ItNicolas Cage is Nicolas Cage if imitation is the best form of flattery Massive Talent’s Unbearable MassIt is an act of self-care. In the action-comedy, in theaters April 22, Cage plays an even more over-the-top version of himself, who, in dire need of money, agrees to attend a superfan’s birthday party. Pedro Pascal plays the role of Cage’s admirer. He is being sought by the CIA to kidnap him. Cage is soon tasked with taking down the bad guy like he’s done so many times before in his films, forcing him to blur the lines between his truth and his fiction.
Cage isn’t the first actor to play a heightened version of himself on screen. John Malkovich and Anna Faris have all brought terrifyingly scary versions of themselves onto the big screen. Often, it’s their way of poking fun at their celebrity personas. (See: Keanu Reeves’ quickie cameo in Netflix’s Always Be My Maybe.Cage was able to let the world know that he has a unique sense of humor with his new film. “It’s a pretty off-the-wall sense of humor,” he told Rolling Stone. “I think some of the moments [in The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent] are fairly close to me.”
In honor of Cage’s latest turn as Nic Cage, here are 11 other actors who pretended to be themselves in films.
Keanu Reeves Always Be My Maybe
When it’s revealed that John Wick himself is Sasha’s (Ali Wong) new boyfriend, you can understand why her best friend Marcus (Randall Park) would be a bit shocked. But what’s most shocking is how attractive Keanu is, even when he’s bloviating about a plate of pretentious food that “plays with the concept of time.”
Margot Robbie in The Big Short
Robbie opens a champagne bottle and shares the CliffsNotes version about subprime mortgages from the luxury of a bubble bath. “Whenever you hear subprime,” she says. “Think sh–t.” Thank you for your service, Margot.
John Malkovich in Being John Malkovich
John Cusack portrays the role of a puppeteer, who finds a gateway into John Malkovich’s brain. John Malkovich plays Malkovich. In one scene, Malkovich discovers the wormhole and finds himself having conversations with at least 50 other versions of himself using only the word “Malkovich.” Safe to say, this Charlie Kaufman-penned movie is a trip.
Megan Fox The dictator
Political satire in 2012: The Jennifer’s Body Star into yet another belt of General Aladeen (Sacha Cohen). She isn’t interested in cuddling, but she would like to get the same perks Katy Perry did for hooking up with the dictator: a diamond Rolex.
Al Pacino in Jack and Jill
Come for one of Hollywood’s greatest actors trying to seduce Adam Sandler in full drag, stay for Pacino lampooning some of his most classic lines from Dog Day Afternoon, The Godfather Part II And Scarface in a rap for a fake Dunkin’ Donuts commercial.
LeBron Jam in Trainwreck
LeBron may or may not be the NBA’s G.O.A.T., but he’s certainly the MVP of the 2015 Amy Schumer comedy. It sees him play an unnecessarily thrifty version of his self, trying to provide relationship advice to Dr. Aaron Connors (played brilliantly by Bill Hader). That is, when he isn’t urging the sports surgeon to visit him in Cleveland, which is just as fun as Miami, he swears.
Billy Zane Zoolander
The Titanic baddie isn’t the only celeb who is in attendance to witness male models Derek Zoolander (Ben Stiller) and Hansel (Owen Wilson) fight it out on the runway. Winona Ryder, who is infatuated with Derek) will decide the winner of the walkoff. David Bowie takes the final call. But it’s Zane’s cameo that gives us the pitch perfect line: “Listen to your friend Billy Zane,” which really should have been the What Would Jesus Do? (W.W.J.D.) The early aughts.
Neil Patrick Harris in Harold and Kumar go to White Castle
With this 2004 buddy stoner comedy starring John Cho and Kal Penn, NPH said goodbye to Doogie Howser in spectacular fashion: by absolutely trippin’ balls. His performance as a lap dance-loving, car-jacking doppelgänger was so good he returned as his onscreen unhinged self in the sequels: 2008’s Harold & Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay and 2011’s A Very Harold & Kumar Christmas.
Anna Faris Keanu
For the first few moments of Faris’s cameo in the Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele-led 2016 cat-napping comedy, it appears that she’s playing a crazy celeb. Then, Peele’s character Rell quietly says, “I loved you in House Bunny” and it’s revealed that nope, she’s playing a crazy version of herself. It only gets weirder from there; we’re talking katana sword-wielding weird.
Michael Cera in This is The End
Nearly everyone in Hollywood appears as bizarre versions of themselves in the 2013 apocalypse comedy—Seth Rogen, Rihanna, Emma Watson, Channing Tatum, just to name a few—but it’s Michael Cera that steals the movie. It’s the Arrested Development star ditches his nice guy image to play a drug-addled, threesome-having version of himself that’s so heinous you’ll never see the actor the same way again.
Ben Affleck and Matt Damon are in Jay and Silent Bob Return to Power
Kevin Smith and the pair are currently working together on the sequel to the Oscar-winning Kevin Smith film Good Will HuntingTitledHunting Season 2: Good Will Hunting Let’s just say, them apples are rotten to the core.
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