11 Meta Films Starring Actors Playing Extreme Versions Of Themselves

10. 8 Mile

8 Mile is a very interesting, if problematic, film. It's an exaggerated story of Eminem's life, and effectively acts as a star vehicle for the actor like 50 Cent's Get Rich Or Die Tryin' (more on that later...). Focusing on the white rapper's attempts to be accepted into the African-American hip-hop culture of Detroit, it's a fairly typical "guy fighting against the odds" story that serves to build on the mythical stories spreading about him at the time. However, the film has a great soundtrack, which is performed throughout the film by Eminem himself. That makes for a far more interesting approach than musical films that basically feature actors lip-syncing to the sounds of the band that they are portraying. The lines between the actor and his character are constantly blurred - 8 Mile is supposed to be fictional, but how much is true? It's not perfect, and it was probably not intended to be as self-conscious as it ended up becoming, but it's still a pretty intriguing piece of filmmaking.