The Art Of The Cameo

Sometimes the best way to be there, is to be gone.

Why is it some of the best roles are little more than cameos?

An example: this is probably my favourite recipe for a martini. Fill a shaker with ice, stir in a tiny amount of vermouth, then tip it out. Add the gin (or vodka if you’re uncouth) and, after a little stirring and lemon skin, there’s your drink. You can try it without the vermouth, but that ain’t a martini.

A sazerac is defined by absinthe, even though all you do is rinse the glass with it.

Some of the best steaks barely touch the pan.

Bill Murray needs 30 seconds to inject the unexpected into hours of film. (In fact, great character actors - for some reason Xander Berkeley always springs to mind - built careers out of bit-parts).

In The Social Network, Sean Parker’s ‘biggest contribution’ is said to be no more than the instruction to lose ‘the’ from The Facebook.

Tiny interventions matter.