‘Deadpool 2’: The Story Behind the Two Cameos You May Have Missed

Deadpool 2 features more gratuitous pop culture nods and cameos than fans could probably count. But as it turns out, one pair of cameos were hidden right in plain sight — and came about in a pretty interesting way.

In a recent interview with Collider, Deadpool 2 director David Leitch spoke about the film’s major cameos, most notably Brad Pitt as the short-lived X-Force member Vanisher. But in the days since the film debuted in theaters, fans have also noticed cameo appearances from Matt Damon and Alan Tudyk, who play the two rednecks that Cable (Josh Brolin) kills shortly after arriving in the present day.

For even the most eagle-eyed of viewers, Damon and Tudyk’s cameos might be a little hard to spot at first, largely because Damon is acting under quite a bit of facial prosthetics (and waxing poetic about his very specific toilet paper routine). And as it turns out, Damon’s cameo was even kept secret from the cast and crew in some pretty creative ways.

“Bill Corso, our makeup artist, he’s a master at prosthetics.” Leitch revealed. “He had Matt in the chair for three hours, and a lot of the crew didn’t know. There were some people who had worked with him on movies, and if you’re on a run of a show of a movie you’ve worked with him for four months, you look at him every single day. But we didn’t even tell the crew, his name wasn’t on the call sheet—it was a fake name. Nobody really knew what that scene was about, they were like, ‘Why are we shooting these two rednecks?’ We just didn’t tell anybody.”

There’s also an added layer of fun to Damon and Tudyk’s involvement in the film, considering the roles that both of them have in the geek space. Tudyk has become a bit of a geek icon over the years, appearing in Firefly and Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, while Damon most recently had a similarly-notable cameo in last year’s Thor: Ragnarok.

“[The cameos happened] because you have the celebrity star-power of Ryan Reynolds, you have a franchise that is beloved.” Leitch explained. “And then I have worked with both [Pitt and Damon] as a stunt double, so I think having all of those things helped. Moreso Ryan Reynolds and moreso Deadpool being beloved, but me knowing who they were cracked the door open a bit, and actually Matt knows Ryan really well too.”

That friendship actually helped the cameo come about pretty easily, as Reynolds asked Damon about it over dinner.

“The Matt one came from Ryan just having dinner with Matt and he was telling him about the gag and was like, ‘Would you want to do it?’” Leitch continued. “It was that simple. I don’t even know if Matt knew I was directing the movie at the time.”

What did you think of Matt Damon and Alan Tudyk’s Deadpool 2 cameos? Do they make you want to see the film again to get a second look? Let us know what you think in the comments below.

Deadpool 2 is in theaters now.