Everyone Forgot Charli XCX Was In This Video Game Movie

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Charli XCX began recording pop songs when she was only 14, posting music on her MySpace page as a means of distribution. Her music led to gigs at several underground raves where the young singer wasn’t technically old enough to enter. Nonetheless, she was supported by her parents and continued to pursue pop music as a career path. She signed a contract with Asylum Records in 2010 when she was only 18, still in school, and trying to balance her human life and her professional life. 

Despite the whirlwind of activity, Charli XCX still managed to strike a balance for a few years, although she eventually dropped out of college to work on music full-time. By 2011, she was churning out singles, and released her first official record, “True Romance,” back in 2013. She was 21. The following year, in 2014, she sang the hook for Iggy Azalea’s super-hit “Fancy,” and skyrocketed to worldwide fame. Ever since then, Charli has enjoyed a massive spotlight, having released six studio albums in toto. Her 2024 album “brat” came to define that summer. 

Naturally, a pop star with Charli XCX’s charisma wouldn’t be able to stay away from cinemas for too long. As of this writing, Charli has provided her voice to two major American animated pictures, both of which were ultra-commercial product tie-ins that weren’t taken very seriously. In 2019, she voiced the character of Kitty in “UglyDolls,” but her cinematic debut came in 2016 with the release of “The Angry Birds” movie, a film based on the phone-based video game put out by Rovio Entertainment. The movie wasn’t well-liked, but it made over $353 million. 

Remember “The Angry Birds Movie?” Yeah, it was a thing. It even had a sequel.

Charli XCX made her feature film debut in The Angry Birds Movie

Sony Pictures Releasing

“Angry Birds” was a marvelously distracting game — perfect for blowing time at airports — wherein the player used a slingshot to bodily catapult flightless birds at concrete structures constructed by egg-thieving pigs. The more damage one could do with a catapulted bird, the higher one’s score. This was somehow reworked into a narrative for “The Angry Birds Movie,” a film that starred Jason Sudeikis, Josh Gad, and Danny McBride in the lead Angry Bird roles. The supporting cast is a who’s-who of working comedians, and includes Maya Rudolph, Kate McKinnon and several others. This was a major production from Sony Picture Animation, so the film also managed to attract high-profile actors like Sean Penn and Peter Dinklage, as well as pop stars like Blake Shelton and, yes, Charli XCX. 

Charli’s character, Willow, can be seen in the picture above. She’s the one in the knit cap. Willow plays a very minor role in the movie, though, and a fan-edit reveals that the character only had a total of 2 minutes of screentime. Indeed, Charli XCX doesn’t seem to have any on-screen dialogue, and Willow doesn’t contribute to the story in the slightest. The bird character sings very briefly in a “special performance” for the visiting pig characters. The full version of Charli’s song, “Explode,” is on the film’s soundtrack album, and it’s likely that she was approached to perform the song first, and then asked to do a few extra vocals for the movie proper as an afterthought. 

To date, Charli XCX’s film career has been short, but she has a few upcoming projects that will expand her filmography exponentially. She serves as an executive producer on the series “Overcompensating,” and composed the music for “Bottoms.” She has a role in the upcoming fantasy film “100 Nights of Hero,” co-wrote the indie drama “Erupcja,” and will be in Gregg Araki’s “I Want Your Sex.” And she has other acting and producing projects in the pipeline besides. 

That Charli XCX is going places.

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