6 Surprising Talents Celebrities Are Hiding From The World
6 Surprising Talents Celebrities Are Hiding From The World
It's really hard to become world famous for even one thing, so it feels like the universe is playing favorites when someone gets to be amazing in two completely unrelated fields. It just wouldn't be fair if Rihanna turned out to be a renowned chef, or if Benedict Cumberbatch could translate his height and neck-length into being the world's greatest giraffe impersonator.
But there are those who can become masters of all trades, making the rest of us look like a bunch of underachieving jackoffs. People like ...
#6. Ice Cube Is A Secret Architecture Savant
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As one of the founding members of N.W.A., Ice Cube has enough street cred he doesn't even need to build four houses to put down a hotel. And that's not just a sweet Monopoly-based hype, either, because Ice Cube could actually build those houses for you.
Anita Bugge/WireImage/Getty Images"I'll tear the roof off and design you a better one."
Before returning to Compton to revolutionize the rap game, Ice was melting away at the Phoenix Institute of Technology, studying architectural drafting. Architectural drafting, the art of figuring out angles, taught Ice that "everything starts with a plan." He credits this mentality of thinking ahead for his uncanny ability as an artist to jump from one great opportunity to the next -- like breaking up his crew to advance his rap game or getting hit in the crotch by a giant ax for a producer's credit. Figuring out the big picture has helped Ice immensely in becoming a superstar, but just because he was done with the architecture game didn't mean that the architecture game was done with him.
Los Angeles, despite its reputation as a sleeping smog monster, has some real beauty hidden around town, and we're not just talking about the street where Chris Evans' butt lives. In 2011, during a citywide exhibition of post-war artistry, The Getty wanted an L.A. native to celebrate its most iconic buildings. They looked no further than Ice Cube, who became their resident expert on Charles and Ray Eames, Hollywood architectural design legends. In the promo for the exhibit, Ice walks through one of the Eames buildings, explaining their iconic design choices with the ease of a tenured professor. "The Eames made structure and nature one," Professor Cube muses, adding: "This is going green 1949-style, bitch." If Ice Cube was in a classroom, everyone would be sitting on their chairs backwards.
#5. Willie Nelson Is A Martial Arts Master
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There's a long and proud history of musicians getting into martial arts because they think they look good in a kimono: Elvis Presley, Mick Jagger, even Frank Sinatra pretended he knew karate for that one movie. But in this pantheon of energetic music gods, the guy who could kick all of their asses is the laid-back, weed-smokin', country-singing octogenarian Willie Nelson.
And he wouldn't even break a sweat. Case in point:
WillieNelson.com"The 'Red Headed Stranger' came from all the opponents' blood
I'd have to wash out of my hair."
That's Nelson, at the tenderfoot age of 81, right around the time he got another black belt in the art of Gongkwon Yusul. In fact, "Shotgun Willie" has been hitting the mats for over half a century now, with several black belts to prove it. Back in the '60s, when he was a young up-and-comer in Nashville, Nelson got into Kung Fu -- which is a handy skill to have for anyone who's in charge of entertaining a bunch of drunken rednecks. But as his career picked up, Nelson let the fighting go for a little while. He returned to kicking people in the face in his 60s, when he enrolled his entire familyin Taekwondo classes. Just like a dad, he got into it way more than his kids did, and when they dropped out after moving to Hawaii, Nelson kept at it. Hard.
For over 20 years now, Nelson and Taekwondo master Sam Um have been training together, and have become the best of friends. Why best? Because a good friend would read your low-budget martial arts screenplay, but best friends will pay for and star in that junk. Nelson does owe a lot of his killer moves to Master Um. When Gongkwon Yusul, a Korean variant of Taekwondo, became a thing in 1996, Um was one of its first trainers stateside, and he gracefully accepted Nelson's pupilage. Initially, he was afraid to train Nelson, who was far older than any of his other pupils, but the country star had the kind of determination and underdog spirit you usually only find inside of a Karate Kidmovie. To this day, Nelson trains almost every free moment that he has, even sending his tutorvideos of him training when he's on tour. This dedication earned him a fifth-degree black belt in 2014 -- which means he now outranks even his former master, and he didn't even have to pull the guy's heart out or anything.
One day, a scorned young woman will climb a thousand steps, hoping to train with the venerable grand master atop the hill. And when she reaches that top, she will find Willie Nelson, and he'll be high as balls.
#4. Colin Farrell Paid The Bills By Being A Rootin' Tootin' Line Dancer
There's a long-standing tradition of Americans taking a silly bit of Irish culture and pretending it's theirs just because one of their ancestors died in the potato famine. But what they never realize is that that kind of appropriation can cut both ways. Colin Farrell, the most Irish of Irish actors, can attest to that, because he spent a brief spell of his early life introducing the Emerald Isle to the joy of line dancing.
Line dancing, ironically the most square of all dances, actually traces its origin all the way back to European country dancing, but you can't look at Farrell in his sleeveless studded vest and black choker and think that he's taking line dancing back for the motherland. As a 19-year-old aspiring actor, Farrell basically had the choice between being a waiter and, strangely, a line dancer -- which paid a lot better. So until his big Irish break about two years later (which, fantastically, was in a movie called Falling For A Dancer) he earned a really good living touring nightclubs across Ireland and clutching his belt to some good ol' country and western music. And, much to Farrell's regret, someone got it on tape. Bless their heart.
The reason Farrell could make a nice living doing this was Ireland suffered a bit of a country craze back in the mid-'90s. Country Music Television, the U.S.'s one-stop channel for dancing white folks, was even broadcast by the RTE (think of the BBC but with more shamrocks). This allowed Farrell to not only get paid to strut his stuff in a linear fashion but to actually be a bona fide line dancing instructor. When asked about it in interviews, Farrell's eyes glaze over, and in a hushed tone he will tell stories of squeezing into a minivan with a dozen other leather-clad hotties and traveling the island to teach horny middle-aged ladies how to do a Texas two-step. And when we say "horny middle-aged ladies," we of course include Ellen DeGeneres, who, like every other talk show host, will never let Farrell forget that he used to jangle his boots and his booty for money.
Warner Bros. Television Distribution"At least he has a safety net if the acting doesn't pan out" -Colin Farrell's mom.
It might have paid good money, but that video will haunt him for the rest of his life. And that guy has a sex tape.
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