Music Rockstar guest stars: 7 best celeb portrayals of musicians in videos By Leah Greenblatt Leah Greenblatt Leah Greenblatt is the former critic at large for movies, books, music, and theater at Entertainment Weekly. She left EW in 2023. EW's editorial guidelines Published on October 19, 2020 02:20PM EDT Photo: Justin Bieber/Youtube; DJ Khaled/Youtube Music videos are hard work: the lip-syncing, the long hours, the tricky choreography. Why do it all when you can have famous friends step in and take your place? With the release of Justin Bieber’s new “Lonely” video — featuring Good Boys star Jacob Tremblay — we count down some of the best celebrity-doppelganger music moments of all time. 01 of 08 Jacob Tremblay as Justin Bieber, “Lonely” (2020) Justin Bieber/Youtube Fourteen-year-old Tremblay (who first broke out as the little boy held captive in the Oscar-winning 2015 drama Room) slips into baby-Bieber drag — white denim, purple hoodie, flippy bowl cut — for Bieber’s warbling the-cheese-stands-alone lament. 02 of 08 Justin Bieber as Drake, “Pop Star” (2020) DJ Khaled/Youtube Just weeks before the release of “Lonely,” Biebs did his own favor for fellow native Ontarian Drake, subbing in as his quarantine understudy in a luxe L.A. mansion stocked with more swaggy gratuities (champagne, Lambos, “salmon with the lobster”) than a NAFTA trade deal. 03 of 08 Jason Sudeikis, Jason Bateman, Will Forte, and Ed Helms as Mumford & Sons, “Hopeless Wanderer” (2013) Mumford & Sons/Youtube Give a man a banjo, and he’ll play for a day. Give four of Hollywood’s most willing weirdos beer, a barn, and a bunch of straw boater hats, and they’ll pretty much go ham forever. (Or at least until the last viola’s smashed.) 04 of 08 Seth Rogen, Danny McBride, and Elijah Wood as the Beastie Boys, “Make Some Noise” (2011) Nasty Little Man The celebrity whack-a-mole is particularly strong with this one: Kirsten Dunst, Will Ferrell, Rashida Jones, Will Arnett, Rainn Wilson, Jason Schwartzman, Steve Buscemi, Amy Poehler, Orlando Bloom, Jack Black, John C. Reilly, Chlöe Sevigny, Maya Rudolph, David Cross, and Ted Danson(!) are among the boldface Beastie friends who pass through the clip’s West Village streetscape —though it’s Rogen, McBride, and Wood who bring the Boys to bodega-smashing, beer-spewing life. 05 of 08 Rupert Grint as Ed Sheeran, “Lego House” (2011) Ed Sheeran/Youtube If the world insists on constantly comparing two of England’s most beloved millennial gingers, why not lean in? The Harry Potter actor at first appears to be playing Sheeran straight-up, though be warned; there’s a very “Stan” twist coming midway through. 06 of 08 Mariah Carey as Eminem, “Obsessed” (2009) Mariah Carey/Youtube Maybe they dated, maybe they didn’t. But the dis-track battle that accompanied the pair’s ongoing feud was the gift that kept on giving, at least to fans — maybe never better than in “Obsessed,” in which Mariah appeared as both herself and a not-not Marshall Mathers in oversize sweatpants and chin-strap goatee, pining for a piece of Mimi he’ll never have. 07 of 08 Justin Timberlake as Elton John, “This Train Don’t Stop Here Anymore” (2001) Elton John/Youtube Nearly two decades before Taron Egerton slipped into his Rocketman boots on the big screen, Justin Timberlake — in signature bedazzled Elton goggles, altered hairline, and eerily on-point prosthetics — played out his own portrait of the artist as a young man. (Bonus points if you can spot Paul Reubens, a.k.a. Peewee Herman, as his sideburned manager.) 08 of 08 Winona Ryder, Giovanni Ribisi, and John C. Reilly as the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, “Talk About the Blues” (1998) Winona forever, but Spencer for a day: Ryder, along with Reilly and Ribisi, stepped into the famously electric frontman’s shoes — and his signature button-down — in a raucous performance clip that may be the best strange thing she’s done since, well, Stranger Things. (And of course, this.).