Just watched Harold & Kumar, a fun movie in which Neil Patrick Harris shows up. I was wondg, would his part be counted as a cameo, or would he have had to activley work for his role? I mean, he was hardly doing anything else, right? They could have put anyone in there. (Granted, he plays himself, but given the context the role could have went to say, Noah Wyle). And in Mission: Impossible, Emilio Estefez has a small role at the start, but I’m sure that he would have had to audition hard for that part. What counts as a cameo? A famous face taking a small role? In Harold & Kumar, Ryan Reynolds shows up in a small role, but his name appears in the opening credits: I thought cameos were uncredited appearances. Don’t get me started on the so-called frat pack, I don’t rate any of their “Cameo” appearances, as its a given that Luke or Owen Wilson, or Ben Stiller or (Most likely) Will Ferrell will show up. To make my point of what I class as a true cameo appearance, I suggets Sean Connery showing up at the end of Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves
What I do not class as a cameo, is something like the original Starsky and Hutch showing up in the movie remake, to me thats more of an in-joke.
NPH in H&K was not a cameo, if for no other reason than the appearance was too long and it was broken up into at least two segments (perhaps more, it’s been a while since I saw it).
NPH had been away from movies and TV for a while but had a number of significant stage roles. He has a series on TV this fall, “How I Met Your Mother.”
To me, a “cameo” covers a pretty wide range of appearances. I’d call the Glaser/Soul appearance at the end of Starsky & Hutch a cameo and an in-joke; I’d call all of Hitchcock’s non-speaking appearances cameos and in-jokes.
A cameo is designed to make you go “Hey, it’s that guy!”, and then get the heck out of the picture.
The Sean Connery one that the OP listed in a spoiler box pretty much defines cameos for me. Hard as that movie sucked, I must admit that when Connery showed up at the end I think I literally gasped. It was as if me and my idiot friends had gotten together to play touch football, and Joe Montana showed up, said “hey,” and left.
With a good cameo, the film is uplifted a bit, and the star is not demeaned. Like Bob Hope in “Spies Like Us.”
My favorite, thus far, is Bob Hope and Bing Crosby appearing, without lines, in a pan across a crowd in Cecil B. DeMille’s Greatest Show on Earth, during a performance by their “Road” show partner, Dorothy Lamour.
Best tv cameo I ever saw was Steve Martin on SNL in the Tina Fey/Jimmy Fallon news years. He walked onto the news set, stood behind their chairs, and smiled at the camera. They said hi and asked what he was up to, he said, “just doing a walk-on.” They asked how long he would stay, he said just a minute, checked his watch, noted that enough time had passed and walked back out.
O.K. so by this reasoning, its not a cameo if they appear again in the movie? I dont count Will Ferrell showing up in Wedding Crashers as a cameo, because he’s there for the final third of the movie. And correct me if I’m wrong, but isnt a cameo a surprise appearance? Then how does Hitchcock count, as he is expected to appear in all his movies? Ditto M.Night Shyamalan. You just wait for him to appear.
One of my favourite, very definite cameos is Spielberg showing up at the end of
Just saw one: Dustin Hoffman appears in the last sequence of Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events as a theater critic. According to IMDb, the role was uncredited.
I was just sitting here debating with myself whether that was a cameo or not. I think I actually did a double take when I saw him. “Is that…? Nah… It… Yeah!”
His bits in the deleted scenes/outtakes were brilliant.
a. A gem or shell carved in relief, especially one in which the raised design and the background consist of layers of contrasting colors.
b. The technique of carving in this way.
c. A medallion with a profile cut in raised relief.
A brief vivid portrayal or depiction: a literary cameo. 3. A brief appearance of a prominent actor, as in a single scene of a motion picture. Also called cameo role.
Dunno if there’s a better definition out there, but it doesn’t say anything about unexpected or uncredited roles.