarmusch fashion, they stroll around, shoot the breeze, and don't do a lot else, plot wise. Like a lot of his work, Waits carries much of the film through sheer force of personality; he's not tasked with a particularly large palette of emotions, but with his overwhelming charisma, he's endlessly watchable.

And this, really, is the strength of hiring a non-actor: rather than watching someone step into yet another role, with which they may lack a significant connection, you have a bespoke performance from one of the all time great rock stars, who brings to the part his own baggage, his own tropes and expectations. To watch anyone else in the role would likely come across as corny.