Don’t blink, or you might miss your favorite star: 2002 is shaping up to be the Year of the Cameo, and we’re not talking about the 1980s R&B group that sang “Word Up.”
No, we’re talking about those unexpected movie moments in which a well-known celebrity or the occasional behind-the-scenes contributor shows up in a teeny, tiny walk-on role–frequently adding a dose of verisimilitude to the action, providing a built-in sight gag, or derailing a scene by distracting the audience.
Whatever the effect, filmmakers are slippin’ cameos in at a rate that would even snap the suspenders of veteran bit-player Larry King (who’s played himself in some 20 films, including this year’s John Q). Hollywood.com has your guide to some of the more intriguing celeb drive-by moments in recent and upcoming films.
George Lucas would probably call Jimmy Smits as Senator Bail Organa in Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones a “developing character” like Samuel L. Jackson‘s Mace Windu in the trilogy’s first installment, but we’d call the former NYPD Blue actor’s miniscule role a cameo. Anthony Daniels as the foppish C-3P0 is one of the film’s featured players, but he also shows us a glimpse of the face under the golden droid mask with a seconds-long appearance in the Coruscant bar. Harder to catch is the vocal cameo by Liam Neeson as Qui-Gon Jinn, whose ghostly calls of “Anakin!” can be heard during Yoda’s meditation.
The notorious N’Sync Jedi battle cameo caused so much backlash it had to go bye-bye-bye (maybe to return on DVD?), but Lucas couldn’t resist casting his own kids Amanda (as a pink Twi’lek girl) and Jett (as a child Jedi under Yoda’s training) in bit parts.
Some of the cameos in Spider-Man are expected: There’s director Sam Raimi‘s brother, Ted , as J. Jonah Jameson’s flunky Hoffman; there’s his Evil Dead star Bruce Campbell as the flamboyant wrestling ring announcer, and–Excelsior!–there’s the web-head’s comic book creator Stan “The Man” Lee saving a little girl from falling debris. Lee will return to the screen, if only fleetingly, in upcoming films based on the characters he created: The Hulk, X-Men 2 and Daredevil, in which he shares a scene with film maker/comic book writer Kevin Smith (in whose Mallrats Lee made a quick cameo). Smith’s character is a lab assistant named Jack Kirby, a nod to the artist best known for collaborating with Lee.
Less expected to be tangled in Spidey’s web were Macy Gray performing in the concert scene, or, bizarrely, Viacom CEO Sumner Redstone as one of Oscorp’s shareholders (the film was made by Viacom rival Sony).
And wasn’t there something REALLY familiar about the Punk Rock Girl who, when asked about Spidey, purrs, “Guy with eight hands. Sounds hot”? That’s because it was an incognito superhero: Lucy Lawless, whose show Xena: Warrior Princess was exec produced by Raimi.
The multiplex mini-moments continue, some successful, some not. In Scooby-Doo, Pamela Anderson plays a toy company owner (she has always been good with synthetics) and the band Sugar Ray and lead singer Mark McGrath plays himself possessed by demons (now that’s acting!), but it’s a CGI cameo by Scrappy-Doo that steals the show.
Another animated superstar makes a surprise appearance in Disney’s Lilo & Stitch: Dumbo, star of one of the last cartoon features to be done in watercolor, as Lilo is.
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Minority Report features Tom Cruise‘s Jerry Maguire and Vanilla Sky director Cameron Crowe returning a favor to director Steven Spielberg (who cameoed in Sky) by playing a man reading a newspaper who recognizes Cruise’s character from the headline. Crowe’s so effective in the dialogue-less role, you might just miss the woman seated behind him: it’s another Sky alum named Cameron, Miss Diaz to you.
You probably won’t recognize screenwriter Scott Frank playing a “Conceited Customer” but wait–isn’t that former Dawson’s Creek cutie Meredith Monroe in a split-second part as a Pre-Crime public service announcer? Let’s hope that was a cameo and not indicative of where her career stands at the moment.
In the “you’ve gotta have friends” category, Rob Schneider repays his buddy Adam Sandler for exec producing all of Schneider’s recent comedies by cameoing as a homeless man in Mr. Deeds. Dana Carvey stars in this summer’s Sandler-produced Master of Disguise, which also features cameos by soon-to-be-former Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura, playing himself, and still-perfect ’10’ Bo Derek.
After working together on Out of Sight and Ocean’s Eleven, George Clooney and director Steven Soderbergh have formed one of the tightest friendships in Hollywood, going so far as to open a production company together, Section Eight. As a result, the company’s upcoming films are filled with all sorts of surprise appearances from friends and former co-stars.
Soderbergh’s Full Frontal features a cameo by Ocean’s‘ Brad Pitt as himself (intriguingly, Pitt look-alike Brad Rowe is also in the film), while director David Fincher plays, appropriately, a director. Most interesting, Terence Stamp will appear as a character named “Wilson”–which was the name of his character in the Soderberg-directed 1999 film The Limey. Even Ocean’s producer Jerry Weintraub has a walk-on.
Weintraub returns on screen in the Clooney-directed Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, which will also briefly spotlight Pitt and his Ocean’s co-star Matt Damon as game show contestants on The Gong Show. And Clooney himself makes a reportedly hilarious appearance as a as a crippled safe breaker in the Section Eight-produced Welcome to Colinwood.
Other upcoming cameos are crafted to lend an air of reality to a film’s setting and subject matter. The basketball-themed Like Mike starring Bow Wow drafted a host of NBA superstars, including Chris Webber, Jason Kidd, Allen Iverson, Karl Malone, Alonzo Mourning, Gary Payton, David Robinson and Rashid Wallace.
Undercover Brother offers up kidnapping plot victim James Brown playing himself as the Godfather of Soul, sayin’ it loud: he’s black and he’s proud.
Disney’s The Country Bears has a musical backdrop, thus it offers up the otherwise unlikely combo of Don Henley, Queen Latifah, Willie Nelson, Brian Setzer, Bonnie Raitt and Elton John appearing as themselves.
For its cameos, Star Trek: Nemesis will thrill old school Trekkies by beaming in characters from the vast tapestry of its well-established universe. Voyager‘s Kate Mulgrew will reprise her role as Kathryn Janeway, newly promoted to Admiral upon her return from the Delta Quadrant, Whoopi Goldberg is back aboard as the enigmatic Guinan, and Susan Gibney will appear as Starfleet scientist Dr. Leah Brahms, a pivotal character in a pair of Next Generation episodes. Outside the Trek canon, Patrick Stewart‘s X-Men director Bryan Singer found himself taking orders from Stewart for a change when he agreed to play a Bridge Officer.
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She hasn’t filmed her scene yet, but Madonna will briefly become a Bond Girl in Die Another Day, the latest kiss-kiss-bang-bang entry in the 007 opus (contrary to rumor, she doesn’t share a lip-lock with Halle Berry). Meanwhile, was Men in Black II typecasting when–playing off a throwaway joke in the first film–it tapped the King of Pop himself, Michael Jackson, as an undercover alien officer? (Jackson’s PR reps have confirmed his appearance but not the role.)
Finally, when it comes to star-powered cameos, no film raises the bar to more shagadelic heights than Austin Powers in Goldmember. Following in the tradition of the second film, the third installment has promised a plethora of superstar walk-ons in step with the most of-the-moment pop cultural zeitgeist, including Tom Cruise, Gwyneth Paltrow, Kevin Spacey, Britney Spears, Ozzy Osbourne, Steven Spielberg, Danny DeVito, Quincy Jones, Fred Savage and Katie Couric.
And while nothing formal has been announced, rumors have long persisted that Mike Myers and Co. were hoping to shag–er, snag at least one incarnation of the original sexy superspy: Bond, James Bond. And now that 007’s studio MGM has amicably resolved its title dispute and given Austin back his Goldmember, does that mean there’s a chance the film could feature a glimpse of Pierce Brosnan, Sean Connery or Roger Moore alongside Mr. Powers? We can only hope that the answer is “Yeah, baby, yeah!”
