Stars turn pop songs into Shakespearean soliloquies. We die laughing.
We’ve found our new favorite Internet trend: very serious Shakespearean pop songs. No, it’s not the Bard re-writing some of our favorite tunes for the likes of Katy Perry and Justin Bieber to perform for us. Instead, we’ve got a bunch of actors — some of them classically trained actors — reciting pop songs as if they were reciting some long and winding monologue from Hamlet. ‘Tis hilarious.
The hashtag, #15secondshakespeare, was started by David Flynn (of NBC’s Undateable) about a week ago. He posted to Instagram a video of his own dramatic reading of The Fresh Prince of Bel Air theme song. It takes on a whole new meaning when he whispers so forcefully, “to sit on my throne, as the Prince of Bel Air.” CHILLS.
From there, the idea has completely taken off with hundreds of other actors, from stage, screen, and film, all getting in on the fun.
We’ve got Karen Gillian doing “500 Miles.”
Ben Barnes and a very dramatic reading of Usher’s “Yeah!”
How about True Blood‘s Stephen Moyer doing The Jam’s “Down In The Tube Station At Midnight.”
Next up, Sherlock‘s Amanda Abbington performing Pharrell’s “Happy.”
Followed by iZombie’s Rahul Kohli doing a colab between Dr. Dre and Eminem for “Forget About Dre.”
And lastly, Oscar nominee Minnie Driver doing (what I THINK) is “Gold Digger.” It’s hard to translate Shakespeare into Kayne.
Through all of this celebs have been tagging other celebs to do the same type of 15-second video, so hopefully there are still WAY MORE of these to come. Fynn has also asked that everyone participating in #15secondshakespeare also donate to the Red Cross Refugee Crisis. So, this is making us laugh and helping people around the world. WIN-WIN. Or, as Shakespeare would say [with dramatic emphasis] WIN-WIN.
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