The movie Cher was blackmailed into starring in: “I did the film, I didn’t ask to do it”
Some actors choose to star in a movie because they’re passionate about the material, while others like the idea of a big paycheque. Sometimes, though, they’re not really given much of a choice, and that can even happen to a no-bullshit megastar like Cher.
Throughout her career in both music and the movies, Cher has always been nothing if not honest. In fact, she’s often so brutally frank that it takes other celebrities in Hollywood by surprise. Take, for example, her 30-year feud with Madonna, which began when she called the ‘Material Girl’ star “mean” in public, before subsequently confessing to calling her “a lot worse” in private, before the two finally decided to bury the hatchet.
Then there was Cher’s cutthroat takedown of Peter Bogdanovich and Frank Oz, a pair of directors she worked with on two of her most beloved movies: Mask and Mermaids. She dubbed Bogdanovich, one of the shining lights of the New Hollywood era, an “asshole” who was “so fucking arrogant” on-set, and bragged about getting Oz fired because he supposedly “had a thing” about her.
All this is simply a way of illustrating that when Cher sits down in front of a microphone, there’s really no telling what she’ll say, or who will catch a few strays in the process. Hilariously, she even abides by radical honesty when she’s promoting a new project, such as in 2018 when she starred in Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again, the feverishly anticipated sequel to Meryl Streep’s ABBA-loving musical romcom.
Surprisingly, no one in the production caught hell for casting her as Streep’s mother, even though she’s only three years older than the beloved Sophie’s Choice star. In fact, when she was asked about it on The Graham Norton Show, she laughed it off and dubiously claimed that when the idea was first floated to her, she immediately said, “That’s absolutely fine, that’s cool”.
Having said that, everyone involved in the production likely raised an eyebrow when multiple outlets asked Cher what attracted her to the project in the first place. Instead of waxing lyrical about the excitement she felt to work with Streep, or gushing about how much fun she thought it would be to sing the classic ABBA ditty ‘Fernando’ to a suave Andy Garcia, she deadpanned, “I didn’t have much choice”. She then told Norton that her agent called one day and said, “You’re in the new Mamma Mia! film”, and that was that.
Now, you may think a single call from an agent doesn’t sound like enough to convince a star the calibre of Cher to return to acting after eight years in the wilderness, and you’d be right. You see, Cher elaborated on her story to The New York Times, revealing the call actually came from her former agent, Ronald Meyer. He is the industry legend who formed Creative Artists Agency, which represents countless stars in Hollywood, and once ran Universal Studios for a record 25 years. On top of these credentials, Cher also counts Meyer as a close friend, so when he employed a spot of emotional blackmail to get her to star in the second instalment of Mamma Mia!, she was pretty powerless to resist.
“I’ve never planned a single thing in my entire life,” Cher said with a smile, “I did the film. I didn’t ask to do it. My friend Ronnie Meyer called and said, ‘You’re doing Mamma Mia’, and hung up”. Instead of feeling aggrieved that he had effectively demanded she do something, assuming she’d never say no to an old pal, Cher simply took a moment and weighed up their shared history.
“Well,” she said to herself, “it’s going to take five minutes, and no one will even know I’m there”. She even made the best of the situation by recording an ABBA cover album, Dancing Queen, which came out two months after the movie. Not bad for a film she was blackmailed into.
