How Bradley Cooper’s Dungeons & Dragons Cameo Happened

Bradley Cooper appears in Dungeon & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves in a small cameo, and he got his role in an interesting way. Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves is a 2023 fantasy heist comedy based on the classic tabletop role-playing game. In the film, a bard, Edgin Darvis (Chris Pine), and a barbarian, Holga Kilgore (Michelle Rodriguez), get a team together to pull off a heist to rescue Edgin’s daughter, stop an old traitorous friend played by Hugh Grant, and find the Tablet of Reawakening to restore life to Edgin’s deceased wife. Action-packed, funny, and with plenty of references to the game, Dungeons and Dragons is a satisfying ride.

Dungeons & Dragons features an ensemble cast of characters all playing different classes from the RPG and having a lot of fun doing so. One of the more surprising actors in the film is Bradley Cooper, who has a brief but memorable scene as Holga’s ex-husband, Marlamin, a diminutive halfling who’s barely as tall as Holga’s belt. The film hints at this character, so when Holga opens the door and Cooper is revealed, it’s a laugh-out-loud surprise to see the Oscar-nominated actor standing there, dressed like a hobbit. As it turns out, Cooper’s appearance in the movie came about unusually.

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7 Dungeons & Dragons Characters Hiding In Honor Among Thieves

While Honor Among Thieves is built around an original cast, some of its characters have actually been a part of Dungeons & Dragons canon for years.

Bradley Cooper Knew Co-Director John Francis Daley From Kitchen Confidential

The co-director of Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, John Francis Daley, had met Bradley Cooper previously on the set of Kitchen Confidential, via IndieWire. Kitchen Confidential was an extremely short-lived 2005 Fox sitcom based on the Anthony Bourdain book Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly. Cooper stars as Jack Bourdain, the executive chef of an upscale restaurant. Daley, who had begun his career as an actor before pivoting to more directorial work, plays Jim, one of Jack’s chefs in the kitchen. Only four episodes of the show ever aired, and it was quickly canceled, with the remaining nine episodes of the series going to DVD.

Daley and Cooper remained in touch after the series as both their careers headed towards directing. When Daley and his co-director Jonathan Goldstein were working on pre-production for Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, they began considering who they would need for the role of Holga’s ex-husband Marlamin, wanting a “larger-than-life” actor to play the small character. They needed someone who would be able to bring a real pathos to the character along with vulnerability and humor that the character needed to exhibit in only a short scene. Both Daley and Goldstein called up Cooper to give him an idea of what the project would be. Daley said:

John Francis Daley & Jonathan Goldstein Screened A Dungeons & Dragons Rough Cut For Cooper

In order to show Cooper just what it was they were going for, Daley and Goldstein filmed a rough-cut version of the Dungerons & Dragons film without incomplete visual effects. This was an unusual and somewhat risky move considering, without complete special effects, Cooper may have been turned off from Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves. Daley said:

Daley correctly assumed that as a filmmaker himself, Cooper would be able to understand what the finished project could look like. Cooper liked what he saw and ended up coming to set for a day to film his scene and then let the Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves VFX team work their movie magic, shrinking him from a 6′ 1″ star to a 3-inch halfling.

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