Justin Bieber is making his "CSI" debut on Thursday night (September 23), and while it remains to be seen whether the teen idol can pull out an Emmy-worthy performance, his appearance on the show continues the series' tradition of casting marquee names for guest spots.
Taylor Swift got to live out her dream in March 2009, when she played Haley, a girl found dead outside of a motel. While Swift didn't have very many lines, the pop singer did display some chops onscreen and got to indulge her morbid acting fantasies.
"I've always joked around with my record label and my mom and everybody — all my friends know that my dream is to die on 'CSI,' " she said last year. "I've always wanted to be one of the characters on there that they're trying to figure out what happened to."
But not everyone plays the victim. When Ashlee Simpson and Pete Wentz made a cameo on the show in March 2009, they hit up the East Coast version of the show on "CSI: NY." The Wentzes went dark for their parts as Chester Byron and Lila Wickfield, playing a young couple entangled in the world of drug-dealing.
"It's easy to play passionate roles with the person you love," Wentz said about hooking up with his wife onscreen. "There's nothing weird about it when you love the person."
Diddy worked the opposite end of the legal spectrum when he was cast as a defense attorney on "CSI: Miami" in December 2008. Describing his character as a "nemesis" to David Caruso's he explained, "I wanted to keep on studying and learning; working with great actors, directors, great shows. I've never done a television drama. I've always wanted to play a lawyer. I didn't want to play, like, a rap artist or a criminal."
And that brings it back to Bieber, who'll make his first of two appearances this week as troubled kid Jason McCann on "CSI" (the second will air in February). He'll certainly be showing fans a side of him they haven't seen.
"He's a troubled young man, raised in the foster-care system, whose hard-luck life has left him scarred and angry," executive producer Carol Mendelsohn told MTV News last month. "When we first meet Jason, we meet him at a community center where he's giving a testimonial in honor of a man who takes Jason and his older brother in when they had no one else, and that man is now in jail and Jason's brother is out for revenge and looking for payback."
Source