The other day, flicking through the channels, not wanting something too taxing for the brain, we stumbled across Submerged! This was a typical straight to DVD action vehicle from Steven Seagal and also featured Vinnie Jones as a good guy!
What really caught our attention was when Seagal was getting his team together, he called on Damita, a martial arts girl, played by Alison King. She was none other than Carla Connor from Mrs. BMAF’s TV soap of choice, Coronation Street. It was great as we were not expecting it and whilst not a cameo as such, it did get us thinking of others we’ve seen on screen!
You can’t have a Marvel film without a Stan Lee cameo, furthermore, Ang Lee’s version of the Hulk featured a cameo from TV’s Hulk, Lou Ferigno.
Remakes often do this to have a connection to the original, Starsky & Hutch saw Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson meet Paul Michael Glaser and David Soul; The A-Team had cameos from original Face and Murdock, Dirk Benedict & Dwight Schultz; In Maverick, Mel Gibson starred opposite the original Maverick, James Garner, it also had a cameo from Mel’s Lethal Weapon buddy Danny Glover and most recently, Johnny Depp left TV’s 21 Jump Street for the film 21 Jump Street .
Casper maybe a friendly ghost, but that didn’t stop Dan Aykroyd doing a cameo as Ghostbusters Stantz; Star Wars: The Force Awakens gave us a cameo with Daniel Craig being a Stormtrooper and another James Bond 007, Sean Connery turned up as King Richard in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves
Big blockbuster movies now feature cameos from different countries TV newsreaders to make those disasters look even more real! many a film will now feature London being attacked and a Sky News presenter giving out the details on screen.
Comedy is a great place to look for cameos, Tom Cruise was great in both Tropic Thunder and as Austin Powers in Goldmember; Bill Murray stole Zombieland; Martin Sheen turned up in Hot Shots! Part Deux; John Hurt gave birth to another Alien in Mel Brooks Spaceballs; Chuck Norris was in Dodgeball and Anchorman 2 had cameos from everyone, from the likes of Harrison Ford to Jim Carrey!
Music can also be used for Cameos; One of our favourite bands The Subways perform in RocknRolla; Dave Grohl in the Tenacious D movie Pick of Destiny and as part of the Moopets in the Muppets; Daft Punk in Tron: Legacy; Kiss in Detroit Rock City and even ZZ Top in Back to the Future III
Appearing in both Dark Shadows and even more memorable for telling us the history of Milwaukee, Alice Cooper in Wayne’s World. It’s sequel would also see Wayne and Garth hang out with Aerosmith, a scene we now recall more for the fact that Breaking Bad’s Saul Goodman (Bob Odenkirk) is hanging out backstage as well
Probably the oddest cameo we have seen was Jean Claude Van Damme before hitting it big with Kickboxer, he can be seen dancing in the film Breakin, here’s a clip from Youtube
So there you have it, just a few of our favourite cameos on screen, but what are yours? We would love to hear from you here at Barking Mad about Films
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