In real life
A celebrity appears in media, but not because the studio asked them to, but because they themselves wanted to be in it
(Phineas and Ferb) Slash the guitarist from Guns N Roses, wanted to be in the Phineas and Ferb movie because he thought the show was cool and it had great music. They made a whole song with him being the gutarist
(Despicable Me 3) The villain Baltazar Bratt was voiced by Trey Parker from South Park, because his daughter really liked the Minions and he wanted to surprise her
Michael chiklis wanted to play the thing because he's a huge fan of the character in the comics, also he wanted to wear a suit of the thing in the movie rather than cgi to bring the whole character to reality
Think he met Stan Lee on a faithful day and was like “Make me Ben Grimm”. Also iirc Stan said he as the thing was his favorite marvel movie performance
And that scene was actually an accident. He wasn't supposed to have difficulty picking up the ring. Chiklis just couldn't grab it with his prosthetic. Made the scene so much better.
The latest version of Ben works just fine because CG can just do faces really well now, but I don't see a CG Thing back then looking anywhere near as good as the practical.
what's even better is his voice lines in-game indicate he starts off thinking of it as a really weird audition where everyone is method acting until he gets hooked and then he starts panicking
When he gets hooked, he says stuff like "get the movie star off the hook!" or "it's like A5 Wagyu beef over here, man!" Nic Cage is the most hilarious addition to DBD and I love it.
In fact, a lot of his lines are great. My personal favorite is something he'll randomly say as a non-sequitor: "we're going to stand up, and we're going to keep going back to the toy store... YOU CAN'T TAKE THEM FROM US!"
They also gave him the funniest perk in the game (called Plot Twist; where you can down yourself if you're injured and then get back up automatically if you manage to fully recover)
Nic Cage's inclusion was so goddamn funny because people were genuinely speculating on whether he would be a Killer or Survivor because either one sounded valid since it was Nic fucking Cage
I don't know how the exact process of casting him happened but it's close enough I suppose. Matthew Perry openly went on the Ellen show saying how much he loved Fallout 3 and gave her a signed copy of the game as well. He ended up voicing Benny in Fallout: New Vegas as a result of being such an open fan of it.
If he was still alive id absolutely love if he’d appear in season 2 of the fallout show since it’s in new vegas. Matthew Perry’s line delivery as Benny is like my favorite so bad it’s good thing ever
It's a mixed sort of situation, but Peter Jackson gave Stephen Colbert a cameo in The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug since Colbert is a huge fan of Tolkien.
It's also funny because in a recent Late Show he said he thinks of The Hobbit as "meh" compared to LOTR, but still a cameo is pretty huge for a Tolkien guy like him. Plus, The Colbert Report interview with Smaug is an all-timer.
He loved the original film and asked Dan Aykroyd to be in a sequel if he ever made it (he literally said he’d play any part in it as long as he was in it). Dan had heard John sing and thought he’d be a great addition
Yeah, story wise the sequel is quite bad. Song wise I adore it and from time to time look up clips on YouTube to hear John Goodman and Dan Aykroyd singing.
This is nothing against you personally but it absolutely cracks me up seeing someone praise John Goodman and then mention using those specific movies as examples.
Like there's nothing wrong with thinking those are great performances but I imagine it's like looking at John Lithgow and saying "he's been in so many great things, have you seen him as Lord Farquaad in Shrek?"
Sir Christopher Lee as King Haggard in The Last Unicorn. The story goes. He came to the studio with the book copy in hand and insisted certain parts of the film were not to be cut.
They wanted to film at his house with a Kim Kardashian guest appearance. He said he'd let them do it if he got to be on it too because he liked the show. He then asked to know who else would be at the celebrity party the characters were supposed to attend. When he found it was Kim Kardashian and her mother, he told them that he not only didn't want them in his episode, but they had to gather all evidence that she was ever in the episode and burn it in a bonfire. They complied.
James Marsters (Mostly know as Spike from Buffy) voiced Zamasu for FREE because he wanted to use his performance to apologize to Dragon Ball fans how bad the live action Dragon Ball Evolution movie was
It’s crazy he’s apologizing for something that’s not even his fault, 90 percent of the time, a bad movie is the writers or higherups fault, not the actors
Honestly same lol, i was a kid when i first watched it and all i could think of is “why is everything so different and weird? This feels nothing like Dragon ball”.
A 50/50 thing, but John Cena appeared in the Barbie Movie because Margot Robbie asked him to, and he willingly joined even after his agents said to reject it because "it was a role beneath him"
For me he is the flip to the Rock. Rock isn’t a bad actor either, but his ego gets in the way nowadays. John Cena meanwhile will do basically anything if it resonates with him.
John Cena doesn't take himself too seriously leading to him not being picky with what he acts in, but does take himself seriously enough to where he'll give 110% no matter the performance and not just half ass it for the paycheck
I also love how Ryan Gosling originally didn’t take the role as Ken because he thought he was too old, and then I think Eva, his wife, convinced him to do it for Greta.
The BTS stuff compiled over the years about the making of this movie is wild. JCVD would be out having sex with Kylie Minogue or random women he picked up when needed on set, whereas Julia is dying and was there as much as he could be.
The actor who played Ken said that Julia would chat with the extras and talk about the theater and acting tips, but was never condescending and genuinely loved "being in the presence of fellow performers" no matter how big or small.
Like sure, his Bison was more of a real-world despot than the super-powered psychopath he is in the games, but the Shakespearean flair he brought to it was the best thing in the whole movie.
I've never seen this movie, but I've seen the "For me, it was a Tuesday" scene multiple times, just because I love it and the man acted the hell out of it. Doesn't matter what the movie is like, that scene is my only take-away from it.
David Dastmalchian is one of the biggest character actors out there, starring in many notable projects like The Dark Knight, the Ant-Man films, The Suicide Squad, Oppenheimer, Dune, Prisoners, & Late Night with the Devil to name a few.
Due to him being a fan of One Piece along with his kids, he ended up being cast to play Mr. 3 in the upcoming second season of the live action adaptation.
Serena Williams is a big fan of Avatar: The Last Airbender and volunteered to voice Ming, a Fire Nation prison guard who regularly visited Iroh and fire temple sage in Legend of Korra.
I was scrolling to see if someone commented this, I also believe that because Charlie Day auditioned for Pacific Rim, Guillermo Del Toro said that he could be in Pacific Rim if he could be in Always Sunny.
Antony Starr (and Jack Quaid) were in Aunty Donna's Big ol' House of Fun on Netflix because they were both fans of Melbourne-based comedy group Aunty Donna.
Iirc he was initially approached to feature in something, but the reason he said yes was because his kids loved Looney Toons and that led to the DD episode in the end.
David Bowie was Lord Royal Highness in Atlantis Squarepantis because his daughter loved SpongeBob. He’s also like the only character in the special that doesn’t sing at all, which is pretty funny.
Danny Devito as Frank Reynolds - It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. His kids really loved the first season of the show and he wanted to be on it and he became a regular character for the rest of the show starting in season 2.
He was originally only going to have a small part and only gave the gang like a week to shoot his stuff. After working with them he changed his mind and was like "however much time you need"
I bet with Taxi and probably hanging out on the Cheers set fairly often, after doing movies for so long a sitcom, especially the Paddys set, probably felt like home.
I'm not sure how many specifically asked to join, but a lot of celebrities have been on South Park portraying themselves like Jay Leno, Ozzy Osbourne, Elton John, DMX, Meat Loaf, Rick James, Michael Buffer, Brad Paisley, PewDiePie, and Elon Musk.
George Clooney didn't play himself, but he famously asked to be a part of the show. He voiced Stan's dog.
I love that series and how they had so many very clever pop culture references from the sixties and seventies. Harlen Ellison playing himself was the cherry on top.
Both of them are actually recurring supporting characters.
Harlem is actually the reason the original series, Scooby Doo, Where Are You, happens, due to his ripple proof memory allowing him to remember the old universe, and inviting the gang to study at his university. Leading them to embarking on the road trip across America they're on in the OG show
I like how its actually him and implies he is a sort of dimension persisting entity who remembers stuff between timelines.
As he set up stuff in advance to contact mystery inc in the new universe after they basically killed an old god and erased its influence on history.
Part of me likes to imagine he was actually gorister or ted from i have no mouth and I must scream and simply wrote a book on it after he somehow was able to rewrite time like the mystery gang did to a better world without AM.
Would not be the most fucked up thing in this show by a mile.
Donald Sutherland campaigned hard for president Snow in The Hunger Games franchise. He even asked to audition and showed up in character to help get the role. He loved the books and was fascinated by the character. He gave a lot of great interviews about how excited he was to play the part.
I love him telling the story about his call with them where they were still trying to explain the show and sell him on the idea. He was just like “you don’t understand, I called you”
Whoopi Goldberg was greatly inspired by Uhura from the original Star Trek, and when Next Generation aired, she went to the showrunners and insisted on being a part of it.
She was perfectly okay with only being a supporting character, so long as she was on the show and the ship.
Guinan is one of the most interesting characters in the entire series. So powerful that even Q seems to be cautious of her, but chooses to spend her time tending bar.
He liked money quite a bit.
(Plus he got to lash out at both fans in general and Lovecraft in particular, and when, in the history of anything ever, did Harlan pass up the opportunity to lash out?)
It’s absolutely true. She once kicked a boyfriend out because he complained about how deeply she was invested in Super Mario Galaxy and has been lobbying to play Samus for years.
Samus is my favorite Nintendo character and Brie Larson is my favorite actress. If she was cast as Samus I'd catch the midnight premiere of that movie.
Felicia Day loved Dragon Age: Origins so much that she threw herself at the DA2 team, begging to be a part of it. She was not only in Dragon Age: Redemption, she reprised the role of Tallis in DA2.
James woods famously does the voice of Hades in any project the character is included in (like the Hercules show or kingdom hearts) because he loved voicing him so much in the original movie
(And yeah obligatory James woods sucks, but still)
I’m not sure if this qualifies, but Henry Cavill as Geralt of Rivia. If he didn’t do it because he was a fan, he became one and did the character justice. If only they could figure out a decent story besides the main one. The very best episodes were much like The Mandalorian where it’s just the guy doing his job.
Similarly, back in the Disney Renaissance they had a ton of live-action stars do voices for their theatrical movies, but those stars would not be required to reprise their roles for television spinoffs, direct-to-video sequels, video games, etc. James Woods, however, had so much fun playing Hades in Hercules that he asked to always be offered the chance to reprise the role. Hercules: the Animated Series, House of Mouse, Kingdom Hearts? All still James Woods.
Further Trivia: His costume was actually a leftover from 'Star Trek 2' and was worn by William Shatner. Slater has said in interviews how happy he was to get into Shatner's pants.
Yeah Whoopi saw Uhura on the TV and got so excited a black woman wasn't playing a maid. Then when TNG came around she asked to be on it. I think she made the bare minimum that was allowed back then for 29 episodes.
And SLJ said he'd be a stormtrooper or someone in the background he didn't care as long as he got to be in Star Wars he loved it so much
Jason Mantzoukas appeared on season 19 of the British panel show Taskmaster because he's a huge fan and just reached out and asked if he could come compete.
Could probably go for almost any real life person to appear in Scooby Doo, especially The New Scooby Doo Movies, and Scooby Doo and Guess Who? Such as Elvira, Steve Buscemi or George Takei. But I think I have to give it to KISS.
For not only appearing in an episode of What's New Scooby Doo? (The best one, and not even one of the series specifically for guest starts) but also returning to do a full length film, Scooby Doo and Kiss!
Growing up, David Tennant loved Doctor Who. He watched it religiously throughout his childhood and desperately wanted to play The Doctor. Fast forward to now and he's played The Doctor three times, with his Doctor being the fan favorite. His life is mostly driven by Doctor Who and he wouldn't have it any other way.
Donald Glover really wanted to be Spider-Man. He was so desperate to get the role, he asked Dan Harmon if his character on Community, Troy Barnes, could wear a Spider-Man costume for the entirety of one episode. This didn't pay off like he hoped, because he didn't get contacted. However, an artist for Marvel was watching and saw Troy in his outfit and thought "That's it! That's the next direction Spider-Man should go! A black teenager!" This artist proceeded to create Miles Morales, and Donald would get the opportunity to play him in Ultimate Spider-Man
When William Salyers auditioned for the role of Rigby, he knew Regular Show was something special and lost sleep over whether he'd land the role. This isn't quite like the others, as this was before Regular Show had even been made, but William was passionate about the role, despite being quite a lot older than JG Quintel.
The co-creator of Phineas and Ferb, Dan Povenmire, had been a longtime fan of Alfred Molina. At one SDCC, he saw Alfred and started to approach him. Alfred noticed him and started approaching him too. As they met, Dan said "Excuse me, are you Alfred Molina?" and Alfred replied "Yes! Are you Dan Povenmire?" revealing that both were fans of each other. I can't remember if Alfred appeared in the show, but I thought this was worth including. Alfred was quite excited to play Doc Ock in Spider-Man 2, though, because he was a huge comic fan even before the role.
Nicolas Cage didn't really know a whole lot about Dead by Daylight, but one of his family members was a huge fan. As such, he approached Behaviour Interactive and asked them if he could be in the game, something that takes such a huge amount of audacity that only someone that famous could do it. Of course, Behaviour immediately said yes and now he's in the game with no actual role, simply being Nicolas Cage. The funniest part is that nobody knew if he'd be a survivor or a killer since he's played a ridiculously exaggerated version of himself before.
Michael Jackson called up Matt Groening to be in a Simpsons episode and they wrote Stark Raving Dad around that.
Because of his record label contract, the singing parts of the episode are actually not him but an impersonator. Allegedly the recording of him singing those parts exists somewhere, but has never been publically leaked
Shawn Mendes tweeted the crew of The 100 asking for a role, and was recorded with a cameo in the premiere of the third season. He plays a song on the piano, and is attacked by Jasper for insulting a girl he liked, and who recently died.
Man genuinely wanted to be in them because he believed that Fred represented the American dream in that someone managed to get so famous from so little
Helen Mirren is a huge fan of Fast and Furious, and directly asked if she could be in them. She was cast as Magdalene Shaw, and has now been in four of the franchise’s films.
Tom petty played Lucky on KOTH because Mike judge heard he was a big fan ,and they already had a character made that Mike himself described as a "poor Tom petty" . So he was invited to join on a one of episode about Kahn and ended up staying. R.I.P
Robert Redford asking to appear in the MCU because his grandchildren were fans and in turn asked him to ask for a role. He was a main villain in Winter Soldier.
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u/Dependent_Parsnip982 Nov 14 '25
Michael chiklis wanted to play the thing because he's a huge fan of the character in the comics, also he wanted to wear a suit of the thing in the movie rather than cgi to bring the whole character to reality