Matt Glasby’s monthly column How to… turns a sly, critical eye on how the movie world really works. This month: How to… make a movie cameo.
Dying is easy, the saying goes, comedy is hard. But not as hard as making a well-judged cameo. Get it right, and you’ve got an in-joke for the eagle-eyed viewer. But get it wrong and you’ll rip them right out of the movie. Whether it’s a dangerous excess of ego, or a calamitous lack of screen presence, this is shaky ground, so tread lightly—if at all.
Be sure you can act
Cameos by performers are one thing; cameos by sportspeople quite another. Unless your candidate is globally famous, the chances are most movie-goers won’t know who they are (hello, Peyton Manning in You’re Cordially Invited). Even if they are recognisable, spending 30 years hitting a ball/shuttlecock/face is unlikely to have honed their speech and drama skills (hello, David Beckham in King Arthur: Legend of the Sword).
For many reasons, the worst of worst is Mike Tyson in The Hangover. Not just the cameo itself—which Tyson claims he was too wasted to remember—but casting a convicted sex offender who hurts people for a living in a comedy in the first place. Urgh.
Don’t stop the plot
Normally, breaking the fourth wall is a complete no-no. Comedies, however, get special dispensation, as long as you steer back towards the story afterwards. If not, congratulations, you’ve made the Scary Movie franchise.
Happy Gilmore, perhaps Adam Sandler’s greatest work, features a memorable cameo from Bob Barker, host of The Price is Right (“The price is wrong, bitch!”), but—crucially—it doesn’t interrupt the flow. It’s also credit to Zombieland’s ample charm and careful world-building that introducing Bill Murray playing himself feels irreverent rather than indulgent. “So, do you have any regrets?” he is asked. “Garfield, maybe.”
Appear, don’t perform
For some reason, everyone wants to be an actor—including directors. While some, such as Martin Scorsese in Taxi Driver, have the chops to pull off a proper performance, most really, really don’t. So your best bet is to do a David Cronenberg, who pops up as a gynaecologist in The Fly (to make star Geena Davis feel more at ease, apparently), and appear briefly.
The biggest offender for this is Quentin Tarantino—who took acting classes before he became a screenwriter, but makes for a highly self-conscious performer. Whether repeatedly dropping the N-word in Pulp Fiction, or massacring an Australian accent alongside John Jarratt—AKA the most Australian man who ever lived—in Django Unchained, he manages to stop his own films faster than a broken reel.
Stick to the spirit
Alfred Hitchcock’s legendary cameos lend a sense of sly, slightly sinister, fun to his movies—masterpieces of sly, slightly sinister, fun. Normally he’s just passing awkwardly through the shot, but Lifeboat, which takes place entirely in the eponymous vessel, shows him in a newspaper advert for weight loss. Genius.
Stan Lee’s fond Marvel appearances feel more like fan service than fawning. And we love Francis Ford Coppola’s harassed newsreel director bellowing, “Don’t look at the camera! Just go by like you’re fighting!” at bemused soldiers in Apocalypse Now, something he’d spent several years of his life doing for real. Top prize, however, goes to mime Marcel Marceau—the only person to speak in Mel Brooks’s Silent Movie. Mic dropped (quietly).
Leave the ego at the door
Perhaps the purest form of cameo is when people appear in films just because they want to. Daniel Craig, one of the most recognisable actors on the planet, donned a stormtrooper costume for a tiny scene in The Force Awakens. But only Rachel Weisz would have recognised his voice.
Cate Blanchett, proud owner of two Academy Awards, appears as Simon Pegg’s soon-to-be-ex girlfriend in Hot Fuzz. A flawless English accent—and full hazmat suit—conceal her true identity. Pure class.
Don’t cast yourself as the saviour of all mankind
You might have thought it went without saying, but not for M Night Shyamalan. His cameo appearances range from the excellent (The Village), to the inoffensive (The Sixth Sense), to the awful (Signs). But in modern-day fairytale Lady in the Water he casts himself as writer whose work in progress is so significant it’s going to change the world, as opposed to boring the tits off it.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, he spends the entire time looking just past the camera like he realises he’s made a huge error, is cycling through the millions of actors that could have played the part better and/or has just shat himself. Uncomfortable viewing all round.
