6 Movies Where Celebrities Star As Themselves, In Honor of ‘This is the End’

Movie #2 – Zombieland

Year – 2009

Quite possibly the funniest cameo of the last twenty years was originally intended for Patrick Swayze. However, being diagnosed with cancer put a bit of damper on that. So the film makers offer the role to a cavalcade of actors including Joe Pesci, Mark Hamill, Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Bacon, Jean-Claude Van Damme and Matthew McConaughey. But they all said no for various reasons.

Filmmakers were two-days away from shooting the now infamous scene and still hadn’t been able to cast the role. So they went to the film’s star Woody Harrelson and asked if he had anyone in his rolodex that would do him a favor. He suggested Bill Murray. Ironically, he was their first thought when Swayze fell ill but Murray is notoriously difficult to get.

They quickly wrote a new “Bill Murray version” of the scene and sent it to a Kinko’s in New York. Originally Murray was going to be a zombie but told them it would be funnier if he were merely pretending to be a zombie.

Clearly, he was right.