Here's the story behind that Dungeons & Dragons surprise cameo

Warning: This article contains spoilers from Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves.

In addition to A-list talent like Chris Pine, Michelle Rodriguez, Hugh Grant, and Regé-Jean Page, Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves has another big-name star who audiences see for the first time in theaters this weekend. (Unless you caught the film at SXSW. In which case, the cat's out of the bag!)

A Star Is Born and American Hustle actor Bradley Cooper makes a brief appearance in the film as Marlamin, the mild-mannered and extremely short ex-husband of Rodriguez's barbarian Holga. Cooper, however, was a late addition. In fact, an early cut of D&D showed filmmaker Dexter Fletcher (Rocketman, Eddie the Eagle) portraying the role opposite Rodriguez.

Directors John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein, as well as the cast, chronicle the movie magic that made this all happen in an interview with EW.

In short, Fletcher did the crew a solid. Daley and Goldstein, who also wrote D&D with screenwriter Michael Gilio, always intended to cast an instantly recognizable actor in the role of Marlamin for the shock value. However, the COVID-19 pandemic made that challenging.

"Anybody who was willing to come to work with us had to endure a quarantine in the U.K. So it limited some of the choices we had," Goldstein says. They had one day to shoot the scene in which Holga makes a pitstop at Marlamin's home and meets his new girlfriend. "Dexter was a friend of the court and someone who we thought would be great, and he was kind enough to come and do the part," Goldstein adds.

Fletcher comes with an extended acting career, though these days he's more focused behind the camera on directing and producing. He knew the realities of the ask going in. "He was great," Daley notes. "It was a really sweet, touching scene, but our intention had always been to cast that role with someone who immediately, when they open the door, the audience gasps in recognition."

When Daley was 19, the Freaks and Geeks alum acted on the short-lived Fox series Kitchen Confidential, which starred Cooper. The two remained in touch. "I asked him on a lark if he would be game to come and spend a day with us," Daley recalls. "We sent him a rough cut of the film and fortunately he really responded to it."

Part of the gag was the size discrepancy between the pint-sized Marlamin and the hulking Holga. The filmmakers first shot Fletcher on a giant chair. Upon observing the cut of the scene, Daley says they realized "it wasn't as provocative."

"It wasn't as instantly disparate in his size compared to Holga," he adds. So they made the chair "30 percent bigger" for Cooper.

"Bradley is so good in the part," Page tells EW in a separate interview with his castmates (shown in the clip above). "Like, eyes as deep as the ocean. He just kind of emotion bombs the entire movie."

"What I love about that scene is that it's hilarious, but it is also very sincere," Justice Smith tells Rodriguez. "My heart ached for both of your characters."

"I felt like I dropped character for a second there and it was like a spoof on a spoof within the movie, and then we can go back to suspension of disbelief," Rodriguez says. "'Cause for a moment there I think everybody is not thinking about the character within the movie. They're just seeing Bradley Cooper, this iconic actor, celebrity on screen. And I thought that was kind of really funny. I noticed in the audience at Austin [for the film's SXSW premiere] we all were thrown aback for a minute there. It was really cute. It was funny. It was a funny moment."

Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves is playing now in theaters.

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