The only three of her movies Cher can bear to watch: “It’s like grated glass”
There are actors who try their hand at singing, singers who try their hand at acting, and then there are people like Cher, who exists as one of the select few to become a bestselling recording artist and an Academy Award-winning performer.
Plenty of folks who made their name in the music industry have snagged Oscars; Billie Eilish has two already, and Three 6 Mafia have one, for fuck sake, but it’s an altogether rarer achievement for a world-renowned musician to turn their attention to the silver screen and claim one of its most prestigious prizes.
Cher joined that elite club when she claimed a ‘Best Actress’ gong for 1987’s Moonstruck, placing her on an elite pedestal alongside Frank Sinatra, Barbra Streisand, Will Smith, and Jennifer Hudson, all of whom sold millions of albums and added an Oscar in their trophy cabinet.
For her film work, the iconic pop star has also won two Golden Globes from five nominations and notched two Bafta nods, before drastically scaling back her Hollywood workload in the 21st century. Since 2003, Cher has only appeared in two live-action pictures, and she wasn’t particularly pleased with either of them.
She was no fan of Burlesque, blasting writer and director Steve Antin for being caught woefully out of his depth, and she didn’t even want to star in Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again, with her agent leaving her no choice when he called her up and told her in no uncertain terms that she was going to be in it.
Needless to say, then, neither of those two will be found among the only three big-screen credits from Cher’s back catalogue that she can bear to watch, and considering that she’s been in almost two-dozen movies dating back to 1965’s Wild on the Beach, it’s fair to say she’s not the biggest fan of her work.
When asked how often she revisits her cinematic exploits, the star didn’t mince her words. “Never,” she declared. “It’s like grated glass. I don’t like watching myself. I mean, I don’t mind. What do I kind of like? Oh, I kind of liked Mermaids, and I liked… Well, I’m going to just have to take everything I said back.”
The 1990 dramedy with Bob Hoskins, Christina Ricci, and a Golden Globe-nominated Winona Ryder makes the cut, and as you’d expect, her finest hour in front of the cameras was also part of Cher’s handpicked holy trinity, alongside a cult classic helmed by a director she absolutely couldn’t stand.
“I liked Witches of Eastwick, I liked Mermaids, and I liked Moonstruck,” she concluded, and that was that. Out of all of her flicks, those are the only three she’d be willing to give the time of day, with everything else a distant memory that she’d never consider giving a second whirl.
