With a 50-year history of Dungeons & Dragons role playing game there are plenty of characters for the film makers to chose from for the new film. But amongst the already starry cast is an unexpected cameo by a major star who just doesn’t appear in this type of film.
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writer-directors Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley spoke about the scene in question where Edgin (Chris Pine), talks with the gruff warrior, Holga (Michelle Rodriguez), about Holga’s ex, Mariamin, and as the pair go on their travels Holga decides to stop by the village where she and Mariamin used to live to see him again. So when Mariamin answers we see that he a
When he comes to the door, the audience realizes two things: he’s a halfing, a human that is only three feet tall; and the big surprise is that its Bradley Cooper. Director Daley’s previous career as an actor in shows like “Freaks and Geeks” and “Bones” played a major role both in convincing Cooper to do the role, and in how Cooper filmed it.
Daley explained, ‘I did a show [in 2005] called “Kitchen Confidential” with Bradley that only lasted 13 episodes. We had so much fun on that show because the stakes were so low. We all kind of assumed that we were going to be canceled. And, you know, he became a massive, prolific, incredible movie star-slash-filmmaker. We had thought about a really fun cameo for this part. 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, shit!” 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.”
As it turns out the scene had already been filmed but Daley says, ‘So we rebuilt the chair, which was massive. Then I acclimated myself to Holga’s performance. We didn’t want to change too many takes on her side, because we’re really happy with how she played it. But we also wanted there to be some chemistry and rapport between them. And so it was Bradley’s idea that I’d read with him for old times sake. So that’s what I did.
The film was shot in the UK during lockdown and all the precautions that that entailed and Daley went on to say. ‘ …… the reality sunk in. We were in COVID, shooting under strict lockdown, especially in the U.K. And so all of the actors that we wanted to bring out, we would have had to quarantine for 10 days. ……(for a one day shoot) ….So no one wanted to. It was really hard. There was a filmmaker that was a friend of the court at Paramount, who had been an actor as well and was down to do it.
And that’s how that Dungeons and Dragons Honour Among Thieves cameo came about!
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source : variety
