In our current era of endlessly self-referential IP-driven entertainment, the cameo is king. In superhero movies, they provide an outlet for actors who just can’t swing the time commitment of a six-movie deal to appear as beloved characters for a scene or two before disappearing forever or getting killed off. (They make up basically the entirety of Deadpool & Wolverine’s plot.)
In others, the cameo serves a variety of purposes. Celebrities often cameo as themselves to give movies a certain real-world edge. Actors will sometimes use cameos to play against type, appearing as a character they otherwise would never play. Characters from certain movies of franchises can appear in other movies, connecting them together in a shared universe. Cameos are often used to stunt-cast actors who wouldn’t have been able to do the whole movie, instead popping up for a scene, absorbing the applause from the audience, and then bowing out to let the movie continue.
The best types of cameos happen totally unexpectedly, where an actor is cast for a role seemingly at random, to the audience’s astonishment, having their bizarre yet hilarious moment and then disappearing again. Our favorites tend to be the ones that, at first glance, have pretty much nothing to do with the plot and everything to do with how funny it is that, for example, they got David Bowie to show up for a movie that mercilessly skewers the high fashion industry. These are the most random, and often funniest, cameos in all of film.
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