Drake's Best Acting Moments

Here are Drake's finest moments as an actor, from 'Degrassi' to 'Anchorman 2' to 'Think Like a Man Too.'

drake acting roles
Complex Original

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drake acting roles

The breadth of Drake’s fame knows few bounds. He’s one of the best-selling solo musicians in pop music history. His records have gone multi-platinum on multiple occasions and he has sold nearly 200 million albums worldwide. He’s the founder of a wildly successful record label, an accompanying clothing line, and his own brand of top-shelf bourbon. He’s the “global ambassador” of last year’s title-winning Toronto Raptors, is one of the leading figureheads of the streaming platform Apple Music, and has broken chart-topping singles records held for half a century by The Beatles. He’s even been the face of Sprite.

But Drake’s ambitions haven’t always been musical. He started as the star of screen and stage—and his slowly rising fame as an actor over the course of the last decade made him seem destined for a life as a thespian, not a rapper. Of course, his career transpired much differently, and now that he’s confirmed as one of the biggest artists in the game, he doesn’t look super eager to headline movie marquees in the spirit of other rapper-turned-actors such as Ludacris, Ice Cube, or Marky Mark. Nevertheless, whenever he's occasionally called on to flex his theatrical chops, The Boy can still bring the goods.

So, to celebrate Champagne Papi's birthday, let's look back at Drake's first love—acting—and talk about his most memorable screen performances.

'Degrassi The Next Generation,' "Time Stands Still"

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Before he broke out as the musician he was always destined to be, Drake was best-known as Aubrey Graham, long-time star of the beloved Canadian ensemble teen drama Degrassi: The Next Generation. As Jimmy Brooks, Drake was the cool, affable athlete, the popular jock with boyish good looks—until “Time Stands Still,” the epic two-part episode in the show’s fourth season, in which a bullied nerd brings a gun to school and shoots Jimmy right in the back. Drake spent the rest of the series paralyzed and wheelchair-bound, making this his most memorable moment in the show by far. 

'Being Erica,' "What I Am is What I Am"

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He was introduced to the country as Jimmy Brooks, but Degrassi was hardly the only CanCon silver-screen staple in which a young Drake appeared: at the turn of the decade he turned up on the CBC’s time-travel drama Being Erica, briefly appearing in the background of a scene as the would-be victim of an odd college initiation prank. He can be glimpsed being buried alive—a nice touch when you consider the interlude of the same name on Take Care

'Soul Food,' "From Dreams to Nightmares"

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Lest you think the up-and-coming Drake could make it only on Canadian TV, check out Soul Food, the Showtime adaptation of the movie of the same name about the life of a Black family living in Chicago. But you’ll have to look close: the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it one-episode cameo finds a very young Drake read one line as a uniformed school bully before vanishing from the series for good. 

'Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues'

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You know you’ve made it in the entertainment business when mainstream movies hit you up for cameos. Drake appears for a brief moment in the sequel to the Will Ferrell comedy, credited as “Soul Brother,” decked out in fake wig and facial hair to comment on—what else?—a shapely posterior.

NBA Awards, "Handshake Lessons" Skit

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Drake’s collaboration with Will Ferrell didn’t end with the Anchorman cameo, either. During the NBA Awards, he and Ferrell reteamed for a skit about NBA celebration etiquette—Drake as noted “NBA Handshake Specialist” Coach Palmer, and Ferrell as “NBA Dexterity Technician” Coach Murphy. The pair are of course hysterical together, and Drake does a great job showing off his comedy chops. Plus, former Toronto Raptor DeMar Derozan shows up—and falls victim to an exquisite chirp from The Boy: "DeMar I say it, the less I like it."

"No Shopping" Music Video

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Drake featured on French Montana's track "No Shopping" in 2016, and the music video for it was nothing short of incredible. The intro and mid-song skit see Drizzy and French play drunk-on-machismo announcers at a Dominican golf tournament affectionately named "El Coke Boys Clasico." El Draké is an absolute riot, donning a suit and flip-flops and playing up the inebriated Latino uncle vibes. Clasico indeed.

'Think Like a Man Too'

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In the sequel to 2012's Think Like a Man, a newly incarcerated and in-the-doghouse Kevin Hart phones home to discover his wife Gail (played by Wendy Williams) has already shacked up with Drake (playing himself). Drizzy handles the scandal effectively, dissing Hart not-so-subtly before putting the moves on Gail, complementing the lady on her French. ("I like the way you say chaise. Chaise lounge.")

'Saturday Night Live,' "Drake's Beef" Skit

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In the summer of 2016, not long after his much-publicized feud with Meek Mill, Drake showed up to perform on Saturday Night Live, and as is customary for marquee guest stars, he appeared in some skits lightly mocking himself. The sharpest and funniest is “Drake’s Beef,” in which a handful of incredibly minor social slightings provoke Drake’s righteous fury. “Most people I know/would have said hi back,” he raps over the beat to the Mill-dissing “Back to Back,” after Leslie Jones accidentally ignores him. It’s hilarious and on-point. 

"Jungle" Music Video

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Drake has no shortage of cinematic music videos, from the Miami Vice-esque neon skylines of “Hold On We’re Going Home” to the coloured-room dancing of the iconic “Hotline Bling.” The most movie-like, however, has got to be the widescreen spectacle of “Jungle,” in which Drake galavants across the Toronto skyline and broods in the back of a limo against some old-school rear projection. Clearly, no one can bring it to his own videos quite like Drake. 

"Laugh Now Cry Later" Music Video

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...baby.

ESPY Awards, “Manny Pacquiao Sings"

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Drake’s early acting career was rife with dramatic turns, but the year he hosted the ESPY Awards, he made it abundantly clear that comedy is his forte—as evidenced immediately by the famed Manny Pacquiao skit. His insane impersonation of the boxer-turned-politican is ludicrously spot-on, right down to the wonderfully over-the-top Filipino accent. 

ESPY Awards, "Drake vs. Blake"

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Proving his exceptional range, at the same ESPYs Drake would go from playing Manny to a very different athlete: then-Los Angeles Clippers star Blake Griffin. In the skit, the rapper and basketball star have a clash of egos, going to extensive lengths to sabotage one another. At one point, Drake goes ginger in order to impersonate Griffin during an interview with Bill Simmons. It's stitch-inducing stuff (listen for his Cheetos joke, which we're 99 per cent sure he ad-libbed). There's also a surprise cameo by Chris Brown, with whom Drake had ended his feud not long before this skit.

 

'Charlie Bartlett'

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The comedy Charlie Bartlett, starring a young Anton Yelchin, is about a wildly unpopular high school student who endears himself to the student body by becoming a kind of armchair therapist (and drug dealer). Drake plays one of Bartlett’s many clients, opening up and sharing his domestic troubles in the side-by-side school bathroom stalls that are his de facto confessional booths and therapist’s offices. Not much, but hey: it was a feature film! 

'David Blaine: Real or Magic'

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Of course, David Blaine performs his signature tricks and illusions before real-life celebrities all the time these days, and Drake drinking champagne and entertaining the famed magician alongside Steph Curry and Dave Chappelle does not, on the face of it, count as acting. But watch Drake try with increasing desperation to maintain his composure once Blaine starts literally throwing up live frogs—that’s nothing if not a great performance. 

'Ice Age: Continental Drift'

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In this third sequel to the semi-popular children’s animated comedy, Drake is Ethan, the wooly mammoth. If it sounds absurd—and, let’s be honest, it is—consider that he lends his voice-acting talents to the film alongside none other than Nicki Minaj. I... guess they’re big with kids? 

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