Inventory Is Wayne Brady gonna have to choke a bitch?: 21+ guest stars who stretched the meaning of "as himself"

1. Merv Griffin, The Man With Two Brains
Nowadays, goofy star cameos are a dime a dozen, and many celebrities have realized that, far from damaging their careers, a well-deployed bit of self-mockery can make them seem human and relatable, and even give their reputation a needed jolt. That wasn’t so clear 25 years ago, which gives the big twist ending of Steve Martin’s hit-and-miss comedy The Man With Two Brains its staying power. A subplot involves the activities of a serial murderer known as “The Elevator Killer,” a mysterious figure who corners strangers in lifts and gives them fatal injections; at the end of the film, it’s revealed to be none other than likeable, breezy talk-show host Merv Griffin. Explaining his massive body count with the same demeanor he used on his show to discuss the purchase of a new jacket, Griffin says “I’ve always just loved to kill. I really enjoyed it.”

2. Neil Patrick Harris, Harold & Kumar Go To White Castle and Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay
The best example of an actor who realized he could get ahead by not taking his name or reputation seriously: Neil Patrick Harris, who, as of 2004, was largely known as “that kid from Doogie Howser, M.D.”—small TV roles and a respectable stage career weren’t doing much to bring him back into the limelight. Then he made a gloriously unselfconscious appearance as himself in Harold & Kumar Go To White Castle—or at least as a drug-addled, sex-obsessed, pantingly assholish Tucker Max-esque version of himself who uses his Doogie fame to pick up strippers. He cannonballs through the film, stealing every scene he’s in with comments about tripping balls and craving furburgers. Naturally, he returned for the sequel, in which he explains that the PH in NPH stands for “poon handler.” As abrasive as the role was, watching him play savagely against the cutesy innocence of Doogie Howser was comic gold, and it earned him attention in the right places. Within a year, he was co-starring on How I Met Your Mother, and the rest is awards-show-hosting history.

3. Jean-Claude Van Damme, JCVD
The last thing anyone expected from the star of Timecop was subtlety and nuance, but that’s exactly what Jean-Claude Van Damme delivers in JCVD, a fascinating blend of truth and fiction that’s both a triumphant comeback and an excoriating admission of personal failure. Van Damme strips away all his “Muscles From Brussels” vanity to play a washed-up version of himself that’s uncomfortably close to the truth: relegated to potboiler knock-offs of his former successes, estranged from his family due to nonstop shooting schedules, and recognized solely by an older, diminishing fan base that still ranks him as an also-ran to Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sly Stallone, even in his own hometown. But ironically for a guy who made his name by delivering high-kicks to the face, this painfully vulnerable side makes for Van Damme's strongest performance yet. After all, it takes real balls to admit that most producers would pass him over for his old rival Steven Seagal, if only Seagal were willing to lose the ponytail.

4. Wayne Brady, Chappelle’s Show
In a bid to play against his public persona—the whitest, safest black man in show business—Wayne Brady appeared in an incredible seven-minute skit on Chappelle’s Show, whose Paul Mooney had accused him of making “Bryant Gumbel look like Malcolm X.” In the skit, Brady drives Chappelle around, stopping to do a drive-by, kill a cop, and in the most hilarious, oft-quoted moment, collect money from his stable of prostitutes. And with these nine words, Brady proved himself self-aware and gloriously in on the joke: “Is Wayne Brady gonna have to choke a bitch?”

5. Bob Barker, Happy Gilmore
When he’s paired up with super-goof Adam Sandler in a pro-am golf tournament, Bob Barker loses his cool, dissing Sandler’s playing and ending up in a drawn-out fistfight with him. The sweet, demure Barker—a spokesman for spaying and neutering your pets!—ends up kicking the shit out of Sandler up and down the golf course, ending the scene by calling him a bitch. That isn’t the guy from The Price Is Right!

6. Topher Grace, Oceans Eleven and Ocean’s Thirteen 
Topher Grace plays himself as a callow, mildly annoying Hollywood pretty boy hoping to pick up some scuzzy credibility from Brad Pitt’s master criminal/part-time poker tutor in Oceans Eleven, his second collaboration with Traffic director Steven Soderbergh. He returned in Ocean’s Thirteen, at which point seemingly half the plot seemed to consist of actors spoofing their public image—including Bruce Willis and Julia Roberts, who appears as both George Clooney’s girlfriend and as herself, in a self-indulgent dual role. 

7-9. Carl Weathers, Judge Reinhold, and Andy Richter, Arrested Development
Arrested Development is a madcap, zany take on corporate corruption and sitcom dysfunctional families, so it follows that its trio of memorable self-deprecating cameos are just as nutty. In the third season, Conan O’Brien wingman Andy Richter made an appearance spoofing his short-lived Fox show Quintuplets by playing five identical brothers with starkly different personalities. (For instance, sensitive Donnie Richter thinks, “Andy’s an attention hog, can’t seem to find an audience, but I love the fat SOB anyway.”) The “real” Andy appears only briefly in that episode, acting like a big shot and only agreeing to appear at a charity event upon hearing there will be a free dinner. Judge Reinhold plays a similarly stuck-up spin on himself, indignant that playing a TV judge means wearing a robe obscuring all the weight he lost for the role. But the gold standard of self-deprecating Arrested Development cameos is unquestionably Carl Weathers. The Predator co-star plays an obsessively stingy version of himself; his only goal when acting is to not touch his per diem, and to “get a stew on” with food swiped from craft services. His cheapness knows no bounds, whether he’s boasting about the “loophole the wrong guy discovered” in milking cash from airlines by intentionally getting bumped from flights, or merely conning Burger King into giving him a free refill of any drink he wants, not just the one he ordered.

10. John Malkovich, Being John Malkovich
The screenwriting debut of Charlie Kaufman and directorial debut of Spike Jonze is agreeably loopy and twisted, as a nebbishy nobody and his scheming co-worker discover a portal into the mind of actor John Malkovich, and start charging people to make the trip and live out a little piece of Malkovich’s life. But the whole project just wouldn’t be nearly the same without Malkovich playing himself. The script calls for a fey, temperamental, self-absorbed Malkovich, and the real one complies, playing the role to the hilt; reportedly Jonze and Kaufman spent years persuading him to take the role on after he refused several times. It was well worth the effort.

11. Paul Giamatti, Cold Souls
It takes real chutzpah to make a metaphysical comedy with a conceit so obviously indebted to Being John Malkovich, and Sophie Barthes’ Cold Souls falls well short of its ambition. But Paul Giamatti’s take on “Paul Giamatti” is a marvel of clammy self-loathing and neuroses—in that sense, it has more in common with the “Charlie Kaufman” of Charlie Kaufman’s Adaptation (played by Nicolas Cage) than with Malkovich’s ruthless parody of himself—and Giamatti’s performance plumbs depths the movie itself can’t muster. Playing a tortured New York stage actor driven to the brink by his role in Uncle Vanya, “Giamatti” seeks help from an organization that extracts human souls and keeps them in storage. (His has the color and dimension of a chickpea.) When he goes back to rehearsal, freed from the albatross of having a soul, Giamatti breezes through his lines with confidence and zeal, which isn’t right for Chekhov, either. Thus, Giamatti’s achievement in Cold Souls is to play two different kinds of bad actors well: One who’s so wrapped up in Method torture that he can barely perform, and another who’s fundamentally incapable of giving the work the gravitas it needs.