Top 10 Biopics Where the Real Person Makes an Appearance

Based on the memoirs of author Jim Carroll, who was a teenager when he started using heroin, “The Basketball Diaries” is a story of addiction, sex work, and wasted promise. In one key scene, Carroll himself shows up as another addict who rambles on to his fictional self about his experiences. Carroll, of course, is being played by a young Leonardo DiCaprio, who is just on the verge of becoming a huge star. It’s a bizarre clashing of reality and fiction. His ragged voice and intensely visual way of telling a story lends a whole new air of authenticity to what critics otherwise thought was a muddled melodrama.

Will Smith plays Chris Gardner, a salesman struggling under the weight of bills, eviction notices, and barriers to entry into his chosen field. Eventually left with his young son to take care of, his situation becomes more and more desperate as the stakes of his finding permanent employment become higher and higher. After his greatest triumph, the fictional Gardner and his son, played by real-life son Jaden, pass the real Chris Gardner at a crosswalk. Smith looks over his shoulder at the real Gardner, whose presence is unexplained, but once you know the real story, it’s a haunting and meta reminder of how far a person can go in one lifetime.

Anyone who loves bad movies knows about “The Room.” The 2003 melodrama written by, directed by, and starring Tommy Wiseau is a legendary flop. However, its making provides the backdrop for director James Franco’s look at what happens when artistic ambition outweighs skill. Eccentric to a fault, Wiseau may not have had the Hollywood career he dreamed of, but he gets a chance to showcase his skills in a small role opposite Franco’s fictionalized version of him. The scene where they meet is as hilariously awkward and weirdly endearing as anything else in the movie.

Woody Harrelson plays the embattled publisher of “Hustler” magazine, which made him the subject of several charges of indecency and smut-peddling. Much of this biopic is made up of court scenes, which find Flynt, his lawyer, and his wife facing down judges and juries over First Amendment rights. In a deliciously ironic turn, the real-life Larry Flynt appears as one of these judges. Appearing as Judge William J. Morrissey Jr., Flynt gets to watch over the reenactment of his own trial for obscenity. Harrelson was widely praised for his performance, and it couldn’t have been all that easy to play someone right in front of them.

The narrow miss that was the Apollo 13 lunar mission gave Tom Hanks one of his most memorable roles as astronaut Jim Lovell. It was Lovell’s book, “Lost Moon,” that inspired the 1995 movie based on that mission. The true story involves three space crew whose aircraft malfunctions during an attempted moon landing. They must race against time and dwindling power and oxygen to get back to Earth. Lovell’s cameo occurs near the end after the astronauts are safely returned to Earth. In the scene, Hanks and his co-stars are received on the USS Iwo Jima, where the uniformed Jim Lovell salutes him and shakes his hand.

This 1983 biopic tells the story of the military pilots who became America’s first astronauts. Sam Shepard plays Chuck Yeager, the Air Force officer who became the first pilot to break the sound barrier. Yeager himself has a very small, but incredibly memorable appearance at the ranch and restaurant frequented by his screen counterpart and his fellow pilots. His brief role as a whiskey-pushing bartender is hilarious given the context of the scene, with NASA higher-ups declaring that Yeager and his cohorts aren’t polished enough for their program. Clearly, if the movie is any indication, history proved them wrong.

When Gus Van Sant made a biopic of gay activist and politician Harvey Milk’s life in 2008, many of his associates were still alive. Van Sant included many of them in cameo roles, sometimes even playing themselves. Cleve Jones, a protégé of Harvey Milk’s, was played by Emile Hirsch in the film. On top of being credited as a historical consultant on the film, he appears as an actor in the role of Don Amador, another activist from the period. Since his days as an activist alongside Harvey Milk, Jones has carried on his legacy of disruption and community organizing.

Martin Scorsese’s epic chronicles the highs and lows of the real-life stockbroker who was imprisoned for securities fraud and money laundering. Given the subject’s boundless charisma and skills in front of a crowd, it’s only fitting that “The Wolf of Wall Street” should include the real Jordan Belfort. He has a cameo as the speaker who introduces his on-screen counterpart at the end of the movie. Just from this taste of his way with a crowd, it’s clear how he became the success he was, and it’s also clear why he went into motivational speaking afterward. DiCaprio has plenty of bravado and stage presence himself, but it’s amazing to see the real man in action.

The life story of this environmental activist became a star vehicle for Julia Roberts, but clearly, it was close enough to the truth for her to make an appearance. Roberts won an Oscar for her role as a sassy and relentless paralegal with no formal law training who holds a multi-million-dollar conglomerate to the fire. Erin Brockovich herself has a short but sweet cameo with the actors playing her and her three children. She appears as a waitress in a diner, while her real-life former boss, Ed Masry, played in the movie by Albert Finney, appears in a booth behind the Brockovich family.

Steven Spielberg’s intense and profoundly disturbing chronicle of life before and during the Holocaust was a landmark moment in cinema. Liam Neeson stars as Oskar Schindler, an industrialist who was able to save over a thousand Jewish people from concentration camps by employing them in his factory. Many of the people he saved appear in a procession at the end of the film, visiting Schindler’s grave alongside the actors who portrayed them in the film. It drives home the point that the Holocaust is not some vague historical moment so far away that its wounds are gone. It is a living, breathing legacy.

Which of these appearances made the biggest impact? Tell us in the comments.