Is Cameo Culture in Mainstream Cinema a Weapon of Mass Distraction?

In Alfred Hitchcock - A Definitive Study (1969), by Francois Truffaut, the famed British director is said to have described his cameos as having gradually become “troublesome”. Hitchcock has made cameo appearances in over 40 of his films, but with his appearances having found worldwide popularity, the director feared it had become a distraction to the audience, forcing him to restrict them to the first five minutes of his films.

More than 80 years after his first (and most extended) cameo in Young and Innocent (1937), Indian cinema seems to have found an obsession with these appearances, ranging from directors and superstars, both alive and dead. But unlike the Master of Suspense — who felt the need to pull back because it affected the viewing experience — in some of these Indian films, the point is to distract, like injecting caffeine shots to energise tired second halves. Has the trend created cameo fatigue, or are they inevitable marketing goldmines that can take a film to the next level?

Take the case of three of this year’s biggest hits to gauge this trend. The ₹1,000-crore Kalki 2898 AD was written around as many as seven major cameos, which translates to one every 25 minutes in its 181-minute-long runtime. Some of these, like Dulquer Salmaan's and Vijay Deverakonda's entries, have been woven into the screenplay and make narrative sense. Others, like that of directors Ram Gopal Varma and Anudeep K.V., are neither memorable, nor significant.

In Stree 2, which is being integrated into a wider cinematic universe, Varun Dhawan appears as his character from Bhediya (2022), and as the famed werewolf in the second half. It also had Akshay Kumar in a comedy scene set inside a hospital. Vijay’s The Greatest of All Time (2024), the highest-grossing Tamil film of the year, begins with an AI-generated recreation of the late actor Vijayakanth, a dance number featuring Trisha in the second half, and a much-talked-about cameo, with Vijay (in his second-last film The Greatest of All Time) handing over his pistol (or ‘thuppakki’) to the young superstar Sivakarthikeyan. Last year’s Pathaan had Salman Khan; Jawan had Sanjay Dutt; Leo had Anurag Kashyap and the voice of Kamal Haasan; Jailer (2023) had Mohanlal, Shivrajkumar, Jackie Shroff and Sunil, and finally, Vikram (2022) had Suriya, arguably kickstarting this trend today.

Cameo, Cameo Everywhere

But writer-director Arun Chandu, who made this year’s sci-fi superhit Gaganachari, does not want to discount the narrative strength of a good cameo. He had written one for the climax of his first film, Saajan Bakery Since 1962 (2021), and is in the process of writing a film that demands a cameo. “The plot of my new script revolves around four characters on the lookout for one man. He is tough to track down, and the film journeys from places to situations as they try to find him. When so much narrative wattage is being presented to this character, it won’t work out if a regular character artiste or an unknown actor is playing him. You need star power and that association for the audiences to feel the impact of this enigma. The film fails if we do not.”

He agrees that we’ve been seeing too many cameos in a short span of time, adding to this feeling of fatigue. He’s a big fan of cameos that connect to the world outside, referencing popular culture, when the writing is “clever”. “In comedies like Tropic Thunder, the impact of Tom Cruise playing a volcanic producer makes the film so much more enjoyable. The film genre has room for this, and it’s a role we seldom get to see Tom Cruise take up in films he stars in. More than his star power, it’s an opportunity to break his image.”

However, in Indian mainstream cinema, efforts are sometimes missing because of the “pan-Indianisation” of big-budget films. “The audience has begun to see the calculations in such casting choices,” says entertainment industry analyst Sreedhar Pillai. In Kalki 2898 AD, Dulquer is seen in one of the many cameos. He opens up the film to a broader market in his home state of Kerala, just like how the casting of Kamal Haasan, Amitabh Bachchan and Deepika Padukone made the film pan-Indian from the word go. “But, in Kerala, Dulquer was also the distributor of the film. So there’s the business logic of a cameo because it becomes mutually beneficial for the film as well as the actor.”

He thinks the recent trend is a result of the massive success of Vikram, which ended with Suriya arriving as ‘Rolex’, in a darker role he’s seldom seen playing. Not only did it result in a huge hit, but a spin-off too is on the cards as a result of this 10-minute role.

This is what happened in the case of Jailer, too, which featured Mohanlal in one of the four cameos. A Rajinikanth film in Kerala was bought for a record price, because it also featured a major superstar of the state. “For the actor, a cameo shouldn’t be looked at as a friendly gesture or a favour, as it was once perceived to be. Nowadays, these cameos have a real impact, and the actor gets top dollar for a day’s work or two. When presented well, like Mohanlal in Jailer, the fans got to see a massy version of their star after a long gap. A good cameo is a win-win for all.”

According to GQ India, Mohanlal was said to have charged ₹8 crore for his cameo in Jailer. Industry sources concur, adding that the amount could have been anywhere between ₹4 and 8 crores for his role as Mathew.

There are not many people who’ve used cameos better than director Rosshan Andrrews has. Admittedly, the Mohanlal cameo in his blockbuster Kayamkulam Kochunni (2018), starring Nivin Pauly, took the film to the next level. He also brought back two much-loved actresses to the screen with Kaniha in How Old Are You? (2014) and Abhirami in 36 Vayadhinile (2015). They were both beautifully written cameos that changed the course of the film, turning out to be the incident that transformes the lead character (Manju Warrier and Jyothika). “These are both examples of what cameos can really do,” Andrrews says. “In Kayamkulam Kochunni, we ended the trailer with a glimpse of Mohanlal. A picture of him playing Ithikkara Pakki (an Indian fugitive living in the Travancore Kingdom in the 19th century), released days before the release, made the film go viral.” This resulted in one of the biggest hits in Malayalam cinema, and changed the opening day figures by a huge margin. “His character was present from day one, so we knew we had the scope for a big cameo. The business decisions came later. In terms of an impact, I have never experienced anything like that in all my films.“

As for the cameos in How Old Are You? and 36 Vayadhinile, motivational feminist films about women finding their own after marriage, Andrrews says: “We first mooted the idea of a male star for that role. The idea was for an old friend of the lead to meet her again and remind her about how ambitious she once was. But the impact was just different when a woman had a heartfelt conversation with her old friend. The idea to bring back heroines we hadn’t seen for a while doubled the emotional attachment.”

The Art of Writing a High Point

The market has become conducive to cameos. Actors, too, have become more open to the idea, given how lucrative they’ve become. But according to Andrrews, it’s the writing that has led to so many such appearances in such a short span of time. “Screenwriters operate on the principle that we need a ‘spike’ or a ‘high moment’ in the screenplay every 20 minutes or so. This was earlier a twist (like the death of a character), a big punchy dialogue, a great piece of music or even a song. But with the success of cameos, screenwriters have the option to use it as a tool for one, two or even three spikes in their narration. However, this doesn’t guarantee a hit film if it’s not written well.”

According to Pillai, this also results from chasing that all-important opening weekend. “Cameos are no longer surprises like they once used to be. Most films struggle to keep them a secret, while others plan to leak cameos to create social media buzz. Even otherwise, a cameo lasts only until the first show, because people take photos from the first show and destroy the surprise. That’s also why cameos need to be marketed before release. The surprise then is limited to just where or when the actor appears."

Deus Ex Machina

“A good cameo begins even before the writing process,” says director Ganesh Raj, who wrote cameos for both Anandam (2016) and Pookkaalam (2023). For Anandam, he called on Pauly to make an appearance as the older brother of one of his leads. In last year’s Pookkaalam, he chose to cast Vineeth Sreenivasan and Basil Joseph as eccentric lawyers in a film about a nonagenarian wanting a divorce after 60 years of marriage. “In Anandam, my lead needed an external push to motivate him — an outsider who brings with him the inciting incident. It’s such a major plot point that you have to think about it before you start your first draft,” Raj says.

“There are screenwriting theories that tell you not to use deus ex machina, or a hand of god that solves all your character’s problems. But the fact that there’s such a rule urges you to break it by writing one that doesn’t feel like a deus ex machina. That’s the work of the writer,” he adds.

The idea to use Pauly in a film with 80 first-timers also proved another point. “We wanted to say we could make a film with rank newcomers that worked, but if we wanted, it’s also good to show that we can get a star,” says Raj.

Bahul Ramesh feels these are trends that needn’t last long. The writer of the surprise hit, Kishkindha Kaandam, adds that there are no rules to screenwriting and that a great cameo can make an impact at any time. “Instead of shying away from it, it’s a tool we should all look at closely. Nothing hits like a great cameo.“