Phil Collins - Films, Theatre and Television

Films, Theatre and Television

The majority of Collins's film work has been through music. Four of his seven American number one songs came from film soundtracks, and his work on Disney's Tarzan earned him an Oscar. Collins even sang German, Italian, Spanish and French versions of the Tarzan soundtrack for the respective film versions. Collins's acting career has been brief. As a child, he appeared in three films, although two of the films were for brief moments as an extra. Besides the aforementioned A Hard Day's Night (1964), Collins's first lead role was in a children's film Calamity the Cow (1967).

Collins wrote and performed the title song to Against All Odds in 1984. The song became the first of his seven American number one songs and received an Academy Award nomination for Best Song. Collins was not invited to perform the song at that year's presentation, although he was in the audience as the song's composer. Collins had arranged his US tour to accommodate the possibility of appearing on the telecast in the event his song was nominated for an Oscar. It is believed that the producers of that year's Academy Awards show were not aware of his prominence as a musical performer. A note to Collins's label from telecast co-producer Larry Gelbart explaining the lack of invitation stated, "Thank you for your note regarding Phil Cooper . I'm afraid the spots have already been filled". Collins instead watched Ann Reinking perform his song. For a long time afterwards, he would introduce his performance of "Against All Odds" at his concerts by saying: "Miss Ann Reinking's not here tonight, so I guess I'll have to sing my own song".

As a vocalist, Collins sang Stephen Bishop's composition "Separate Lives" for the film White Nights (1985) as a duet with Marilyn Martin. The single of the recording became another number one hit for Collins. The song itself was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Song (a category that honours the composer, not the vocalists). Bishop's song had parallels to some of the songs on Collins's first two albums. Writer Stephen Bishop noted that he was inspired by a failed relationship and called "Separate Lives" "a song about anger". When the song was being nominated for an Academy Award, in interviews about the original snub by the Academy for "Against All Odds", Collins would jokingly say "the hell with him – I'm going up too," referring to if Bishop's song were to win the award.

Collins's first film role since becoming a musician came in 1988 with Buster about the Great Train Robbery, which took place in England in August 1963. The film received good reviews and Collins contributed four songs to the film's soundtrack. His rendition of "Groovy Kind of Love", originally a 1966 single by the Mindbenders, with lyrics by Toni Wine and music by Carole Bayer Sager, but with the melody of the Rondo section of Muzio Clementi's "Sonatina in G major", op. 36 no. 5 reached number one. The film also spawned the hit single "Two Hearts", which he wrote in collaboration with legendary Motown songwriter Lamont Dozier; the two artists would go on to win a Golden Globe for Best Original Song and receive an Oscar nomination in the same category, the second such honour for Collins; "Big Noise", written by Phil Collins and Lamont Dozier, which included Collins on vocals (although the song was not released as a single, an instrumental version of this song appeared as the B-side to the single version of "A Groovy Kind Of Love".) The final song, "Loco In Acapulco", was another collaboration between him and Dozier, with the vocals performed by the legendary Motown group the Four Tops. Film critic Roger Ebert said the role of Buster was "played with surprising effectiveness" by Collins, although the film's soundtrack proved more successful than the film did.

Collins had cameo appearances in Steven Spielberg's Hook (1991) and the AIDS docudrama And the Band Played On (1993). He starred in 1993's Frauds, which competed for the Palme d'Or at the 1993 Cannes Film Festival. He supplied voices to two animated features: Amblin's Balto (1995) and Disney's The Jungle Book 2 (2003). A long-discussed but never completed project was a film titled The Three Bears; originally meant to star him alongside Danny DeVito and Bob Hoskins, he often mentioned the film, though an appropriate script never materialised.

Collins performed the soundtrack to the animated film Tarzan (1999) for the Walt Disney Company. Collins won an Academy Award for "You'll Be in My Heart", which he performed at that year's telecast as well as during a Disney-themed Super Bowl halftime show. The song, which he also recorded in Spanish among other languages, became his only appearance on Billboard's Hot Latin Tracks. Disney hired him, along with Tina Turner, in 2003 for the soundtrack to another animated feature film, Brother Bear, and had some airplay with the song "Look Through My Eyes".

On television, he twice hosted the Billboard Music Awards. He also appeared in an episode of the series Miami Vice, entitled "Phil the Shill", in which he plays a cheating con-man. He also guest starred in several sketches with The Two Ronnies. Most recently, he had a cameo appearance on the television series Whoopi.

In 2001, Collins was sought out by the satirist Chris Morris, and appeared in the Brass Eye 'Paedophile Special' endorsing a spoof charity called 'Nonce Sense'. At one point Collins, dressed in a matching baseball cap and t-shirt emblazoned with the name of this fictitious charity, stares into the camera and declares: "I'm talking Nonce-sense."

In 2005, Collins's work on Brother Bear was expanded as Disney used the song "Welcome" as the theme for Walt Disney's Parade of Dreams, the main parade celebrating the 50th Anniversary of Disneyland.

In 2006 Disney's Tarzan was adapted for Broadway. Collins contributed 11 new songs and instrumental pieces, and was deeply involved in the production. Unlike the film, where Collins sang all the material, the characters sang on stage.

Collins made an appearance as himself in the 2006 PlayStation Portable and PlayStation 2 video game Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories, set in 1984. He appears in three missions in which the main character must save him from a gang that is trying to kill him, the final mission occurring during his concert, where the player must defend the scaffolding against saboteurs while Phil is simultaneously performing "In the Air Tonight." After this, the player is given the opportunity to watch this performance of 'In the Air Tonight.' "In the Air Tonight" was also featured in the soundtrack of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories and it was also featured in the film Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film For Theaters, the 2009 movie The Hangover and the 2007 Gorilla commercial for Cadbury's Dairy Milk chocolate. The advertisement also helped the song re-enter the New Zealand RIANZ Singles Chart at number three in July 2008, the following week reaching number one, beating its original 1981 No.6 peak. Phil Collins had several ties to the hit show Miami Vice with 5 songs used in the course of the series as well as having starred in the episode "Phil The Shill."

Phil Collins was portrayed in the hit cartoon South Park in the episode "Timmy 2000" holding his Oscar throughout, referring to his 1999 win for "You'll Be in My Heart", which defeated "Blame Canada" from South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut. He was seen again in the episode "Cartman's Silly Hate Crime".

Phil Collins appears briefly in the Finnish animated sitcom Pasila in the episode "Phil Collins Hangover". The music of this episode is a pastiche of Phil Collins' "Another Day In Paradise".

Phil Collins was mentioned in the Psych episode "Disco Didn't Die. It Was Murdered!" as resembling Shawn Spencer's father Henry Spencer portrayed by actor Corbin Bernsen.