There once was a time, not so long ago, where movies were full of song and dance. The women were amazingly beautiful with glamorous hairdos and make up, and the most beautiful dresses. And the men were gentlemen, mostly suited up.
All actors were considered to be the lucky ones, who were hand picked by the studios who turned them into all-round stars. If you wanted to be considered as one, you had to be able to do and have it all: Sing, dance, act and look like a dream.
Over the holidays, I got reminded of this when I saw "Hello Dolly" with Barbra Streisand on television again. Those kind of movies remind me more of full blown musicals, so it's no surprise some of these old movies were turned into theatre productions.
Nowadays, to become an actor, acting is the biggest skill required and, in some cases, you have to be able to do this pretty much on your own, because every other character around you could be animated in the movie later. It is not that common anymore to have actors sing in movies and now, when actors sing, we kind of look of them in judgment while we wonder why they had to do that too and take the spot of a musician in the music business.
Despite the prejudice, there are many actors who have surprised me in recent years with their singing abilities: Anne Hathaway and Hugh Jackman for instance, when they played in Les Miserables. And now, I was surprised to hear that Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling had a joint single out for their movie La La Land.
La La Land is a movie that returns that old Hollywood feel, and I had seen the trailer, but I just hadn't warmed up to it. So, the song "City of Stars" got my attention when it popped up on the release list and the global trending charts.
Even though it turns out that Ryan Gosling did have some music experience (and even released a single ages ago), I still had to get used to hearing him sing. The song literally is taken from the movie, so all the laughs are still in there, which makes it a strange song to listen to without seeing the attached scene. And no, I still haven’t seen the movie.
I initially thought Emma Stone had no music experience, except for her trending moment of participating in the lip sync battle at Jimmy Fallon's Tonight Show, but her first love turned out to be musicals and took voice lessons early on. I'm sure her role in La La Land was like a dream come true for her (and rewarded by a Golden Globe too). Her singing was a surprise to me, but then again, surprising an audience (bya way of dazzling) is what an actor's job is today.
