SPOILER ALERT: This article mentions a bit of big-name cameo casting that was not revealed in Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves‘ marketing.
Though directors Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley always intended for a certain role to feature a celebrity cameo, COVID lockdowns made that prohibitive. So for the part of Holga’s ex, a Halfling named Mariamin, the directors originally wound up casting, “a filmmaker that was a friend of the court at Paramount, who had been an actor as well and was down to do it,” according to an interview with Variety. But they had had someone different in mind: Bradley Cooper, who had worked with Daley on the short-lived Kitchen Confidential.
“We had thought about a really fun cameo for this part,” recalls Daley. “It was sent to his agent, but I sent him a letter saying like, ‘It’d be fun to play again.’ I got a text from him from a number I didn’t recognize saying, ‘Yo, is this still John?’ And I said, ‘Who’s this?’ Because I’ve gotten weird texts before from strangers. He said, ‘BC from KC.’ I’m like, ‘What?’ ‘Kitchen Confidential!’ I’m like, ‘Oh, [expletive]!’ I immediately called him. He had just seen the film. He called it a triumph, which almost made me cry, because it had been a real long process working on this thing. And he was like, ‘I’m on board. Sign me up.'”
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As Michelle Rodriguez had already filmed her parts, Daley read Holga’s lines opposite Cooper. He won’t name the original actor they shot, but notes, “We always wanted it to be not just recognizable, but someone that would bring the gravitas that we wanted to that role.” Adds Goldstein, “Also the shock of like, ‘Oh my god, that’s a movie star and he’s three feet tall,’ you know?…Had it not been for COVID, we would have done that in the first place.”
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