Todd Gilchrist

The once and future Marky Mark may never get to fully leave behind his days as a carved-stomach pop superstar, but after his turn as an obsessive boyfriend in 'Fear,' and perhaps more crucially, a naïve porn star in 'Boogie Nights,' no one would underestimate his very real talent again...

Tupac Shakur had a mercilessly brief stint as an actor that really coincided with the explosion of his rap career: he captured with perfect and terrifying accuracy the unpredictability of Bishop in 'Juice' before his first album debuted. But even as listeners learned every word from one single to the next, he utilized the mixed messages in his music to avoid being defined in one concrete way, play

Even in small roles in movies like 'Jungle Fever' and 'Juice,' Dana "Queen Latifah" Owens caught audiences’ attention, with her combination of confident attitude and refreshingly “normal” physicality. But after playing Cleopatra Sims in 'Set It Off,' she showed audiences that she was capable of more serious fare, which at the same time could be truly entertaining...

Like Ice-T, Yasiin Bey (formerly known as Mos Def and aka Dante Terrell Smith) has been acting almost since before anyone knew him as a rapper. But turns in films like 'Monster’s Ball,' 'Brown Sugar' and 'The Italian Job' showed that he could take small roles, make them unique, and then make us remember them...

If O’Shea "Ice Cube"Jackson did no other films than 'Boyz N Tha Hood,' he would still find himself on this list, thanks to a remarkably sophisticated performance that harnessed the rage he unleashed in his music and contained it in an extraordinarily relatable and sympathetic young man...

Eminem hit the mother lode, acting-wise, when he was asked to basically play a thinly-veiled version of himself in 2002’s '8 Mile,' but perhaps unsurprisingly, he absolutely nailed the role, lending real substance to the story of an ambitious white factory worker from Detroit who overcomes his own insecurities – not to mention the socioeconomic forces that hold him and his friends down – to become

The two Chrises – “Kid” Reid and “Play” Martin of Kid 'N' Play – really only acted in a handful of movies, all of which were engineered to emphasize their respective personalities. But the original 'House Party' is a bona fide classic, not the least of which because the two of them are really terrific, showing a humanity and a sense of humor that not a lot of their contemporaries would be eager to

Tracy Marrow aka Ice-T has been acting since almost before he was known as a rapper – small roles in 'Breakin' and its sequel actually put him on the map, professionally speaking. But in the early ‘90s, he got the opportunity to show more sides of himself, and in 'New Jack City,' he became an icon as Scotty Appleton, a cop so determined and fearless that he actually tells a perp at one point, “I w

Andre Benjamin has always been a restless artist, venturing into fashion, and of course acting, as ways of exploring his seemingly bottomless creativity. His early roles were mostly supporting turns, silly roles like those in 'Hollywood Homicide' and 'Be Cool,' but after John Singleton cast him in 'Four Brothers,' he developed a reputation for having a quiet sort of authority, and a vulnerability,

Eve or Eve Jihan Jeffers is enough of an icon in the rap world that when she moved to the small screen, she basically launched her career on a show bearing her name. But performances in two 'Barbershop' films highlighted her natural presence and her appeal with audiences...