Casting Quirks
War stories from the casting trenches of Hollywood.
      by Julie Ng

THE ART OF MAKING A GOOD CAMEO APPEARANCE

Cameo role n. -- A brief but noticeable role in a film. Such roles are sometimes played by popular performers who make "guest appearances".

I believe that the original concept of the cameo was to consist of a big shot movie star mugging for the camera -- just long enough to be seen and to attract an audience to the film, but then before you knew it, they were out of there. Cameos today usually go uncredited and are so abundant and fleeting that most of them are wholly unoriginal. If they aren't interesting, no one's gonna care about them. On the other hand, if they are, then they deserved by to written about in The 11th Hour...

X-Files star David Duchovny appeared as Handsome Alvin on Space: Above & Beyond.

MOST BIZARRE DUO CAMEO
In a last ditch effort to try to increase the weak ratings of Space: Above and Beyond, Fox claimed to be willing to pay for a big celebrity guest star in the episode, "R&R". Of all the people in the world, they got gangsta rapper Coolio, who played the host of a giant pleasure ship called Bacchus. Also on this ship was David Duchovny, playing the role of Handsome Alvin EL 51583, a computer-programmed pool shark. He had to wear thick contact lenses that would make his eyes look like cross-hairs, an attribute of his AI character. They irritated his eyes a great deal, but what's a little pain for a friend? Duchovny played the part as a favour to his former X-Files buddies, Glen Morgan and Jim Wong (those names again!), but he wanted nothing to do with marketing ploys -- they could not use his name to advertise the episode and he didn't want be credited at the beginning or end. They had to respect his wishes, but unfortunately, as a result, hardly anyone knew about it and the low ratings continued.

SHORTEST CAMEO
As it has been proven again and again, today's hopelessly unknown thespian could be tomorrow's leading man. Take Willem Dafoe, for example, in a pseudo-cameo in The Hunger (1983). Initiated by Catherine Deneueve into the delights of vampirism, Susan Sarandon starts to suffer symptoms of illness. She tries to call a fellow medic from the phone booth and is startled by Dafoe, who barks out, "Hey, how 'bout it lady?!" Try not to blink. He only had a mere two seconds of screen time. As they saying goes, everyone's gotta start somewhere, right?

Werner Herzog is one of a sea of faces in What Dreams May Come.

NEARLY IMPOSSIBLE TO SEE CAMEO
For the most part, cameos tend to be inside jokes, which filmmakers like to amuse themselves with. Take filmmakers Joel and Ethan Coen. While they were making Fargo, Bruce Campbell lobbied to be in the movie. In the end, they managed to get him in. You know the TV set that Steve Buscemi constantly whacks to get a signal out of, while hiding out in his cabin? If you look closely, the guy who periodically appears out of the snowy television static looks suspiciously like a very young Bruce Campbell. "The TV clip you caught me in is from a cheesy soap opera called Generations shot in good 'ol Detroit back in 1982," Campbell divulges. "I had to dig through the attic to find it!"

FREAKIEST DIRECTOR CAMEO
When Robin Williams descends into Hell in search of his wife in What Dreams May Come he discovers that the journey there is not paved with good intentions, but with a sea of ill-fated faces, all bitter and complaining. One face begins to yell at him angrily turns out to be his father. This dirty head belongs to German artsy director, Werner Herzog, who made a haunting remake of Nosferatu the Vampyre in 1979.

MOST PERFECTLY CAST DIRECTOR CAMEO
Without a doubt, this goes to Michael Bay (director of The Rock and Armageddon) as a member of the evil "Frat Boys" in last year's Mystery Men. Here, Bay showcases himself as the leader of a team of bratty, obnoxious college fraternity brothers who throw a keg party for the city's evil supergroups.

Bruce Campbell appeared on a television screen in Fargo.

MOST IRONIC CAMEOS
What do Sam Raimi, David Cronenberg, Joe Dante, George Lucas, Steven Speilberg, Frank Oz, Joel Coen, Terry Gilliam, Lawrence Kasdan, and Ray Harryhausen have in common? They're all great genre filmmakers. They've also all cameoed as everyday schmucks in John Landis films, from An American Werewolf in London to Spies Like Us to Beverly Hills Cop III. The only other director I know of whose signature was to cast directors in his own movies was Alfred Hitchcock, who would cast himself and became notorious for his own little walk-on cameos. Landis also pays homage to yet another genius, Stanley Kubrick, by including the line "See you next Wednesday" in every one of his films. This is a line used in a phone call from orbit in 2001: A Space Odyssey.

The irony lies in the fact while he associates himself with all these great filmmakers, he is a three-time Razzie award nominee for 'Worst Director' and often panned by critics for his awful movies and low-brow humour. This is the guy who made Animal House, which did indeed spawn a nasty list of copycat "youth comedies" that were the nightmare of every critic to have to watch. I wait for the day that John Landis makes a stand-out film of his own.

So, you've finally reached the end and golly gee, aren't you better person for it? Not really, eh? These tidbits of trivia might make a decent $500,000 question if there were ever a movie-themed Who Wants To Be a Millionnaire?, but otherwise, that's about it. In an attempt to score brownie points from our editor, Sarah, I was originally going to try to conclude this feature by explaining how all of these casting quirks revolve around a Shirtless Kevin Bacon. He is, after all, the hub of the entire Acting Universe, or so the Oracle of Bacon tells me. But I've got other fish to fry. I'll leave that with you to mull over for yourselves. The first person who can connect every actor used as an example in this feature (Heike Brandstatter excluded) to Kevin Bacon in 50 degrees or less... has waaaay too much time on their hands. But contact me with a correct answer and you'll win a prize. Seriously, folks!

11th Hour would like to note that the following sources were used in this article: Christopher Heard's Dreaming Aloud: The Life and Films of James Cameron; Richard Helm's "Talented outspoken Rennie is so un-Canadian he's instantly likable", taken from the Edmonton Journal; and Chris Rodley's Lynch on Lynch.

We welcome your comments on The 11th Hour and this feature. Please send letters to: letters@the11thhour.com

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