Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
The Clare Byrne Show on Newstalk with Aviva Insurance.
Chapter 2: What inspired John Fardy to explore film cameos?
Well, the new Devil Wears Prada film has some great cameos. People like Lady Gaga and Heidi Klum pop up in it and it has inspired Screen Time's John Fardy to explore some of the best cameos in film. And John is with me now, having done all of his research under his arm. What? Oh, wait. Yeah, OK. Yeah, that's what you're supposed to do, John. What qualifies as a cameo?
Like, what is it? Define. And like, were they on screen long enough? So really, it's certainly no longer than five minutes, but often it's 30 seconds or something like that. It's just a flash of a face. But I guess it can't be a main character or even a supporting character. And they work best when it's like, oh my God, was that just, you know? So Exhibit A, this one every time gets me.
Tom Cruise, who's, you know, a great actor, great movie maker, but quite controlling of his image, it's fair to say. I think that's fair. and all that goes with it. I still can't get over the fact that he played a character called Les Grossman, who is this movie executive who is horrible, overweight, bald. It was really hard to find a clip without profanities and I struggled.
But he's the executive on a movie called Tropic Thunder, which is meant to be this movie set in Vietnam where all these... egomaniacal actors go away and they're going to make this Vietnam movie and it all falls apart. And in the background from the States is this character, Les Grossman, basically cursing at everyone. Have a little flavor.
That's me, sir. It's good to finally meet you at last. Get some face time.
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Chapter 3: What qualifies as a cameo in film?
And who here is a key grip? You. Hit that director in the face. Really thin hard. Ow, ow, ow. This is your fault. F*** the money bed, my friend.
Tom Cruise. Is this not Tom Cruise telling us that he's fun and he's nice and he's a bit of a cracker? Absolutely.
And most of these cameos are because you're kind of endeared towards people when they do this. I can't help but thinking. So it's often a win-win for them because they seem kind of cool. And sometimes... they're completely sending their public image up, which is quite clever. Now, the master of this, to my mind, to turn to TV, was what Ricky Gervais was able to get out of people in extras.
You know, you had Kate Winslet going, oh, I'm only doing this so I can win an Oscar. Ben Stiller going, well, Starsky and Hutch made 47 million, what do you know, like an endless supply. But the daddy of them all was the late, great
David Bowie sitting in a club with his character in Extras, Ricky Gervais' Andy Millmount, who's having a lot of commercial success for this new sitcom he's in, but critically it's being lambasted. He meets David Bowie in this nightclub and thinks, you know, artist to artist, I'll share my pain with him. It doesn't quite go that way.
Not going down too well, huh? It's getting six million viewers. I mean, it's not exactly how I meant it to be, because the BBC have interfered and sort of chased ratings and made it the lowest common denominator sort of comedy, catchphrases and wigs. I think I've sold out, to be honest. Yeah.
It's difficult, isn't it, to keep your integrity when you're going for that first little... Little fat man who sold his soul.
The little... Little fat man who sold his dream. Chubby little loser. Chubby little loser. National joke. No, not chubby little loser. No. Pathetic little fat man. No one's bloody laughing. The clown that no one laughs at. They all just wish he'd die. He's so depressed at being useless, the fat man takes his own life.
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Chapter 4: How did Tom Cruise's cameo in Tropic Thunder stand out?
No, no. He's so depressed at being hated, Fatty takes his own life. Fatty? Fatso? Fatso. I like Fatso. Yeah, let's go with Fatso. Fatso takes his own life, he blows his bloated face off. No. He blows his stupid brains out. But that's what I'd probably miss. Yes, Linda, I like that.
Yeah, so do I. It's brilliant, Linda.
He sold his soul for a shot at fame. Yeah, he wins. I think he does, doesn't he? And the funny thing is Gervais said, you know, when they talked David Bowie into him and they agreed what the setup was going to be, he said to, Gervais said to Bowie, so, you know, play a song on the piano about me and kind of in the vein of Life on Mars. And David Bowie said...
OK, I'll just write another Life on Mars for you then. But in fairness, Bowie took it well. Bowie was also in Zoolander and a couple of other things. He enjoys, God bless him, God rest him. He used to enjoy sending himself up a bit.
I wonder, was that scripted? Like, did they just say, do a thing, here's your rough guide?
I don't know, do we? No, they do. It was certainly scripted to a large extent. But Bowie did write the music and him and Gervais worked on it together. But it remains the par excellence, the cameos, I have to say.
We're going to talk about Hitchcock now appearing in almost all of his films. I think when you do it almost all of the time, it starts to lose its power. Possibly.
But the thing about Hitchcock is he never spoke in them. Sometimes they were literally blink and you miss it. Sometimes, you know, in Rebecca, I think it is he's standing at a phone box. In another one, his picture's just in the paper. It was tiny at times and it just became kind of nearly a bit of a joke. So I'm behind it. And he kind of invented the modern cameo, I have to say.
And people have used it, all sorts of use. There was a News Talk ad on TV a couple of years ago that had a Hitchcockian element to it, you could even suggest.
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Chapter 5: What unique aspects did Ricky Gervais bring to cameos in Extras?
Thank you. It's my old tux from prom. That's great. I dropped out of high school, went to work, followed my dream.
Is that who he is? That's who he is, isn't it? I like him even more now.
Yeah, I know. Isn't that cool? So it's one thing to appear in a cameo and try and be cool, but to actually fully send yourself up, that was impressive.
Listener says Peter Jackson appears in all of his movies. Stan Lee is in all of the Marvel movies. So Hitchcock started all of that.
Yeah, absolutely.
Cate Blanchett then in Hot Fuzz.
Yeah, people don't realise this. So the protagonist, not Nick Frost, the other one, Simon Pegg shows up to a crime scene and she's actually the pathologist, but she's under a mask and you can't really see her. Daniel Craig, a lot of people don't realise that. is in The Force Awakens, but he keeps a mask on him.
He really wanted to be in a Star Wars movie, apparently, but he kept the mask on and you're watching it and there's a stormtrooper talking to Daisy Ridley and you go, is that Daniel Craig? And it turns out it was, but it was impressive that he kept the mask on. I know some people would be disappointed he didn't take his mask off.
It's a problem with the James Bond role though, isn't it? Can't do anything else. Yeah. Wear a mask to be in anything else.
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