Pop Stars Turned Movie Stars

Jordin Sparks

"American Idol" winner Jordin Sparks is the latest pop singer to take her talent to the big screen with the new film Sparkle. Here's a look at some other performers that made the crossover from music to movies.

Will Smith aka The Fresh Prince

The biggest movie star ever to come from a music career, Will Smith's gettin' jiggy with some $20 mil per flick. He's averaged a movie a year since the mid-'90s, most of them blockbuster hits including Men in Black I-III, Bad Boys I & II, Hitch and Hancock.

Mark Wahlberg aka Marky Mark

He'll bust your chops if you call him by his Funky Bunch moniker, but back in the day, the Ted star danced and rapped with the best of 'em. Today he's a respected and Oscar-nominated actor thanks to roles in Boogie Nights, I Heart Huckabees and The Departed. He won the 2010 AFI Movie of the Year for producing The Fighter, which he also starred in.

Madonna

The Material Girl's acting career has had its highs (Desperately Seeking Susan) and its loooooows (Swept Away), but either way, she's arguably the most famous woman in the world, so don't cry for her...

Justin Timberlake

Gotta love those boy bands, and 'N Sync was one of the biggest. Now J.T.'s a hugely successful solo artist and has acted in movies such as In Time, Friends with Benefits and the critics' favorite, The Social Network.

Mandy Moore

The teen audience was good to Mooore, who put out three hit albums before making several teen-oriented movies. She proved more than just a pop princess with 2004's wickedly funny Saved!, though, and has continued to make both music and movies including License to Wed and voicing Rapunzel in Disney's animated Tangled.

Jennifer Hudson

Another famous star from "American Idol," Hudson won an Academy Award for her very first film, Dreamgirls in '07, and won a best R&B album Grammy the following year. She also appeared in the massive chick flick hit Sex and the City. Fortunately, she avoided the sequel but she couldn't dodge the Farrelly Brothers' The Three Stooges.

Jessica Simpson

Somehow the Dukes of Hazard buxom blonde still gets cast in movies, despite the dismal reception her on-screen work's gotten thus far (anyone have the misfortune to see Employee of the Month?).

Usher

The R&B star has five Grammys under his belt, but while his star was rising in the late '90s he dabbled in movies, his first being the teen alien horror film The Faculty. He also starred in and produced 2005's In the Mix and will don gloves for the upcoming boxing flick Hands of Stone.

Mariah Carey

She wasn't going to make this list because, like Britney Spears, she didn't have any real movie credits other than the lackluster Glitter. But she got critics' raves for her role in the indie Push: Based on the Novel by Sapphire.

Harry Connick Jr.

He first ventured into film with the soundtrack for When Harry Met Sally... and has since made some 15 films, usually lighter fare like Dolphin Tale and New in Town (pictured) with Renee Zellweger.

Courtney Love

OK, she's more punk diva than pop star, but Love deserves a mention for unleashing her fierce onstage presence on the big screen in lauded films like The People vs. Larry Flynt, Man on the Moon and Sid & Nancy.

Beyoncé Knowles

Truly destiny's child, the singer-turned-actress first dominated Billboard charts, then turned her bootylicious ambitions to the big screen. She was in Dreamgirls and played Etta James in Cadillac Records. She also had a pretty good catfight with Ali Larter in Obsessed.

Lenny Kravitz

Long before his role as Cinna in The Hunger Games (pictured left with actress Jennifer Lawrence), rocker Lenny Kravitz contributed to television and film by writing the theme to "The Chris Rock Show" and lending hit songs to movie soundtracks. Kravitz's first acting gig was voicing a baby in the animated feature The Rugrats Movie and debuted in live-action as Nurse John in the Oscar-nominated film Precious.