Ali Plumb's Top Five Most Random A-Lister Movie Cameos

Everyone loves a good cameo. Some are blink-and-you'll-miss-'em Alfred Hitchcock affairs, while others can totally steal the show, like Tom Cruise in Tropic Thunder.

But what really delights me is when the cameo is completely out of place and as bizarre as possible. To give you a taste of what I mean, here are just a few properly odd ones you may have forgotten:

• Dale Winton in Trainspotting (1996)
• Meat Loaf (and many others, to be fair) in Spice World (1997)
• Billy Idol in The Wedding Singer (1998)
• Robert Patrick’s as the T-1000 in Wayne's World (1992)
• David Hasselhoff in The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie (2004)
• Steven Spielberg in The Blues Brothers (1980)
• Ryan Reynolds in A Million Ways To Die In The West (2014) and Ted (2012)
• Dan Aykroyd in full Ghostbusting uniform in Casper (1995)
• Hulk Hogan in Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990)
• The cast of Dawson’s Creek, in character, in Muppets from Space (1999)

These examples are chicken feed compared to what I've put in my top five, and I don't say that lightly.

There's a decent chance you won't even be aware of the cameos I'm about to unveil for you. Truly.

But I do have some very honorable mentions to rattle through - cameos that are very strange indeed but I've decided not to put them on my list because I think they've become so well known they're no longer all that weird any more. So that's:

• David Bowie in Zoolander (2001)
• Bill Murray in Zombieland (2009)
• Chuck Norris in Dodgeball (2004)
• Jack Black, Luke Wilson, Tim Robbins and Ben Stiller in Anchorman (2004)
• Harrison Ford, Jim Carrey, Liam Neeson, Tina Fey, Amy Poehler and Will Smith in Anchorman 2 (2013)

Sometimes I press play on these films just to see these appearances, and that's not quite what we're here for.

I should also give a tip of the cap to the incredible gag of Martin Sheen and Charlie Sheen shouting at each other about Wall Street in Hot Shots Part Deux (1993). I may well save this one for a top five 'most meta moments' further down the line, so watch this space.

And with all that said, I would like to also sound the trumpet for Edgar Wright's cameo casting prowess on Hot Fuzz, giving us snippets of Adam Buxton, Martin Freeman, Steve Coogan and Bill Nighy. And that's not forgetting Lord Of The Rings director Peter Jackson as Santa and a totally unrecogniseable Cate Blanchett as a crime scene investigator, complete with protective suit and mask. Sticking an Oscar-winning actress in a cameo role where you can't even work out it's her? Yep, they did it, and it's glorious. Almost as good as Coldplay's Chris Martin playing a zombie in Shaun Of The Dead.

Anyway, let's crack on, shall we?

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David Beckham and writer-director Guy Ritchie are obviously good friends, as Becks has appeared in two of Ritchie's movies now: King Arthur (as Trigger, a guard who oversees the prisoners attempting to pull Excalibur from the stone) and The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (as a Russian projectionist who puts some of his slides in upside down). Both appearances are, frankly, bizarre.

If you're looking for more footballers popping up in feature-length motion pictures, may I point you in the direction of Stan Collymore in Basic Instinct 2 (2005), Pele in Escape To Victory (1981) and Vinnie Jones in - whaddayaknow? - Guy Ritchie's Lock, Stock And Two Smoking Barrels (1998).

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No stranger to the weird cameo, as any Eurotrip and Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back fans will tell you, Matt Damon agreed to play Loki in a pseudo-panto version of the previous Marvel films because he's mates with Chris Hemsworth and director Taika Waititi.

Also along for the ride were Jurassic Park's Sam Neill as Odin, and as the God Of Thunder himself, Chris Hemsworth's other brother, Luke. Good actors acting badly on purpose? Such a delight.

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If you were to say you spotted Daniel Craig from his Stormtrooper-ised voice alone the first time you watched The Force Awakens, well, you'd be lying, admit it. James Bond hopping into the white plastic body armour for a quick scene with Daisy Ridley sounds totally unbelievable, but trust me, it happened. Star Wars and 007 now that would be quite the crossover.

Oh, and by the way, there's another hidden cameo in Episode VII: Unkar Plutt, Rey's sluggy junk boss, was played by super Star Wars fan Simon Pegg, donning a rubbery alien suit in the jaw-droppingly hot Abu Dhabi desert. You suffer for your art, eh?

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There are a trio of surprising cameos in Hook: Gwyneth Paltrow as young Wendy, Phil Collins as the lead police inspector and the best of the lot, Glenn Close as Gutless, the traitorous pirate Hook throws in the "Boo Box" with a few creepy crawlies for company.

So many people have no idea that it was Glenn Close even now. In fact, this may be the moment in your life where your jaw hits the floor and your childhood is changed forever. Possibly. Perhaps.

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You know when I said "blink-and-you'll-miss-'em cameos"? Well, this is the definition of that. Playing an invisible superhero called "The Vanisher" Brad Pitt didn't need to do much for this cameo. At all. In fact, what we end up seeing is a couple of frames of footage, which has to be some sort of A-lister cameo record.

It happens when his unseeable character hits an electricity cable as he parachutes out of a plane (as you do). For just a couple of moments he's briefly seen - startled, burning, hair set to fry out of his skull - before inevitably perishing. So quick, so unexpected, so bizarre. And what a waste of handsome! First they cover Ryan Reynolds in facial prosthetics and a mask, and now this!? For shame, Deadpool, for shame...