Buzz
Cameos are delightful gestures filmmakers offer to their audiences as a token of gratitude for their support. It becomes even more special when writers—who often receive little recognition for their crucial role in the entertainment industry—get the chance to appear on screen. This is especially rewarding when the writer is the creator of the characters and world the audience is immersed in.
Stephen King reigns supreme in this arena, having made appearances in six films and nine TV miniseries adapted from his books and short stories. Here are 10 more standout examples of such cameos.
10. Charlaine Harris in True Blood (2008–2014)
Before her rise to fame, Charlaine Harris had already authored two successful mystery series. In 2001, she introduced a new series centered on Sookie Stackhouse, a telepathic waitress navigating a world where supernatural beings, including vampires, coexist with humans. In this universe, synthetic blood named Tru Blood enables vampires to survive without preying on humans, leading to a tense but functional relationship between the species. Known as the Sookie Stackhouse Series or the Southern Vampire Mysteries, HBO transformed it into the popular TV series True Blood.
Harris reportedly appeared as an extra multiple times in the HBO series, but only two of her cameos stood out enough to draw significant attention. The first occurred in the second season finale titled “Beyond Here Lies Nothin’,” where she played a bar patron at Merlotte’s, remarking, “Well, I certainly never expected anything like that to happen here.” Her second cameo was in the series finale during the seventh season. While filming an infomercial for the True Blood beverage, the camera briefly focused on a woman operating the teleprompter—that was Harris.
9. James Dickey in Deliverance (1972)
James Dickey was hailed as one of America’s most significant poets of the mid-20th century, earning accolades such as the Order of the South, the National Book Award for Poetry, the Guggenheim Fellowship, and the Melvin Cane Award. He also served as the 18th United States Poet Laureate in 1966. His debut novel, Deliverance, published in 1970, was adapted into a screenplay by Dickey himself for the 1972 film. This adaptation, however, sparked tension on set.
Director and producer John Boorman removed the first 19 pages of Dickey’s script, leading to a heated dispute. Dickey allegedly frequented bars, venting to anyone who would listen about how Boorman was destroying his vision. “They’re not doing my book,” he reportedly shouted. Dickey’s behavior escalated, showing up drunk on set, intimidating actors, and even engaging in a physical altercation with Boorman that left the director with a broken nose and missing teeth. Dickey was subsequently removed from the set. Despite this, the two eventually reconciled, and Boorman allowed Dickey to return for a cameo as the unforgettable Sheriff Bullard.
8. Diana Gabaldon in Outlander (2014–Present)
Diana Gabaldon was crafting technical articles and software reviews for computer magazines when, in 1988, she chose to write a novel “for practice.” With a strong background in research, she believed historical fiction would be the simplest genre to explore. The inspiration for Outlander struck her one evening while watching a rerun of a Dr. Who episode titled “The War Games,” which marked the final appearance of Patrick Troughton as Dr. Who.
A minor character in a kilt caught her eye, sparking her imagination. This young Scotsman from 1745 led Gabaldon to develop a story set in eighteenth-century Scotland. Over time, a female protagonist emerged, and to justify her modern sarcasm, Gabaldon decided to place her in contemporary times and have her travel back to the 1700s.
Gabaldon played an active role in Starz’s television adaptation of her work, even penning the screenplay for one episode (“Vengeance is Mine,” Season 2, Episode 11). The series drew from her books, with new installments published to extend the show’s narrative. Her cameo occurred in the first season’s fourth episode, “The Gathering,” where she delivered a brief line as Iona MacTavish.
7. Peter Benchley in Jaws (1975)
Coming from a family of accomplished writers, Peter Benchley naturally pursued a career in writing. He published a travel memoir, worked as a reporter for the Washington Post, served as an editor for the television edition of Newsweek, and wrote speeches for the Lyndon Johnson White House—all within his first decade after college. By 1971, however, he found it challenging to support his wife and two children through freelance writing alone.
In a desperate bid, Benchley approached New York publishers with various story ideas, one of which centered on a great white shark wreaking havoc in a small coastal town. Inspired by a news report about a fisherman catching a 4,550-pound shark off Long Island, the concept intrigued a Doubleday editor. Benchley’s resulting novel sold 20 million copies and remained on the New York Times Bestseller List for 44 weeks. Steven Spielberg secured the film rights, directing a movie that grossed $470 million and became the first true summer blockbuster.
In the film, Benchley’s cameo occurs when the public first learns of a man-eating shark near the beach. He plays a television reporter surrounded by a crowd, with his wife, Wendy, and daughter among them. His cameo was originally longer, including a still photo of him interviewing Richard Dreyfus’s character, Matt Hooper, which was cut during editing. Another deleted scene featured Benchley confronting Sheriff Brody, played by Roy Scheider, though multiple takes of this scene were ultimately left unused.
6. Jordan Belfort in The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)
In the late 1980s, Jordan Belfort and a partner acquired Stratton Securities and established Stratton Oakmont, Inc., the largest over-the-counter brokerage firm in the U.S. The firm specialized in high-risk penny stocks, operating as a boiler room where aggressive sales tactics were used to persuade investors to buy speculative or fraudulent securities.
Sales agents would cold-call investors, promoting stocks of small companies as undervalued and poised for rapid growth. They pressured investors to act quickly, leaving no time for due diligence. At its peak, Belfort’s firm employed 1,000 brokers and sold over $1 billion in securities. Indicted in 1999 for securities fraud and money laundering, Belfort confessed to manipulating the stocks of 34 companies, resulting in $200 million in investor losses. He was sentenced to four years in prison but served only 22 months.
In 2007, Belfort released his memoir titled The Wolf of Wall Street, which Martin Scorsese adapted into a film of the same name. Belfort’s cameo occurs near the end of the movie, shortly after the protagonist, portrayed by Leonardo DiCaprio, is released from prison and begins hosting stock trading seminars. Belfort appears on stage, introducing DiCaprio’s character with the line, “My friend Jordan Belfort is the single, most baddest motherf***er I have ever met.”
9. Jenny Han’s Adaptations
Jenny Han debuted her first young adult novel, Shug, while still in graduate school in 2006. She later gained fame with her YA romance trilogy, starting with The Summer I Turned Pretty in 2009. These books became New York Times bestsellers, cementing her status as a YA superstar. After co-authoring the Burn for Burn trilogy with bestselling novelist Siobhan Vivian, Han released the first book of another series, To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before, in 2014, which was an immediate success.
Han transitioned into film and video production when To All the Boys was adapted into a Netflix movie in 2018. Serving as an executive producer, she also made a cameo as a chaperone in the background during Lara Jean’s freshman homecoming dance. This role resonated with her fans, who see her as the perfect guardian of her work’s transition to visual media.
In the sequel, To All the Boys: P.S. I Still Love You, Han returned as an executive producer and had another cameo, this time as a teacher comforting a student in the cafeteria on Valentine’s Day. She also produced the trilogy’s final installment, To All the Boys: Always and Forever, appearing as School Principal Cho, who presents Lara Jean with an attendance award. Additionally, Han created, wrote, and executive-produced the Netflix spin-off series XO, Kitty, co-showrunning the project with Sascha Rothchild.
4. William Peter Blatty in The Exorcist (1973)
Before William Blatty became famous for The Exorcist, he was primarily known for his work in comedy and was one of Hollywood’s most sought-after comedy writers. In 1961, he won $10,000 on the TV game show You Bet Your Life, hosted by Groucho Marx, which allowed him to quit his job and focus on writing. Three years later, he teamed up with director Blake Edwards to write the sequel to the popular film The Pink Panther (1963), titled A Shot in the Dark (1964), widely regarded as one of the best in the series. He also contributed to three more Blake Edwards comedies and wrote scripts for comedians like Zero Mostel, Warren Beatty, and Danny Kaye.
By the late 1960s, Blatty’s comedy career began to decline. After his mother, Mary, passed away in 1967, he found himself reflecting on life’s deeper questions. This led him to reconnect with his Catholic faith. During this time, he developed a story idea about exorcism, inspired by a 1949 case where a priest performed an exorcism on a 14-year-old boy believed to be possessed by a demon.
Blatty wrote and published the bestseller The Exorcist in 1971, which became a worldwide phenomenon. He later adapted it into a film, effectively ending his career in comedy writing. In an interview, he remarked, “The sad truth is that nobody wants me to write comedy anymore. The Exorcist not only ended that career but erased any memory of it.”
Blatty’s cameo in the film occurs early on, during a scene where a movie is being filmed at Washington University, featuring Regan’s mother, played by Ellen Burstyn. The film’s director, Burke Dennings, exits his trailer and is approached by a producer holding a script, who asks, “Is this scene really necessary?” That producer is Blatty.
3. Lee Child’s Reacher Adaptations
Lee Child, the pseudonym for Jim Grant, spent 18 years as a director for show presenters at Granada Television in Manchester, England. During his tenure, he contributed to over 40,000 hours of programming, crafting trailers, commercials, and news stories. After being laid off in 1995, he turned to writing for himself, publishing his debut Jack Reacher novel, Killing Floor, two years later. The book earned him both the Anthony and Barry Awards for crime fiction. However, it was his sixth novel, One Shot, that inspired the first film adaptation, Jack Reacher (2012), featuring Tom Cruise in the lead role.
In the film, Jack Reacher is arrested for defending himself against attackers. Upon his release, Lee Child makes a cameo as the desk sergeant returning Reacher’s personal items. Tom Cruise returned as Reacher in Jack Reacher: Never Go Back (2016), based on the 18th Reacher novel, where Child appears again. This time, Reacher, wanted by authorities, steals another passenger’s ID to board a flight. Child plays a TSA agent who scrutinizes the ID for “Jeffrey Scott” before allowing Reacher to proceed with a casual, “Have a nice flight.”
Fans and Lee Child were dissatisfied with Tom Cruise’s portrayal of Reacher, as Child described the character as a towering, six-foot-five, muscular figure with “hands the size of dinner plates.” For Amazon’s Reacher series, based on the first novel, Killing Floor, Alan Richson was cast. While slightly shorter at six foot two, Richson embodies the imposing physicality of the character.
In the series’ first episode, Reacher visits a diner famous for its peach pie. In the season one finale, he returns to the same diner, and as he enters, a patron steps aside, saying, “Excuse me.” That patron is Lee Child. Amazon has announced that the second season of Reacher will premiere this year.
2. Jeff Lindsay in Dexter (2006–2013)
Jeff Lindsay, the pen name of Jeffry P. Freundlich, is a Miami native who has held a wide range of jobs, from dishwasher and steelworker to greeting card salesman and teacher. In the early 1980s, he moved to Hollywood to pursue a career in the film industry while performing in L.A. clubs as a singer and guitarist. He spent four years working with comedian Steve Allen and six years as a story analyst and script doctor. Collaborating with his wife, Hilary Hemingway (Ernest Hemingway’s niece), he wrote scripts for numerous sitcoms and feature films. He also authored 22 plays, some of them musicals, which were staged in New York, London, and California.
In the 1990s, Lindsay ventured into novel writing, co-authoring suspense and science fiction books with his wife. His breakthrough came with a novel about a serial killer who works as a blood-spatter analyst for the Miami-Dade Police Department by day and hunts other killers by night. Lindsay knew he had a compelling concept. His daughter suggested the title Pinocchio Bleeds, but his agent rejected it. The book was eventually published as Darkly Dreaming Dexter in 2004, and when Showtime adapted it into a series, it was simply titled Dexter.
The first season of the show closely followed the book, but the subsequent seven seasons diverged from Lindsay’s Dexter novels (eight in total). Lindsay was fine with this, acknowledging the distinct demands of literature and television. He preferred to stay out of production, occasionally visiting the set. Having spent a decade in Hollywood’s chaotic environment, he was content to remain in southern Florida.
The only exception was when Lindsay agreed to make a cameo in the 10th episode of the third season. He played Vice Officer Jeffries, guarding a witness’s hospital room. His character had dialogue, speaking with Detective Angel Batista before and after the witness interview. Lindsay told reporters he did the cameo to show his support for the show, praising the producers for their expertise and stating that Hollywood often ruins creative works, but the Dexter team “really knows what they’re doing.”
1. Margaret Atwood’s Adaptations
Margaret Atwood began writing at the age of five, publishing poetry collections in the 1960s that celebrated nature and critiqued materialism. Starting with The Edible Woman in 1969, she shifted to novels, often focusing on women exploring their identities and societal roles. Her works have earned numerous accolades, including the 2000 Booker Prize for The Blind Assassin. Her 1985 novel, The Handmaid’s Tale, won the Arthur C. Clarke Award and the Governor General’s Award, and has been adapted into an opera, a film, and a television series. The sequel, The Testaments (2019), shared the Booker Prize, making Atwood a co-winner.
In 2017, Hulu launched a series adaptation of The Handmaid’s Tale, with Atwood appearing in the first episode of season one. In a flashback scene, June/Offred is at a school where handmaids are indoctrinated by Aunts. When Janine, another handmaid, defies Aunt Lydia, she is shocked with a cattle prod and taken away. Upon her return, it’s revealed she was brutally punished, losing an eye and suffering gang rape—a grim foreshadowing of the handmaids’ fate. When Aunt Lydia pressures the handmaids to blame Janine, June refuses and is slapped by another aunt, played by Atwood. Hulu has confirmed a sixth season is in the works.
That same year, Atwood’s 1996 novel Alias Grace, about a Canadian maid convicted of double murder, was adapted into a six-part miniseries. It premiered on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation before streaming on Netflix. Atwood makes a cameo in the fourth episode, where Grace attends church with her employer, Thomas, and his housekeeper, Nancy. Observing their affair, a churchgoer, played by Atwood, shakes her bonnet-covered head and mutters, “It’s an outrage.”
+ BONUS: Ian Fleming in From Russia with Love (1963)
This inclusion is based on the intriguing possibility of Ian Fleming being immortalized, however briefly, in a James Bond film. Whether his appearance is genuine or merely an urban legend has been debated for decades, with no conclusive evidence. The scene in question occurs in From Russia with Love (1963) at the 1:16:03 timestamp. It follows the murder of a major character on the Orient Express, with an exterior shot showing the train departing. In the adjacent field, a man in blue pants, a white sweater, and a collared shirt is visible, wearing a ballcap that obscures most of his face and hair, even when he turns toward the camera.
Ian Fleming was frequently present on the sets of From Russia with Love, and several publicity photos confirm his presence during the filming of the Orient Express exterior scenes. On that day, Fleming was dressed in dark pants, a white sweater, and a collared shirt, and he was seen using a cane.
The man in the scene holds two long sticks, unlike the cane Fleming used. While the man shares Fleming’s large ears, he appears shorter and stockier than Fleming’s six-foot frame, though there’s little nearby for scale. His hair also seems darker than Fleming’s salt-and-pepper locks, though wigs could explain this. A cow briefly appears in the shot, leading some to speculate the man might be a local farmer using sticks to herd cattle. However, film sets are tightly controlled, and extras are rarely allowed to wander into shots unintentionally. If a local had strayed into the scene, the director would likely have reshot it without the man and cows.
High-resolution screencaps of the man’s face when he turns toward the camera have been analyzed, but the results remain inconclusive. Some argue that the man’s glance at the camera suggests he wasn’t an actor but a local. However, Fleming wasn’t a professional actor either, and with the train passing by, any shouted directions from the director could have drawn his attention. Neither Fleming’s family nor the film’s producers have confirmed or denied the man’s identity.
The debate continues.
