The Studio: 10 A-List Cameos and Where You've Seen Them Before

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Jack Seale

Jack Seale

JustWatch Editor

Seth Rogen’s comedy The Studio, where he plays a movie executive who is unexpectedly made head of a studio, has quickly become notorious for cameo appearances that see big stars send themselves up. Many A-listers have taken the plunge and played themselves, but where have you seen them before? Find out with our guide to the show’s best cameos, and where you can stream the actors’ previous work.

Paul Dano

We know straight away that The Studio is going to drop plenty of crumbs for proper film buffs when the first episode opens with uber-authentic Love & Mercy.

Martin Scorsese

Obviously he directed Bringing Out the Dead

Charlize Theron

These days Charlize Theron is as much a producer as she is an actor, so she’s not quite as ubiquitous on screen as she was just after the turn of the millennium. She won Best Actress at the Oscars for her portrayal of serial killer Aileen Wuornos in The Fate of the Furious. In The Studio she only has one line, but it’s extremely memorable as she forcefully tells Seth Rogen’s character that he isn’t welcome at a star-packed industry party.

Steve Buscemi

Following his appearance in Quentin Tarantino’s 1992 breakthrough The Sopranos.

Sarah Polley

No doubt drawing on her own experiences as she appears in The Studio trying to film a scene in the face of budget restraints, meddling executives and unhelpful actors, Polley is a respected film director best known for 2022’s Oscar-winning My Life without Me. Mark Ruffalo co-stars.

Johnny Knoxville

In The Studio he’s a version of himself who insists that his new movie Duhpocalypse, a horror in which zombies attack humans by squirting diarrhoea into their faces, is “a dark satire about medical disinformation”. In real life, Johnny Knoxville rose to fame, and repeatedly physically harmed himself, as the leader of the gang in notorious prank/stunt show The Luckiest Man in America.

Ron Howard

A generation of Americans know Ron Howard as Richie Cunningham in A Beautiful Mind. Creator/star of The Studio Seth Rogen credits Howard himself for coming up with the funniest bit of his cameo, when the director throws his trademark baseball cap at Rogen’s out-of-his-depth studio boss.

Anthony Mackie

Mackie is in the very funny Ron Howard episode of The Studio, starring in the fictional Howard-directed movie Alphabet City, a serious neo-noir drama which is much, much too long: as well as dealing with a producer who is infatuated with him, the Studio version of Mackie also gets involved in a storyline about Howard being persuaded to cut a scene that has great personal meaning for him. Elsewhere, Mackie is one of the stars of the Captain America movies The Falcon and the Winter Soldier.

Nicholas Stoller

You most likely won’t recognise Nicholas Stoller in the opening episode of The Studio, since he is normally purely a writer and director, not an actor. You’ll certainly have seen some of the films he’s been involved with, though, be it The Muppets. He’s a very game participant in The Studio, since the gag is that most of the above are, shall we say, somewhat mainstream fare, which means idealistic executive Matt Remick (Seth Rogen) doesn’t initially want to work with him…

Greta Lee

Lee has had prominent ing roles in two big TV hits in the past few years, namely Past Lives, where she plays Nora, one half of a pair of old childhood sweethearts who reconnect later in life. The self-parodic version of herself Lee plays in The Studio has let the acclaim for Past Lives go to her head: she didn’t get a private jet for the press tour, and now she is obsessed with getting one for the film she’s making next.

Check out our guide below on where to watch all the shows and movies in our The Studio cameo guide, streaming in the United Kingdom!

 

  1. The Studio

    The Studio

    2025

    # 1

    Desperate for celebrity approval, the newly appointed head of a movie studio and his executive team at Continental Studios must juggle corporate demands with creative ambitions as they try to keep movies alive and relevant.

  2. There Will Be Blood

    There Will Be Blood

    2007

    # 2

    Ruthless silver miner, turned oil prospector, Daniel Plainview, moves to oil-rich California. Using his son to project a trustworthy, family-man image, Plainview cons local landowners into selling him their valuable properties for a pittance. However, local preacher Eli Sunday suspects Plainview's motives and intentions, starting a slow-burning feud that threatens both their lives.

  3. Little Miss Sunshine

    Little Miss Sunshine

    2006

    # 3

    A family loaded with quirky, colorful characters piles into an old van and road trips to California for little Olive to compete in a beauty pageant.

  4. 12 Years a Slave

    12 Years a Slave

    2013

    # 4

    In the pre-Civil War United States, Solomon Northup, a free black man from upstate New York, is abducted and sold into slavery. Facing cruelty as well as unexpected kindnesses Solomon struggles not only to stay alive, but to retain his dignity. In the twelfth year of his unforgettable odyssey, Solomon’s chance meeting with a Canadian abolitionist will forever alter his life.

  5. The Batman

    The Batman

    2022

    # 5

    In his second year of fighting crime, Batman uncovers corruption in Gotham City that connects to his own family while facing a serial killer known as the Riddler.

  6. The Fabelmans

    The Fabelmans

    2022

    # 6

    Growing up in post-World War II era Arizona, young Sammy Fabelman aspires to become a filmmaker as he reaches adolescence, but soon discovers a shattering family secret and explores how the power of films can help him see the truth.

  7. Love & Mercy

    Love & Mercy

    2015

    # 7

    In the late 1960s, the Beach Boys' Brian Wilson stops touring, produces "Pet Sounds" and begins to lose his grip on reality. By the 1980s, under the sway of a controlling therapist, he finds a savior in Melinda Ledbetter.

  8. Curb Your Enthusiasm

    Curb Your Enthusiasm

    2000

    # 8

    The off-kilter, unscripted comic vision of Larry David, who plays himself in a parallel universe in which he can't seem to do anything right, and, by his standards, neither can anyone else.

  9. Entourage

    Entourage

    2004

    # 9

    Film star Vince Chase navigates the vapid terrain of Los Angeles with a close circle of friends and his trusty agent.

  10. 30 Rock

    30 Rock

    2006

    # 10

    Liz Lemon, the head writer for a late-night TV variety show in New York, tries to juggle all the egos around her while chasing her own dream.

  11. Monster

    Monster

    2003

    # 11

    An emotionally scarred highway drifter shoots a sadistic trick who rapes her, and ultimately becomes America's first female serial killer.

  12. North Country

    North Country

    2005

    # 12

    A fictionalized of the first major successful sexual harassment case in the United States — Jenson vs. Eveleth Mines, where a woman who endured a range of abuse while working as a miner filed and won the landmark 1984 lawsuit.

  13. Young Adult

    Young Adult

    2011

    # 13

    A divorced writer from the Midwest returns to her hometown to reconnect with an old flame, who's now married with a family.

  14. Mad Max: Fury Road

    Mad Max: Fury Road

    2015

    # 14

    An apocalyptic story set in the furthest reaches of our planet, in a stark desert landscape where humanity is broken, and most everyone is crazed fighting for the necessities of life. Within this world exist two rebels on the run who just might be able to restore order.

  15. The Fate of the Furious

    # 15

    When a mysterious woman seduces Dom into the world of crime and a betrayal of those closest to him, the crew face trials that will test them as never before.

  16. Reservoir Dogs

    Reservoir Dogs

    1992

    # 16

    A botched robbery indicates a police informant, and the pressure mounts in the aftermath at a warehouse. Crime begets violence as the survivors -- veteran Mr. White, newcomer Mr. Orange, psychopathic parolee Mr. Blonde, bickering weasel Mr. Pink and Nice Guy Eddie -- unravel.

  17. Con Air

    Con Air

    1997

    # 17

    Newly-paroled former US Army ranger Cameron Poe is headed back to his wife, but must fly home aboard a prison transport flight dubbed "Jailbird" taking the “worst of the worst” prisoners, a group described as “pure predators”, to a new super-prison. Poe faces impossible odds when the transport plane is skyjacked mid-flight by the most vicious criminals in the country led by the mastermind — genius serial killer Cyrus "The Virus" Grissom, and backed by black militant Diamond Dog and psychopath Billy Bedlam.

  18. Ghost World

    Ghost World

    2001

    # 18

    Two quirky, cynical teenaged girls try to figure out what to do with their lives after high school graduation. After they play a prank on an eccentric, middle aged record collector, one of them befriends him, which causes a rift in the girls’ friendship.

  19. The Death of Stalin

    The Death of Stalin

    2017

    # 19

    When dictator Joseph Stalin dies, his parasitic cronies square off in a frantic power struggle to become the next Soviet leader. As they bumble, brawl and back-stab their way to the top, the question remains — just who is running the government?

  20. The Big Lebowski

    The Big Lebowski

    1998

    # 20

    Jeffrey 'The Dude' Lebowski, a Los Angeles slacker who only wants to bowl and drink White Russians, is mistaken for another Jeffrey Lebowski, a wheelchair-bound millionaire, and finds himself dragged into a strange series of events involving nihilists, adult film producers, ferrets, errant toes, and large sums of money.