10 Major Movie Cameos That You Totally Missed

Arnold Schwarzenegger on a 100 New Dollar bill in The Running Man (2025)Ross Feguson/©Paramount Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection

By Stephen Holland Published 2 minutes ago

Stephen is a Classic Movies writer at Screen Rant. Formerly a reporter for The Irish Independent and The Sligo Champion, he has also been published in other outlets such as the Sunday World, Connacht Tribune, and Knewz.com. With experience covering crime, human-interest, politics, and social justice movements, pop culture and entertainment always stood out as his favorite stories to pursue. Stephen also writes, produces, and presents his own music podcast series on Spotify called Sound Thinking, which explores off-beat or underrepresented genres. This podcast takes a deep dive into the careers of different artists and bands, such as Bob Dylan, David Bowie, and The Kinks.

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It’s always exciting to see our favorite stars pop up unexpectedly in movies, but some cameos are so subtle that audiences might not even clock who they are before their time on screen has come to an end. This can happen through secret cameos where actors don’t even show their faces, or simply brief appearances that came so far out of left field nobody was prepared for them.

The wealth of subtle movie cameos includes major franchises like Star Wars and The Hobbit, as well as auteur-driven cinema from the Coen brothers and Quentin Tarantino. Eagle-eyed viewers who recognized these cameos on first watch can give themselves a pat on the back because they represent some of the most unexpected guest appearances cinema has ever seen.

Daniel Craig In Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015)

Daniel Craig as a stormtrooper looking at a captive Rey in The Force Awakens

As an actor best known for playing the MI6 agent with a license to kill, James Bond, Daniel Craig is among the most recognizable actors on the planet. This makes his appearance as a faceless stormtrooper in The Force Awakens all the more interesting, as, despite being such a huge star, we never got to see the man behind the mask.

Craig shows up in a scene after Rey is taken hostage by the First Order, where he plays the stormtrooper tasked with guarding her cell. As a fan of the space opera series, Craig told BBC Radio 1 that it was his role as James Bond that gave him the “hutzpah” to ask director J.J. Abrams if he could be in the movie.

Jonah Hill In Hail, Caesar! (2016)

Jonah Hill in Hail, Caesar 2016

Hail, Caesar was the Coen brothers' love letter to the behind-the-scenes antics of the Hollywood studio system and featured an all-star cast including George Clooney, Josh Brolin, and Scarlett Johansson. Hidden among this impressive lineup was Jonah Hill in a less than two-minute role where he played the surety agent and professional fall guy employed by Capitol Pictures, Joe Silverman.

As a trusted studio scapegoat, Hill may have been on screen for only a few brief moments, yet his emotionless, deadpan delivery made it absolutely hilarious. Yet, the subtlety of Hill’s role meant that if audiences weren’t paying close attention, they might not even realize it’s him as Silverman was offscreen before there was barely enough time to register his character.

Steve Buscemi In The Wedding Singer (1998)

Steve Buscemi in The Wedding Singer (1998)

While Steve Buscemi made a name for himself in the 1990s in classics like Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs or the Coen brothers' The Big Lebowski, he also found time to fit some hilarious cameos in cult comedies like The Wedding Singer. In an uncredited role, Buscemi popped up alongside Adam Sandler to play an embittered, drunken best man.

Buscemi delivered one of the worst best man speeches imaginable as he talks about hiring prostitutes on a trip to Vegas with his brother before storming off and shouting, “You’ll be divorced in a year.” Buscemi is no stranger to Sandler movies, as they also appeared together in Billy Madison, Big Daddy, and Grown Ups, just to name a few.

Mike Myers In Inglourious Basterds (2009)

Mike Myers in Inglourious Basterds

Inglourious Basterds is truly one of Quentin Tarantino’s most surprising films, as its unexpected ending proved the director wasn’t afraid to change history. With plenty of fantastic performances by all-time great actors like Christoph Waltz, Eli Roth, and Brad Pitt, many might not have noticed a brief appearance from the Canadian comedian Mike Myers.

While Myers is known for classic comedy characters like Austin Powers and Shrek, the Wayne’s World star tapped into his talent for exaggerated Britishness when he played General Fenech on an undercover mission to meet the German film star Bridget von Hammersmark. Caked under old age makeup, if viewers weren’t paying close attention, they might not even realize it's Myers.

Peter Jackson In Hot Fuzz (2007)

Peter Jackson in Hot Fuzz

Plenty of familiar faces pop up across Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, and Edgar Wright's Three Flavors Cornetto trilogy, but there’s one name nobody was expecting to see. That’s The Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson, who appeared very briefly in Hot Fuzz as a thief dressed as Santa Claus.

As an outrageous wildcard who stabs Pegg’s Constable Nicholas Angel in the hand, despite Jackson often making cameos in his own work, it was surprising to see him pop up in the British cult comedy classic. As a true blink-and-you'll-miss-it moment, Jackson’s role in Hot Fuzz stands out as a great piece of movie trivia that most aren’t aware of.

Matt Damon In EuroTrip (2004)

Matt Damon in EuroTrip

Matt Damon truly is the king of surprise cameos, as he’s popped up in everything from Interstellar to Thor: Ragnarok. However, none of these live up to the power of Damon blasting on screen as the pop punk “Scotty Doesn’t Know” singer, a song that catalogs his affair with the lead character's ex-girlfriend.

While there’s a lot about EuroTrip that hasn’t aged well today, looking back, Damon’s brief appearance was a true highlight as his song was a genuine banger. With a shaved head, tattoos, and piercings, you’d be forgiven for not even realizing it was Damon on screen at all.

Donald Trump In Home Alone 2: Lost In New York (1992)

Donald Trump Home Alone 2

We all know Donald Trump as the President of the United States today, but back in 1992, he was better known as a New York businessman and overall media personality. This saw Trump actually encounter Macaulay Culkin’s Kevin McCallister as the owner of the Plaza Hotel, who directs Kevin to the lobby.

This is a cameo that was funny at the time, but becomes absolutely wild in light of Trump’s political future. It’s also not the only time Trump made surprise cameos, as he can be spotted in everything from The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air to Zoolander.

Glenn Close In Hook (1991)

Glenn Close in Hook

Some cameos are so subtle that viewers have to be explicitly told who they are before even realizing they’ve happened. This was certainly the case of Glenn Close’s appearance in Steven Spielberg’s Hook, where she looked almost unrecognizable as a male pirate with a prosthetic beard and everything.

As one of Captain Hook’s pirates who went by the name of Gutless, Close delivered a convincing performance that showcased the woman behind Cruella de Vil truly could play any role. This brief and lesser-known role stands out as it’s actually the only collaboration between Close and Spielberg.

Stephen Colbert In The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug (2013)

Stephen Colbert in The Hobbit

As a lifelong fan of J.R.R. Tolkien and The Lord of the Rings, talk show host Stephen Colbert has never been shy about discussing his love for Middle-earth. This must have meant it was a dream come true when he gained a brief, non-speaking cameo in Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug.

As a gruff Lake-town spy who uses a walking stick to knock on a door, Colbert’s six seconds on screen likely went over a lot of viewers' heads who wouldn’t be expecting to see the host of The Late Show to show up in Tolkien’s fantasy world. Yet, this represents just one of many fascinating hidden details in The Lord of the Rings' movie universe.

Arnold Schwarzenegger In The Running Man (2025)

Arnold Schwarzenegger on a 100 New Dollar bill in The Running Man (2025)Ross Feguson/©Paramount Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection

Everyone knows that Arnold Schwarzenegger starred in the 1980s version of The Running Man, but nobody was expecting him to show up in Edgar Wright’s 2025 version of this Stephen King novel. And, in a way, he didn’t, because Schwarzenegger’s cameo was more subtle as he simply appeared as a presidential figure on the $100 bill in this movie’s universe.

In an interview with Cinema Blend, Wright explained that this was not Schwarzenegger reprising his role as Ben Richards, which had been taken over by Glen Powell, but was set in an alternative world where Schwarzenegger actually becomes the U.S. president. “He’s not Ben Richards, he’s Arnold Schwarzenegger, the president,” Wright said.

Sources: BBC Radio, Cinema Blend

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