One of M. Night Shyamalan‘s biggest influences was Alfred Hitchcock, with one of the legendary filmmaker’s trends being a cameo appearance in many of his films. Shyamalan has kept this tradition alive, with Glass also featuring a cameo from the writer/director which might leave some audiences scratching their heads. In case you don’t remember Shyamalan’s cameos in Unbreakable or Split, we’ve got you covered on how they all tie together.
WARNING: Spoilers below for Glass
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Nearly two decades after the events of Unbreakable, David Dunn (Bruce Willis) has opened a home security business which allows him to protect those who need help. In Glass, Shyamalan appears as a security guard who aims to beef up the security of the apartment building where he works.
In Split, Shyamalan played the same security guard who watched over a building in which Dr. Karen Fletcher (Betty Buckley) lived. Kevin Crumb (James McAvoy) would regularly visit the apartment to seek counseling from Fletcher for his dissociative identity disorder. Crumb ultimately unleashed his supernaturally strong identity of The Beast on Fletcher, resulting in her death. Shyamalan’s character explains in Glass that it was because of this former tenant being murdered that he wanted to beef up security and purchase cameras for the building from Dunn’s business.
In Unbreakable, Dunn discovers he has supernatural abilities that not only prevent him from suffering serious injuries, but also allow him to touch a person and see nefarious things they’ve done. Working as a security guard at the nearby college’s football stadium, Dunn tests his skills by touching various spectators to discover what secrets they are hiding.
Shyamalan’s cameo in Unbreakable is as one of these football fans, with Dunn touching him and catching a glimpse of the man retrieving drugs from a trash can within the stadium. When Dunn confronts the man, he doesn’t have the drugs on him, making him question his abilities.
In Glass, Shyamalan recognizes Dunn as someone who used to work security at the stadium and mentions how he used to hang out with “shady characters” earlier in his life, confirming that he is the same character in all three films.
Arguably the element that makes the cameos a little trickier to tie together is that, throughout a majority of Split, fans were completely unaware that it was a secret sequel to Unbreakable, up until the film’s final moments. In that regard, fans thought little of Shyamalan’s cameo in the 2000 film, with Glass now putting together all the pieces of the filmmaker’s role in the narrative together.
Glass lands in theaters this Friday.
