If you caught all of these hidden celebrity voice cameos, congrats, you're a certified movie and TV buff. Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we’re counting down our picks for the top 20 hidden celebrity voice cameos in film and TV.
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00:00 People can't be excellent to you unless you're being excellent to yourself.
00:05 Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're counting down our picks for the top 20 hidden celebrity voice cameos in film and TV.
00:12 For this list, we've ranked the best and most notable voice roles that are also very easy to miss.
00:17 Any appearance where their voice is heard but their face isn't seen is in with a shot.
00:21 Okay, I think that's a little more insight than we had in mind.
00:26 Number 20. Jason Sudeikis, The Mandalorian.
00:30 Speeder bikes have arrived at the checkpoint with the asset waiting confirmation. Knock it off.
00:37 Cast your minds back to 2019, and how do you briefly turn a well-known comedian into public enemy number one?
00:43 Of course, you get him to punch a defenseless Grogu. Briefly showing up as one of two bike scout
00:47 troopers during the season one finale of The Mandalorian, Sudeikis is tasked with ferrying
00:51 the series star, who's unceremoniously bundled inside his bag.
00:55 Should we offer that thing some water?
00:57 You just want to look at it.
00:58 So what? You got to see it.
01:00 Barely.
01:01 I mean, I grabbed it up off the ground and I stuffed it in his sack.
01:03 It's more than I got to see it.
01:06 A little movement, though, a slight noise, and our cameo hits out.
01:10 And for a few hours at least, the internet did not like it.
01:13 Special mention to Adam Pally, though, who also lays into the little guy, much to the ire of fans.
01:17 Serves you right.
01:23 Number 19 Nicole Kidman, Panic Room
01:26 I can't hear a thing.
01:27 What do you think they want?
01:30 I don't know.
01:31 Rob us.
01:32 I don't know.
01:36 David Fincher's Panic Room was very nearly a very different movie.
01:40 Original casting saw Nicole Kidman as Meg Altman and Hayden Panettiere as her daughter, Sarah.
01:45 However, Panettiere left just before filming began and was replaced by Kristen Stewart.
01:50 Then, Kidman withdrew after she suffered a knee injury and was replaced by Jodie Foster.
01:54 What?
01:55 He's saying that we don't have a phone.
01:56 How could he know that?
01:58 And that might have been that.
01:59 Except, eagle-eyed or eagle-eared viewers noticed that, actually,
02:04 Kidman wasn't entirely absent from the final film.
02:06 It's her voice on the end of the line in one scene,
02:08 when Foster's character dials out of the titular panic room.
02:11 Stephen.
02:12 Hello?
02:13 Put Stephen on the line.
02:14 Who is this?
02:15 It's Meg.
02:15 Do you know what time it is?
02:19 Put him on the phone, bitch.
02:21 Number 18.
02:22 Dwayne Johnson, Free Guy.
02:24 Everybody down on the ground!
02:25 Nobody try to be a hero, this will all be over soon.
02:30 In truth, there are a number of A-listers who we might have gone for with this movie,
02:34 including Hugh Jackman as the masked avatar in The Alleyway.
02:37 Hey, you really British or is that an accent filtered?
02:40 And John Krasinski, who voices a silhouetted gamer documentary style.
02:43 But Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson just really kills it as bank robber number two.
02:47 Although Johnson didn't physically portray the role, he did lend his voice to the part.
02:51 And no surprise, it was the perfect fit to leave Ryan Reynolds' character pretty shaken up.
02:55 You broke into something?
02:58 I'm the robber.
02:58 You're the guy who lies down and takes it.
03:01 Number 17.
03:02 Steven Spielberg, Paul.
03:04 What have you been doing here all this time?
03:05 You know, I've been kicking back, man.
03:08 I've been shooting the shit.
03:09 I've been advising the government.
03:11 Not just the government.
03:12 Written by and starring Simon Pegg and Nick Frost,
03:15 Paul was always meant to pay homage to all the classic science fiction movies there ever has been.
03:19 But arguably, no scene does this better than the brief flashback in which
03:23 Paul doubles up as essentially an advisor to one Steven Spielberg.
03:27 I want him to have some kind of a special power, you know what I mean?
03:31 Something messianic.
03:33 Okay, Steven.
03:34 How about cellular revivification?
03:37 Yeah, I don't know what that is.
03:38 And yes, the voice in the other end of the phone is the real deal.
03:42 Spielberg reportedly suggested the scene to Pegg and Frost as a joke,
03:45 but they went ahead and made it happen.
03:46 And we're glad they did.
03:48 And like, maybe his finger lights up at the end when he reaches out and touches?
03:51 Maybe.
03:51 You know, sometimes I find less is more.
03:53 Hey, trust me.
03:55 Number 16.
03:57 Meryl Streep, King of the Hill.
03:59 My husband, Alphonse d'Autriche.
04:02 We own Zonko by blood.
04:05 She's a multiple Oscar winner, has delivered countless classic roles,
04:08 and her colleagues almost universally rate her as one of the finest there's ever been.
04:12 So, when Meryl Streep rocked up on King of the Hill,
04:15 it took many fans a few watch-throughs to finally twig that it was her.
04:18 If they are not stromed soon, I'm afraid, well, they really need to be stromed.
04:27 This is right out of Shakespeare.
04:29 And that's nothing against King of the Hill, either.
04:31 It's just a somewhat surprising entry on the Streep filmography.
04:34 Nevertheless, in the show, she plays Bill's Aunt Esme,
04:37 complete with a Southern drawl that's dripping with glorious disdain.
04:40 I think it would be best if you took your leave.
04:45 Number 15.
04:46 Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Knives Out.
04:48 As a self-made man myself,
04:50 I have to express my admiration for how you followed in your father's footsteps.
04:56 Thank you.
04:59 Rian Johnson's whodunit caper is certainly celebrated for its many,
05:02 many layers of slight and nuance.
05:04 But even the most dedicated sleuth may have missed that Joseph Gordon-Levitt is in the film.
05:09 Sure, he's not actually on the bill, but that's because he provides the voice for
05:16 a detective character called Detective Hard Rock on a show that's watched by
05:19 some of the characters in the movie.
05:32 What's possibly even better, though, is that Gordon-Levitt also gives his voice
05:36 to the follow-up Glass Onion as well, where he's the voice of the hourly dong.
05:40 Number 14.
05:51 Jon Hamm, A Single Man.
05:53 But he also talks about a deeper bond with the product.
05:57 Nostalgia.
05:59 It's delicate, but potent.
06:05 When Jon Hamm speaks, you listen, not least when he's chaotically cruising through the
06:09 triumphs and disasters of advertising in 60s New York as Don Draper in Mad Men.
06:14 But here, his uniquely enigmatic tone may well have been missed altogether,
06:18 given the drama of the scene he's in.
06:20 Colin Firth takes the lead in A Single Man, much of which is built around a life-changing
06:33 phone call.
06:34 Shortly after his lover Jim has died, First George Falconer answers a call from a member
06:38 of Jim's family.
06:39 Jon Hamm provides the voice for a devastating moment.
06:46 "Will there be a service the day after tomorrow?"
06:49 "Well, I suppose I should get off the phone and book a plane flight."
06:58 "The service is just for family."
07:01 Number 13.
07:03 Miley Cyrus, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2.
07:06 "You know, it's a shame that it took the tragedy of losing Yondu to bring us all together again."
07:12 The Marvel mid- and post-credits scenes have served up their fair share of classic moments
07:16 in the past, and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 was suitably stacked.
07:20 Probably the most out-there element, however, was the introduction of Mainframe, an advanced
07:25 AI green-eyed robot head and a key figure for the Ravagers.
07:28 In Mainframe's first outing, the voice was provided by Miley Cyrus.
07:31 "I miss you guys so much!"
07:34 Her fleeting one-line role may have been lost to time, however, as the character was later
07:38 played by the voice work veteran Tara Strong.
07:40 "Hey guys, you're about to be born by the United Ravagers.
07:44 You can surrender and turn over any stuff worth anything and live, or you can die.
07:48 How's that for you?"
07:50 Number 12.
07:51 Kristen Wiig, Her.
07:53 "Sexy kitten has accepted invitation from big guy 4x4.
07:56 Chat begins now."
07:59 Naturally, the main voice to associate with Spike Jonze's near-future love story is Scarlett
08:03 Johansson's, who plays Samantha, the AI that Joaquin Phoenix's character Theodore falls for.
08:08 However, there are a couple of quick-fire cameos in amongst all of the other tech-driven
08:12 relationship drama.
08:13 There's Bill Hader, who's credited as a chat room friend number two, and is a man
08:17 pretending to be a woman.
08:18 "Hi, I just want you to tear me apart.
08:22 I really do."
08:22 "Thanks."
08:23 But then there's Kristen Wiig as sexy kitten.
08:26 "Hi, I'm here alone and I can't sleep.
08:29 Who's out there to share this bed with me?"
08:33 Another of Theodore's late-night chat partners is an interaction that's short but memorable,
08:38 thanks to Wiig's off-the-wall approach.
08:40 "Hey, I'm half asleep.
08:42 Do you want to wake me up?"
08:44 "Yes, definitely."
08:46 Number 11.
08:47 Hannibal Buress - The Nice Guys
08:49 "I'm falling asleep at the wheel here, man.
08:51 I need you to drive."
08:53 While typically known as a stand-up comic, it takes a special kind of actor to pull off
08:57 the lesser-practiced role of a hallucinated talking bumblebee.
09:00 Hannibal Buress's voice cameo as exactly that has, as a result, earned its own particular
09:05 spot in the hearts and minds of moviegoers everywhere, or at least for those who clocked
09:09 him.
09:10 "Idiot, you didn't know that?"
09:11 "You fly everywhere, you don't even drive.
09:15 What do you know?"
09:16 "He's got a point there, Bumble."
09:17 "Yeah, whatever."
09:19 Amidst everything else that this Ryan Gosling/Russell Crowe buddy comedy throws our way,
09:23 a human-sized bug just chilling on the backseat actually does make sense,
09:27 and Buress's deadpan delivery is spot on.
09:29 "But now the smog is just disgusting, man.
09:32 It's just, the pollution is out of control.
09:34 All the bees are riding around in cars these days."
09:36 "Wake up!
09:37 Wake up!
09:37 March!
09:38 Wake up!
09:39 Wake up!"
09:40 Number 10.
09:48 Ed Harris, Gravity
09:50 Hands up if the kind of cameos you most enjoy are those that are made solely to show the
10:02 filmmakers' appreciation for the movies that came before them.
10:05 If you're hands up, then put it down.
10:08 People will stare.
10:08 But Ed Harris in Gravity is right up your street.
10:11 In Alfonso Cuaron's sci-fi thriller, Harris voices Mission Control, and that's cool because
10:16 Harris is perhaps most famous for his Oscar-nominated role as Apollo flight director Gene Kranz
10:21 in 1995's Apollo 13.
10:23 The circle completes, and it feels good.
10:25 "Quiet down.
10:26 Quiet down.
10:27 Let's stay cool, people.
10:28 Procedures, I need another computer up in the RTCC."
10:32 "I want everybody to alert your support teams.
10:34 Wake up anybody you need, get them in here.
10:37 Let's work the problem, people.
10:40 Let's not make things worse by guessing."
10:42 Number 9.
10:43 Ozzy Osbourne, Trolls World Tour
10:46 As is often the way with big-budget animated franchises, the cast list for Trolls is long
10:57 and seriously creaking with celeb talent.
10:59 But does it really get better than metal icon Ozzy Osbourne as the bumbling, mumbling, and
11:04 unknowably ancient Thrash?
11:06 We think not.
11:07 A retired rocker with a rebellious spirit, Thrash isn't far off from Osbourne's own
11:11 persona.
11:11 But still, when this troll raises the devil horns, you know he's doing it from the heart.
11:15 Number 8.
11:23 Natalie Portman, Bluey
11:25 "Now, if you're unhappy with your whale-watching trip, I'll give you your money back."
11:30 "Lovely."
11:30 There's just no getting away from the Bluey phenomenon, loved as it is by kids and adults
11:35 alike.
11:35 And unsurprisingly, there's now a growing list of famous voices that appear in the show.
11:39 But Natalie Portman is easily the easiest to miss.
11:51 In the season 3 episode "Whale-Watching," Portman provides the narration for a TV documentary
11:55 about whales that Bluey and co. watch.
11:58 It's another case of a celeb voice that's used on a show within a show, and if you noticed
12:02 it right away, then seriously, how did you do that?
12:05 Number 7.
12:15 Lawrence Fishburne, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
12:18 "Ahhhh!"
12:21 What do you get when you cross Morpheus from the Matrix with an in-movie commercial from
12:25 a mid-2000s dark comedy?
12:26 Only one of the most bizarre A-list cameos of all time.
12:35 In Shane Black's Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, Michelle Monaghan's character Harmony once starred
12:39 in a strange beer commercial during which a talking bear delivers the punchline.
12:45 While the role goes uncredited, Lawrence Fishburne is that bear.
12:59 Number 6.
13:05 Conan O'Brien, Batman The Dark Knight Returns Part 2
13:09 What can we say about our next guest that hasn't been said before?
13:12 Frank?
13:13 While Conan enjoys more than one link to the Caped Crusader, having also voiced the
13:17 Riddler in the Lego Batman movie, he seamlessly snuck into another Batman tale, playing a
13:21 role a little closer to home.
13:23 In this two-part straight-to-video animated adaptation of Frank Miller's classic comic
13:27 book, an aging Batman is forced out of retirement to fight crime once again.
13:31 O'Brien's bit in the story is as David Endocrine, a late-night talk show host who,
13:36 in the show, is quite the lookalike.
13:38 Endocrine's part is short-lived, however, as he meets his fate at the hands of Joker.
13:49 Number 5.
14:01 Keanu Reeves, Keanu Celebrities cameoing as themselves is hardly
14:10 new news.
14:11 The Simpsons made it an art form, but playing the part of a live-action cat who's named
14:21 after you?
14:22 For Keanu Reeves, it's just another day at the office.
14:25 In this frankly absurd but also kind of brilliant movie, Keanu is a lost kitten who gets his
14:29 finder, Rel, played by Jordan Peele, wrapped up in all sorts of unsavory business.
14:35 But the highlight is surely when Keanu speaks, during a drug-addled dream sequence.
14:39 Reeves was reportedly dubious about actually playing his cat self, but in the end, it was
14:44 purrrfect.
14:45 Number 4.
14:58 Trevor Noah, Black Panther Here we have a cameo that's literally made
15:05 headlines in some quarters, purely because so many fans missed it.
15:08 In fairness, there is quite a lot happening in Black Panther, so nailing down the voice
15:12 of Griot possibly wasn't your number one priority.
15:15 But even so, take yourself back to the final battle on Wakanda, and we see Martin Freeman's
15:19 Everett Ross in full flow.
15:29 That AI guy that's in his ear?
15:31 That's Trevor Noah.
15:32 From the Daily Show to the MCU, it's not exactly a well-trodden path, but he makes
15:36 it work.
15:37 Number 3.
15:47 Michael Jackson, The Simpsons On the one hand, this is perhaps one of the
15:59 most famous guest appearances on The Simpsons ever.
16:02 But on the other, Michael Jackson neither plays himself directly, nor is he credited
16:06 as Michael Jackson for the role.
16:08 Instead, his character is called Leon Kompowski, and MJ is in the credits as John Jay Smith.
16:13 The singer was reportedly very particular about exactly the role he would play, and
16:24 his involvement even led to The Simpsons rewriting their own rules about guest voices from there
16:28 on out.
16:29 Ultimately, Jackson is only on the speaking parts, and not on the singing scenes, which
16:33 are performed by sound-alike Kip Lennon.
16:35 Number 2.
16:52 John Larroquette, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre You may not immediately suspect that an actor
17:03 who'd go on to make his living in sitcoms will have also started out narrating one of
17:06 the most famous horror movies of all time, but that's the career path taken by John
17:10 Larroquette.
17:11 In 1974, when he was just starting out, it's his tones you can hear atmospherically setting
17:16 the scene for one of the bloodiest movies of a generation.
17:19 He got his break as the narrator on The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
17:23 Light-hearted projects like Night Court and The John Larroquette Show would follow, but
17:26 before all that, it was guts, gore, and leatherface.
17:30 "The events of that day were to lead to the discovery of one of the most bizarre
17:34 crimes in the annals of American history, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre."
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17:54 Number 1.
17:57 George Clooney – South Park George Clooney is well-known for being a
18:04 big fan of South Park, so you might expect that when he dropped by the studio to cut
18:07 a cameo, Trey Parker and Matt Stone would grant him a prominent part, especially as
18:11 he appears in just the fourth episode of the first season.
18:13 But of course, no.
18:15 Instead, Clooney provides the panting for Stan's dog, Sparky.
18:18 No dialogue, just panting.
18:27 We should note that Jay Leno has also once voiced the meows of a cat on South Park, with
18:31 the show seemingly turning animal noises into a rite of passage.
18:34 While not quite so unexpected, Clooney did lead his voice to another role, a doctor in
18:40 Bigger, Longer, and Uncut.
18:41 Which was your favorite cameo?
18:48 Which did you spot or miss?
18:50 Be sure to let us know in the comments.
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