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How The Fall Guy Pulled Off That Huge, Surprise [SPOILER] Cameo

How director David Leitch called in the big favor from a longtime celebrity friend.

Spoilers for The Fall Guy below!

The internet is all abuzz now that early audiences have emerged from their first action-fueled weekend with Universal Pictures' The Fall Guy, and not only with word-of-mouth chatter over Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt staging a hilariously amped-up recreation of the 1980s TV classic.

Director David Leitch (John Wick, Deadpool 2) packed in plenty of adrenalized twists and turns to keep the stunt-packed movie’s star cast at full throttle. But it’s a surprise cameo from another big celebrity name that’s had audiences doing delighted double-takes all through opening weekend, and the behind-the-scenes story of how Leitch managed to pull it off just oozes the same kind of feel-good vibes that make The Fall Guy such a fun summer blockbuster in the first place.

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How The Fall Guy scored its surprise celebrity cameo: Jason Momoa

Jason Momoa at the "Common Ground" Los Angeles Special Screening

As fans are finding out, none other than Fast X mega-baddie Jason Momoa makes a late cameo appearance in The Fall Guy as the replacement actor hired to save the alien-infested production of the fictional Metalstorm movie at the center of The Fall Guy’s story. It’s a brief but fun turn for Momoa, who swats at aliens with a sci-fi guitar weapon while sporting a western hat that’s hilariously on-brand for the star’s action-movie reputation.

It's not the movie's only cameo surprise, as old-school fans of the original The Fall Guy TV series know. But how did Momoa land his cameo? And, more importantly, how did he and Leitch manage to keep his appearance on the down low in a production as big as The Fall Guy?

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Speaking recently with Business Insider, Leitch said it was as easy as calling up a longtime friend. “I just reached out and asked if he would come over for a day, and without blinking, he flew in and out on the same day,” said Leitch, with obvious admiration that Momoa — even while smack in the middle of his own film production in New Zealand — would use his solo off day to get in costume for an entirely different movie.

“Jason and I go way back to his days when he was Conan,” Leitch explained. ”I directed the second unit on that movie [2011’s Conan the Barbarian] and we became good friends… He showed up, and we put him in the cowboy costume, and there are explosions going on around him. He came up to me and said, ‘Only you, Leitch, would have me do this.’”

Hey — as fans of both Momoa and The Fall Guy, we wouldn’t have it any other way.

Catch Momoa, Gosling, and Blunt alongside costars Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Hannah Waddingham, and Winston Duke in The Fall Guy, playing right now in theaters everywhere. Grab your tickets here!