Sir Mick Jagger has turned down a lot of acting roles because they were “rubbish”.
The Rolling Stones frontman – who just penned the theme tune, ‘Strange Game’, for Apple TV+ series ‘Slow Horses’ – has appeared on screen a handful of times, landing his big-screen debut in the 1970 movie ‘Performance’, while he founded the production firm Jagger Films in the 2000s.
The reason the ‘Satisfaction’ hitmaker only has a few credits to his name is because a lot of the parts he’s been offered over the years weren’t up to standard.
He spilled: “There aren’t that many great parts, to be honest.
“You get offered a lot of rubbish. In the ’70s and ’80s, there was a lot of prejudice against musicians being actors.”
The Stones have licensed their music for a number of shows and movies, and Jagger admits it’s “weird” when he’s watching something he’s forgotten they gave approval to and he hears his song.
He said: “Some people don’t really like to license their songs for TV and movies, but I think the Stones were very like-minded to it. And I enjoy it.
“Sometimes it’s weird if you’re in the middle of enjoying a movie, or not enjoying a movie, and suddenly one of your songs comes on, if you’ve forgotten you licensed it.”
Penning a song for the spy thriller ‘Slow Horses’ – which stars Gary Oldman as intelligence officer Jackson Lamb – was a simple task for the 78-year-old rocker because he had read the Mick Herron tome the series is based on.
He told Empire magazine: “I had read some of the books.
“So when Daniel [ Pemberton, composer] emailed me, I didn’t have to do homework. I knew what it was about, I knew the milieu and the main character’s irascible nature.
“I just wrote it really quick.
“I said to Dan, ‘So, you want this to be called ‘Slow Horses’?’ He said, ‘I don’t want another variant of your horse songs.’
“So then I started playing guitar and tried to come up with a bit of a chorus, and came up with this ‘strange game’ thing. That became the title.”