7. David Bowie
David Bowie, the singer, is safe. With a new album out, everyone has declared 'Bowie - Musical Artist' Christ re-risen. That man simply doesn't get hatred. 'David Bowie - Actor', however, has always been one of the more maligned music-to-film crossovers. It's difficult to say why - maybe critics were really annoyed he was already hogging the musical praise, and wanted to put him in his place for attempting to crack the movie world? Who knows, but Bowie has given a handful of great performances of a calibre that even some full-time actors haven't achieved. In Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence, Bowie plays an average joe soldier, which must have been a stretch in itself for him, but he renders his rebellious army officer beautifully touching. In The Prestige, too, Bowie is compellingly weird, a bizarrely-accented kook that's the most memorable character in a cracking period thriller. And, in Nic Roeg's The Man Who Fell to Earth, Bowie is simply phenomenal. Roeg's sci-fi may have dated, but Bowie's charismatic presence continues to illuminate the screen even now. There have been strong supporting turns in other films, too (Scorsese's The Last Temptation of Christ, Tony Scott's The Hunger), and yet Bowie remains a bit of a film joke. Not even the baffling love for Labyrinth has seen the former Ziggy Stardust embraced as a film performer.