Phil Collins Personal life
 The majority of Collins's film work has been through music. Four of his seven American number one songs came from film soundtracks, and his work on Disney's Tarzan earned him an Oscar. Collins's acting career has been brief. As a child, he appeared in three films, although two of the films were for brief moments as an extra. Besides the aforementioned A Hard Day's Night (1964), Collins's first lead role was in Calamity the Cow (1967).
Collins wrote and performed the title song to Against All Odds in 1984. The song became the first of his seven American number one songs and received an Academy Award nomination for Best Song. Collins was famously not invited to perform the song at that year’s presentation, although he was in the audience and had arranged his tour around the telecast. It was believed that the Academy, despite nominating him, did not know who he was. A note to Collins's label from telecast co-producer Larry Gelbart explaining the lack of invitation stated, Thank you for your note regarding Phil Cooper (emphasis added). I'm afraid the spots have already been filled. Collins instead watched Ann Reinking perform his song. For a long time afterward, he would inform audiences at concerts, Miss Ann Reinking's not here tonight, so I guess I'll have to sing my own song, before performing Against All Odds.
Collins performed (although did not write) Separate Lives for the film White Nights (1985). A duet with Marilyn Martin, the single became an additional Number One for Collins as well as another nominee for an Academy Award (it being a songwriters award, Collins was not nominated). The song had parallels to his first two albums. Writer Stephen Bishop noted that he was inspired by a failed relationship and called Separate Lives a song about anger.
Collins's first film role since becoming a musician came in 1988 with Buster. His rendition of Groovy Kind of Love, originally a 1966 single by The Mindbenders, reached Number One. The film also spawned the hit single Two Hearts, which he wrote in collaboration with legendary Motown songwriter Lamont Dozier. Movie critic Roger Ebert said the role of Buster was played with surprising effectiveness by Collins, although the film's soundtrack proved more successful than the movie.
Collins provided the voices to both Muk and Luk in the 1995 animated feature Balto.Collins's future acting work was considerably smaller than Buster, with only a starring role in 1993's Frauds. He had cameo appearances in Steven Spielberg's Hook (1991) and And the Band Played On (1993). He also supplied voices to two animated features, Balto (1995) and The Jungle Book 2 (2003). A long discussed but never completed pet project was a movie titled The Three Bears. Originally meant to star him alongside Danny DeVito and Bob Hoskins, he often mentioned the film but an appropriate script never materialized.
Collins performed the soundtrack to the animated film Tarzan (1999) for The Walt Disney Company. He won an Oscar for You'll Be in My Heart, which he performed at that year’s telecast as well as during a Disney-themed Super Bowl halftime show. The song, which he also recorded in Spanish among other languages, became his only appearance on Billboard's Hot Latin Tracks. Disney hired him along with Tina Turner in 2003 for the soundtracks to another animated feature film, Brother Bear, and had some airplay with the song Look Through My Eyes.
On television, he twice hosted the Billboard Music Awards. He also appeared in an episode of the series Miami Vice, entitled Phil the Shill, in which he plays a cheating con-man. He also guest starred in several sketches with The Two Ronnies. Most recently, he had a cameo appearance on the television series Whoopi.
In 2001, Collins was sought out by the satirist Chris Morris and appeared in the Brass Eye 'Paedophile Special' endorsing a spoof charity called 'Nonce Sense'. A significant moment from this program is where Collins, dressed in a matching baseball cap and t-shirt emblazoned with the name of this fictitious charity, stares into the camera and declares: ...I'm talking Nonce-sense.
In 2005, Collins work on Brother Bear was expanded as Disney used the song Welcome as the theme for Walt Disney's Parade of Dreams, the main parade celebrating the 50th Anniversary of Disneyland.
In 2006 Disney's Tarzan was adapted for Broadway. Collins contributed 11 new songs and instrumental pieces, and was deeply involved in the production. Unlike the movie, where Collins sang all the material, the characters sang on stage.
Phil Collins as he appears in the video game Grand Theft Auto: Vice City StoriesCollins made an appearance as himself in the 2006 PlayStation Portable and PlayStation 2 video game Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories, set in 1984. He appears in three missions in which you must save him from a gang that is trying to kill him, the final mission occurring during his concert, where the player must defend the scaffolding against saboteurs whilst Phil is simultaneously performing In The Air Tonight. After this, the player is given the opportunity to watch this performance of 'In the Air Tonight.' In The Air Tonight is also featured in the movie Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film For Theaters and the 2007 Gorilla commercial for Cadbury's Dairy Milk chocolate.
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