Non-Actor Vehicle

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
Starring a lady who was trained to skate, not to act.

Hiring of a big celebrity in a starring role (not a supporting or minor one), even if it's not the sole major role, in a movie, play, or TV show. Only, this celebrity isn't known for acting. In fact, this may be the celebrity's first acting job. A close cousin of Stunt Casting, only with a bit more risk, since the stunt castee doesn't have much experience (if any), and is practically carrying the project despite that inexperience.

So why is it done with such risks? Well the fact is that this sometimes works (it tends to work better for stand-up comedians, singers and pro wrestlers, being close to what they normally do for a living anyway). Also even if the vehicle is a failure, the new actor may still have a career afterwards.

You are most likely to see I Am Not Leonard Nimoy play throughout the movie. If the work is about the celebrity in Real Life it overlaps with Autobiographical Role. If the celebrity's role is doing what they're famous for, it overlaps with Cast the Expert.

Examples of Non-Actor Vehicle include:

Anime

  • Woman pro-wrestler Cutey Suzuki as the voice of Iczer-3. Also happens with (many) singers who take a turn as voice actors/actresses.
  • Several members of AKB48 took part in the anime AKB0048. Quite a few of them had no acting experience up until that point.

Film

  • Sonja Henie in One in a Million. She made quite a few films after that.
  • Swimmer Esther Williams started a similar screen career with a supporting part in Andy Hardy's Double Life. A series of star vehicles followed, starting with Bathing Beauty.
  • Carol Heiss in Snow White and The Three Stooges was an attempt to make her the next Sonja Henie. It unfortunately didn't work out that well; The Three Stooges weren't even brought in until the studio realized Heiss couldn't carry the movie.
  • Britney Spears in Crossroads.
  • Cindy Crawford in Fair Game.
  • David Bowie in The Man Who Fell to Earth. He went on to appear in a number of films in both lead and supporting roles, such as Labyrinth, and also made a foray into live theater in 1980 as the title character in the Broadway play The Elephant Man. He also played Pontius Pilate in Scorsese's The Last Temptation of Christ.
    • What many people don't realize is that David Bowie was an acting student before he started making music. So this is somewhat of an aversion.
  • Two big vehicles for Shaquille O'Neal - Kazaam and Steel. His first film, Blue Chips, had him in a supporting role and was better-received.
  • Dwayne Johnson in The Mummy Returns and The Scorpion King partially counts - it was more of a 'breakthrough to non-wrestling fans' rather than a direct example of this trope. He's had a decent acting career since then, to the point that he's not even credited as "The Rock" any more.
  • Randy Couture in the straight to DVD sequel to The Scorpion King, subtitled "Rise Of A Warrior". He has appeared in a number of action films since then, though his acting skills left a lot to be desired.
  • Roddy Piper in They Live!! He ad-libbed one of the most memorable lines in the film and helped choreograph its (in)famous fistfight.
  • Hulk Hogan in No Holds Barred, Suburban Commando, Mr Nanny, and Santa with Muscles.
  • Howie Long in Firestorm.
  • Harry Houdini in The Master Mystery.
  • Kurt Thomas in Gymkata.
  • Neil Diamond in The Jazz Singer (1980).
  • Luciano Pavarotti in Yes, Giorgio.
  • Madonna in Desperately Seeking Susan, where she played a pop musician. Led to an almost two-decades-long acting career, in which she generally did well if she was part of an ensemble (as in Dick Tracy, A League of Their Own, and Evita), and... didn't if she was appearing in a star vehicle (as in everything else she ever did).
  • Michael Jordan in Space Jam.
  • Jordan's then-teammate Dennis Rodman in Double Team (second-billed to Jean-Claude Van Damme) and Simon Sez.
  • Whichever wrestler is starring in any given WWE Films project:
  • Mariah Carey in Glitter.
  • Ray Allen in He Got Game.
  • Mick Jagger in Performance and Ned Kelly.
  • Vanilla Ice in Cool as Ice. Since then, he's mostly appeared in cameos and non-major roles.
  • Eminem in 8 Mile.
  • College football star (and high-profile NFL flop) Brian Bosworth in Stone Cold. He's done a fair amount of supporting roles since then.
  • Brazilian soccer star Breno Mello and track & field athlete Adhemar da Silvain in Orfeu Negro (Black Orpheus).
  • Whitney Houston in The Bodyguard.
  • Bjork in Dancer in the Dark. It was such a bad experience for her that she swore she'll never act again.
  • Olivia Newton-John in Grease.
  • Olympic Swimming champion and male model Johnny Weissmuller as Tarzan: the Ape Man. His performance proved so successful that he was cast in the same role eleven more times.
  • Olympic gymnast Cathy Rigby took a turn playing the title character in the Peter Pan stage musical in 1974—and did so well that she returned to it in The Nineties and again in a Branson, MO production in 2009.
  • Cellist Yo-Yo Ma in the Atom Egoyan film Sarabande.
  • Jackie Robinson in The Jackie Robinson Story.
  • Doris Day, before starring in Romance on the High Seas, was known only as a singer.
  • 50 Cent in the semi-autobiographical crime drama Get Rich Or Die Tryin, which was essentially Fiddy's answer to 8 Mile. He has also appeared in a number of films since then, notably the Iraq War film Home of the Brave (2006), and Righteous Kill (2008).
  • Taylor Firth in the 2010 remake of Ice Castles.
  • Arnold Schwarzenegger in Hercules In New York.
  • The Village People and Caitlyn Jenner in Can't Stop The Music; the former also overlaps with Autobiographical Role.
  • Dee Snider in the horror movie Strangeland, which he wrote himself.
  • In France, AB Productions was specialized on this... Among other things.
  • Mickey Spillane in Ring of Fire.
  • Purple Rain, created as a showcase for the singer Prince and based on his album of the same name. It won an award for Best Original Score.
  • The Beatles in: A Hard Day's Night, Help!!, Magical Mystery Tour, Yellow Submarine... In fact, it was because of these movies that Ringo Starr got his taste for acting.
  • Disney Channel sitcoms like to do this a lot. Isn't it convenient that all of their stars can sing and "act"?
  • Rudolf Nureyev (ballet dancer) as Rudolph Valentino (silent movie star) in Valentino.
  • "Weird Al" Yankovic in UHF, but it's not as much a leap for him—he was already accustomed to delivering comic performances, and the movie was basically "what would TV be like if Weird Al did that instead of music parodies?"
  • Bette Midler in The Rose; though she had dabbled in the theatre in her early career, it was her first movie role. She went on to have a long and fairly successful career as an actress, reaching her peak in both fields at about the same time (the late 1980s and early 1990s).
  • John Wayne Bobbitt: Uncut.
  • John Denver in Oh, God!.
  • Steven Soderbergh likes this trope, apparently stemming from his experience working with non-actors in the 2005 indie film Bubble. Sodebergh's use of this trope actually started with his surreal 1996 opus Shizopolis, which stars the man himself in not one but two roles. It's probably one of the more interesting examples of the trope - underneath all its weird and surreal humor, it's really about Soderbergh examining the crumbling of his marriage (his real life ex-wife even appears as his character's wife), as well as his anxieties about the future of his directing career in the wake of a series of flops following his debut Sex, Lies & Videotape.
  • The new The A-Team film cast former UFC champion Quentin "Rampage" Jackson as B.A. Baracus, filling the shoes of Mr. T, who was also known for his tough-guy exploits before getting into acting.
  • Filipino celebrity chef Boy Logro of all people starred in the 2013 action-comedy film The Fighting Chefs.
  • Filipino boxer Manny Pacquiao appeared in a number of films since the early 2000s, where he usually played the role of, well, a boxer. Some of them like Anak ng Kumander and Wapakman.
  • Billiards legend Efren "Bata" Reyes starred alongside Fernando Poe, Jr. in the 2003 action-comedy star vehicle Pakners, which eventually became FPJ's swansong prior to his presidential candidacy and death shortly after. Reyes is definitely more suited towards what he does best though, as his acting skills were beyond wooden and his lines were delivered as if he merely recited the scripts he was given.
  • Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button, amongst other McLaren drivers, starred in Tooned in 2013 to promote their racing team. The drivers' voice acting is passable more or less, but they sure had fun with their parts. And F1 fans appear to like it as well, with some wishing for similar productions starring drivers from other teams.
    • Hamilton did play bit and cameo roles in a number of films as well, notably in the Cars franchise and in Zoolander 2. And as a mechanic in Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare of all things.
  • Formula 1 driver Niki Lauda co-starred in the little-known Made for TV Movie Top Kids as a Doc Brown-esque guide to a teenage boy named Eric, played by Airplane! alum Rossie Harris (i.e. the boy who rubbed elbows with Kareem Abdul Jabbar and read Nun's Life magazine).
  • Prior to Pacquiao, Gabriel "Flash" Elorde appeared in a number of films to capitalise on the success of his boxing career. He played As Himself in the autobiographical film The Flash Elorde Story in 1961 and alongside Fernando Poe Jr. in Mano-mano (1964). Elorde was also remembered for a San Miguel Beer commercial where he appeared alongside notable Filipino celebrities Bert Marcelo and Rico J. Puno, uttering "... isang platitong mani!" (A plate of peanuts!).
  • While Tony Hawk starred in his eponymous video game series alongside his skater colleagues, he along with the rest of the Bones Brigade team starred in the direct-to-video movie The Search for Animal Chin about the titular Asian skateboarder who was said to have invented the sport In-Universe.

Live-Action TV

Theatre

  • The 1956 Broadway musical Mr. Wonderful gave Sammy Davis, Jr. his first starring role; it incorporated a large portion of his nightclub act wholesale.

Video Games

  • Colin McRae and Nicky Grist gained mainstream popularity through the Colin McRae Rally games since the late 90s. Grist, whose voice became a fixture of many a sim racing fan, later branched out as a presenter and occasional colour commentator for rallying events in the 2000s.
  • Young Maylay had no prior acting experience before he voiced Carl Johnson in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. He is glad that the game brought him into mainstream recognition, but he felt frustrated about being more associated with playing the role of CJ than his rapping career. It later culminated into a furious tirade against Rockstar after he has had enough of fans who kept on pestering him about starring in the next GTA. While Maylay's rants were criticized by many as being immature and unprofessional, his cousin Shawn Fonteno (who voiced a gang member in San Andreas and later starred in Grand Theft Auto V) acknowledged and understood Maylay's sentiments, while at the same time left a more level-headed and reasonable response to the issue.
  • Bones Brigade alumni Rodney Mullen–of all people–starred in Ghost Recon Breakpoint as tech mogul Jace Skell. While Mullen has appeared in most entries of the Tony Hawk's Pro Skater series and served as a skating stunt double in films, Breakpoint is so far his only acting credit where he doesn't play As Himself or in a skateboarding-related role.
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