As Himself / Live-Action TV

As Himself in live-action television:

• Baywatch - Lifeguard Michael "Newmie" Newman is played by Michael Newman, a real LA County lifeguard.
• The Big Bang Theory features Wil Wheaton playing a Jerkass version of himself a few times, serving as Sheldon's nemesis and eventual friend. Brent Spiner becomes Sheldon's new nemesis.
• Angela's father in Bones is Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top.
• Scottie Pippen appears in a couple episodes of Chicago Sons as the new owner of the building the Kulchak brothers live in.
• Some Curb Your Enthusiasm examples:
  • Larry David himself — at first glance this appears to be a case of Adam Westing, until you learn that the Larry David we see on the show is not very exaggerated at all from the real Larry David.
  • Ben Stiller, David Schwimmer, Cady Huffman and Mel Brooks appeared when they were putting on a revival of The Producers.
  • Richard Lewis and Ted Danson as Larry's friends, along with Mary Steenburgen and Rosie O'Donnell.
  • The entire cast of Seinfeld in the seventh season.
• Loads in Doctor Who, among them Derek Acorah, Paul O'Grady and Alistair Appleton.
• Pop star George Michael played himself in the first season of Eli Stone, appearing both in musical visions and in the real world. At the end of the season, it's heavily implied that he is God.
• A few Entourage examples:
  • Mandy Moore played herself as Vince's costar in Aquaman. They supposedly dated when they starred together in another (very real) movie years earlier.
  • Seth Green has shown up as himself several times, mostly to annoy Eric that he (maybe) dated Sloan before E did.
  • Jamie-Lynn Sigler appeared as herself in the fifth and sixth seasons, dating Turtle. Even more bizarre, considering the two ended up dating in Real Life for about a year.
  • Ed Burns plays himself as the producer of Drama's show.
  • Several directors have appeared as themselves as well, including James Cameron and Gus Van Sant.
  • Porn star Sasha Grey appeared in several episodes as herself and Vince's girlfriend.
• Extras episodes heavily feature this trope (most of the time they are playing parodies of themselves). In fact, pretty much the only celebrities that do not play themselves are the regular cast.
• The Gene Autry Show featured country singer Gene Autry playing a fictional version of himself taking part in a series of western adventures (his exact role, which saw him as a ranch hand in one week and a sheriff in another, tended to change from episode to episode).
• Generation Kill: Sgt. Rudy Reyes, one of the real 1st Recon Marines, plays himself. Initially hired as an advisor.
• Josh Groban and Olivia Newton-John have both made cameos on Glee, both having a blast making fun of themselves and pretending they're huge jerks.
• Gossip Girl name-drops 90's one-hit wonder musician Lisa Loeb. Then in the flashfoward part of the finale she is romantically involved with main character Rufus.
• iCarly: Jerry Trainor and Miranda Cosgrove in iBloop.
  • Plain White T's in "iRue the Day" and One Direction in "iGo One Direction"
  • In "iShock America", Jimmy Fallon and Steve Higgins from The Tonight Show. Also Tina Fey and Rachel Dratch both former castmates of Jimmy's on Saturday Night Live.
  • Rick and Corey Harrison as well as Chumlee from Pawn Stars appear in the episode "iLost My Head in Vegas".
  • Kenan Thompson played himself in "iPary With Victorious". He even mentions his old show All That.
  • Guess who appears in "iMeet the First Lady"? Michelle Obama.
• Garry Shandling in It's Garry Shandling's Show.
  • In addition, the show had numerous guest stars, including Tom Petty, Rob Reiner, Martin Mull, and guest host Red Buttons.
• Jennifer Grey in It's Like, You Know.... The other characters are skeptical of this at first since Grey no longer had her distinct nose from her 1980s films.
• Just Shoot Me! has had Mark Hamill, Tyra Banks, Carmen Electra, Pamela Anderson and Ray Liotta appearing as themselves.
• Lou Ferrigno in The King of Queens.
• The Larry Sanders Show had several, including Jon Stewart as his rival and David Duchovny, who had a gay crush on Larry.
• Louis C.K. plays himself, a divorced stand-up comedian, in Louie, with various comedians also appearing as themselves.
• The Man in the Funny Suit is a television drama based on the production of the Requiem for a Heavyweight presentation for Playhouse 90. Its two stars, Ed Wynn and Keenan Wynn are playing themselves, as are a great number of other people who were part of the original production including Rod Serling, Red Skelton, Ralph Nelson, Bob Mathias and Ned Glass.

• Played with in Monty Python's Flying Circus, in which everyone would so often break character to remark how silly a sketch is that it felt like you were watching the actual members of Monty Python struggling to put on a decent TV show.
• Never Have I Ever: John McEnroe narrates as himself. Later, Andy Samberg does narration for Ben's Day In The Limelight. McEnroe later appears in the S01 finale, in the flesh.
• Seinfeld appeared in an episode of Newsradio.
• Penn of Penn & Teller appears in the season five episode 'Magic Show' of NUMB3RS to help investigate a magic trick gone wrong.
• Creed Bratton on The Office falls between this and Adam Westing.
• Posthumous example - Adolf Hitler in Red Dwarf (using archive footage with Craig Charles superimposed next to him). Exists solely for a few Historical In-Joke gags regarding his missing testicle and his briefcase. The Adolf Hitler As Himself credit got a huge laugh from the studio audience.
• Bristol Palin showed up for one scene in The Secret Life of the American Teenager when Amy was at a music program for teen moms.
• Seinfeld had several throughout the years. Most memorably, Keith Hernandez (the former New York Met), shows up as himself several times, before and after he dates Elaine. And technically, Jerry plays himself throughout the series, as evidenced by his appearance on the Today Show with Bryant Gumbel in The Puffy Shirt episode.
• Stargate-verse:
  • General Michael E. Ryan and General John P. Jumper, each the actual Chief of Staff of the Air Force at the time his episode aired, appeared as themselves in cameos on Stargate SG-1 in 2001 and 2004, respectively. Richard Dean Anderson recalls in a DVD featurette that he asked General Ryan if he had officers as irreverent as his character Jack O'Neill, and Ryan replied, "Son, yes we do have colonels like you and worse."
  • Bill Nye the Science Guy and Neil deGrasse Tyson both guest starred in an episode of Stargate Atlantis. Neil was little more than a cameo, but Bill Nye played a somewhat extensive part.
    Rodney McKay: At least I didn't declassify Pluto from planet-status. Way to make all the little kids cry, Neil. That make you feel like a big man?
• Star Trek:
  • Star Trek: The Next Generation:
    • Stephen Hawking appeared as a hologram of himself in "Descent: Part I", being the only person to play themselves in any Star Trek production. He played poker with Data and holograms of Sir Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein and won. (Brent Spiner mentioned in an interview that, as he was accompanying Hawking off-set, they passed the warp core set, and Hawking said "I'm working on that." Since Hawking's synthesized voice makes him a perfect Deadpan Snarker, Spiner said he's still not sure whether Hawking was kidding.)
    • Arguably, Joe Piscopo played himself in the second season episode "The Outrageous Okona", but he was only credited as "The Comic". Data picked him from a list of notable comics from history, so if it wasn't meant to be a genuine one — like Piscopo — any actor could have played The Comic.
  • Star Trek: Picard: A peculiar example in that the "actor" is a geologic feature rather than a person. Vasquez Rocks has been used as a filming location many times throughout the Star Trek Franchise as far back as The Original Series, portraying a lengthy list of alien planets. In "Maps and Legends", Vasquez Rocks finally appear, in-universe, as Vasquez Rocks on Earth. There's even an establishing subtitle.
• V.I.P. had Lit appear as themselves hiring Val to be their bodyguard. They then later ask her to guest star As Herself in their music video. Which in itself zig zagged what happened in real life.
• Garry Shandling, Tea Leoni, and Wayne Federman all played themselves in The X-Files episode "Hollywood A.D."
  • Alex Trebek and Jesse Ventura cameoed as themselves (and MIB) in the episode "Jose Chung's From Outer Space".
    • Trebek made something of a franchise for himself in the 1980s and 90s with characters on many shows competing on Jeopardy!. Including Dorothy Sbornak on The Golden Girls, Cliff Clavin on Cheers, Thelma Harper on Mama's Family and Andrea Zuckerman on Beverly Hills, 90210.
  • Jerry Springer played himself in the episode "The Post-Modern Prometheus"

• Walter Cronkite appears as himself, Ted's idol, in an episode of The Mary Tyler Moore Show. Johnny Carson attends one of Mary's parties in the last season, but a blackout occurs so the audience only hears his voice. He's still credited as himself at the end.
• Graeme Souness played himself in Boys from the Blackstuff.
• Laugh-In's Joanne Worley appears on an episode of Caroline in the City when her Stage Door Deli sandwich gets renamed for Caroline.
• Some of the cast of Laugh-In appeared in an episode of Mad About You.
• Oliver North played himself in several episodes of JAG.
• Sammy Davis Jr. once got a cab ride from Archie Bunker, and had to stop by the latter's house to retrieve his briefcase.
• CSI: NY:
  • John McEnroe appeared in the episode "Comes Around," playing both himself and a look-alike who makes a hobby of impersonating him. Played with in an interrogation scene, where the look-alike is explaining that he didn't even watch tennis, while the real McEnroe looks on and bitches about his double (including an utterance of his now trademark "You cannot be serious!"), from behind the room's soundproof one-way mirror.
  • Sportscaster Dick Enberg appeared as himself in the episode "Super Men."
  • Kid Rock, Maroon 5, and Josh Groban all performed as themselves in various other episodes as well.
• Country music group Rascal Flatts appeared as themselves in an episode of CSI, which centered around bassist Jay DeMarcus getting shocked by his bass guitar.
• Clete Roberts plays himself in the Season 4 episode "The Interview" in M*A*S*H. Filmed in black-and-white, Clete Roberts interviews the characters making the episode look like a documentary. Unlike most episodes where everything was scripted and little ad-libbed, in this episodes, the actors were given a lot of freedom to answer the questions. He would return in the Season 7 two-parter "Our Finest Hour" as well as the pilot of unsuccessful spinoff W*A*L*T*E*R.
• Sir Terry Wogan appeared as himself presenting his current (at the time of filming) quiz show - and as a voice of the afterlife, passing on instructions to Saul - in the Series 2, Episode 2 of Being Human (UK).
• Most of the human cast in Greg the Bunny spin-off Warren The Ape.
• Louis Armstrong appears as himself in Hello, Dolly!.
• The Seasons 5-7 cast of 3-2-1 Contact.
• The One-Episode Wonder TV pilot Heat Vision and Jack featured (and would have continued to feature) Ron Silver "As Himself". Despite playing a NASA assassin on this show, Silver was still an actor and at one point, a character points out that "he was the bad guy from Timecop".
• The Sopranos encountered many celebrities in their adventures, largely as a result of Chris's attempts to break into the movie business. Among them included Ben Kingsley, Lauren Bacall, Jon Favreau, Janeane Garofalo, and Sandra Bernhard. Tony also saw Annette Bening in one of his dreams.
• Jean-Claude Van Damme played himself in an episode of Las Vegas...in which he got killed off in a rigged motorcycle stunt.
• The West Wing:
  • Penn & Teller appeared in an episode, in which they pretended to burn an American Flag at the First Daughter's birthday party.
  • Yo-Yo Ma, James Taylor, and other performers have played at various White House functions, and campaign events.
• The title characters of An Evening With Gary Lineker and its Spiritual Successor My Summer With Des. Despite the titles, Lineker and Lynam have minor roles, the shows being about football fans at the 1990 World Cup and Euro '96.
• Corner Gas had a habit of frequently giving cameos to various Canadian celebrities, ranging from actors to athletes, to musicians, to politicians.
• Very common on the Colgate Comedy Hour.
• James Van Der Beek on Don't Trust the B---- in Apartment 23.
• Carl Weathers plays himself on Arrested Development as an out-of-work actor who gives acting lessons to Tobias. The lessons mostly seem to be advice on how to get cheap meals.
• Billy Dee Williams in the Modern Family episode "New Year's Eve."
• Castle plays poker with real-life writers, most notably James Patterson, Dennis Lehane, and Stephen J. Cannell (who got a Vanity Plate tribute and an Empty Chair Memorial when he died.)
• Sister, Sister had a weird one: Marques Houston (who plays Roger) shows up as himself (Batman from Immature), just after Roger did a horrible impersonation of him. Naturally, no one believed him when he said he was Batman.
• Bob Bellveau, one of the real "first sixteen" Los Angeles County paramedics, appeared a few times as himself in Emergency! episodes.
• Monk:
  • "Mr. Monk and the Redheaded Stranger" is an episode-length cameo from Willie Nelson, who gets accused of shooting his road manager in a back alleyway. Monk is said to be a big Nelson fan (and Trudy was one, too), so he sets forth to clear Nelson's name.
    • Noticeably called back to in "Mr. Monk and the Blackout" when Monk mentions that he threw away a harmonica that Nelson gave him as gratitude to clearing his name, simply because he had played it before.
  • "Mr. Monk and the Airplane" has Tim Daly, interestingly Monk lead Tony Shalhoub's costar from Wings, show up on the plane Monk and Sharona are flying to New Jersey on.
  • "Mr. Monk Meets the Playboy" features a cameo by Danny Bonaduce himself, as one of Dexter Larsen's golfing buddies.
  • In "Mr. Monk Makes the Playoffs," Monk ends up getting press box tickets for himself and Mel Stottlemyre to sit with NBC's own Bob Costas in the broadcast booth for a playoff game. Apparently Monk helped Costas out on a favor a long time ago. Stottlemyre says it had something to do with a demented cat salesman. Costas elaborates: the cat salesman was not demented, he sold demented cats, like a psychotic calico kitten, and one cat that tried to kill him with a squeeze toy.
• Fat Actress ran on this trope.
• Person of Interest: supermodel Karolína Kurková appeared as... supermodel Karolína Kurková in the episode "Prisoner's Dilemma."
• The Bionic Woman featured Evel Knievel as himself in Season 3 episode "Motorcycle Boogie", where he becomes an unwitting accomplice to Jaime when she tries to retrieve a stolen data tape from behind the Iron Curtain. Needless to say his trademark motorcycle stunts prove conveniently useful.
• Jam and Jerusalem:
  • Half of the British pop-rock band The Magic Numbers appear as themselves in the Glastonbury episode.
  • Kate Rusby sings in the wedding episode.
  • Whether or not Charles Dance is planning to move to Clatterford becomes a major plot element in the third season.
• A regular occurrence on The Nanny. Lynn Redgrave, Ben Vereen, Jane Seymour (Actress), Elizabeth Taylor, Marla Maples, Chevy Chase, and the list goes on - including, hilariously, Fran Drescher herself.
• Also on Home Improvement, with George Foreman, Michael and Mario Andretti, Bob Vila, The Beach Boys, and the crews of the space shuttles Columbia and Endeavour (astronaut Ken Bowersox showed up with both crews).
• Mister Ed was always in the credits "as himself," even though he was voiced by Allan Rocky Lane (uncredited).
• In El Chavo del ocho, Ramón Valdés is cast as Don Ramón, who was (as described by other actors in the series as well as Ramón's children) essentially himself, but without a stable income. Allegedly, when Chespirito had him cast as Don Ramón, the only instructions he gave Ramón was "be yourself".
  • A more traditional example involves the famous actor Héctor Bonilla, whose car breaks down in front of the vecindad and he has to stop by to ask for help (right when Doña Florinda, Doña Cleotilde and La Chilindrina fantasize over meeting him after watching him on TV).
  • On the other hand, El Chapulín Colorado has an In-Universe example. When the lead actor of a film about the titular character quits, the director summons El Chapulín Colorado, and has him play himself in the film. Of course, with El Chapulín's clumsiness, Hilarity Ensues.
• Twin Peaks: Outside of the bands featured in the roadhouse, Monica Bellucci is perhaps the only person who is not portraying a character when she appears in a dream Gordon Cole had of her.
• One episode of Scrubs featured the guy who played the Soup Nazi on Seinfeld, who JD immediately recognizes. He insists that he isn't the guy and that JD is mistaken, but JD eventually tricks him into saying the Soup Nazi's famous catchphrase.
• Bill Nye appears as himself in several episodes of Blindspot, albeit a version of himself who happens to be Patterson's father. Also, his Stargate Atlantis appearance (listed above) gets a nod when he references Rodney McKay as his academic rival.
• Nicky, Ricky, Dicky, and Dawn has had a number of episodes which fit this trope.
  • Internet sensation Science Bob has been in three episodes: "The Quad Test", "No Ifs, Ands, or But-ers" and "She Blinded Him with Science (Bob)"
  • Soccer star Alex Morgan was in "The Quad Test".
  • WNBA star Candace Parker was in "I Want Candace".
  • Olympic ice dancers Alex and Maia Shibutan were in "The Great Mullet Caper".
  • Isaiah Thomas^note the current NBA player, not the long-retired Hall of Famer Isiah Thomas (as well as his two young sons Jaden and James) appeared in "Quadcodile Dundee"
  • The hour-long special had a number including Jack Griffo of The Thundermans as a fictionized version of himself, Alex Guarnaschelli of Food Network and Daniella Monet of Victorious. Hoerver, due to the "Truman Show" Plot aspect of the episode, these actors could also be seen as also embodying this tripe In-Universe
• Ugly Betty: Katharine McPhee has a cameo playing herself in "I'm Coming Out" where she bumps into Betty who is a Fangirl of her from her American Idol days.
• Jerry Vale appears in the Midnight Caller episode "That's Amore", causing a mobster to nearly Squee with excitement.
• The Partridge Family:
  • Johnny Cash watches the family perform in the pilot.
  • In "Star Quality", Danny has an Imagine Spot where he fantasizes about being interviewed by Dick Clark.
• Silver Spoons: In episode "Hot Shot", David Horowitz of Fight Back! with David Horowitz appears as himself in a Coincidental Broadcast, informing Ricky that the $15 camera mail-order is a scam.
• St. Elsewhere:
  • In "Sweet Dreams", ZZ Top perform their song "Legs" in Luther's music video inspired dream in which he and the Eliminator girls have fun around the hospital.
  • In "Bye, George", Fiscus fails to recognise Michael Dukakis when he arrives at St. Eligius with a sprained ankle. He does not believe him when he gives his occupation as Governor of Massachusetts.
  • In "Getting Ahead", Robb Weller interviews John Doe #6 (calling himself "Dr. C") about "his" sleazy bestseller The Cutting Edge, which he actually stole from Dr. Craig.
  • In "Heaven's Skate", Dr. Craig and Jackie Wade meet the award-winning figure skaters Randy Gardner and Tai Babilonia at the Aschenberg Ice Rink.
• Live Forever As You Are Now with Alan Resnick: Alan Resnick stars as... Alan Resnick, who in this work is a technology genius, rather than a comedian.
• President Robert Redford, briefly mentioned in the Watchmen comic book, appears in the HBO series, played by Robert Redford.
• Legends of Tomorrow: Season 3 features the eponymous team time travelling to 1999 and meet John Noble during the shooting of The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Funny thing is, Noble also voices the Season 3 Big Bad, Mallus (which is actually a plot point).
• Messiah: Magician and professional skeptic James Randi appears playing himself and casts doubt on the apparent miracle performed by Al-Masih at the beginning of episode six.
• Dash & Lily: The Jonas Brothers play a concert as themselves in the final episode and Nick Jonas in particular doles out some advice.
• Colonel March of Scotland Yard: In "The Case of the Misguided Missal", Real Life Stage Magician Chan Canasta appears as himself: brought in by March to demonstrate how the missing book could have been stolen from the safe.
• Feel Good: Mae Martin plays themself on the series, which is loosely based on their own life.
• The Brittas Empire: The Rt. Hon. Sebastian Coe MP appears as himself, shooting a small documentary at Whitbury Newtown. He becomes roped into opening a leisure centre toilet named after himself by Gordon Brittas, who promises "it'll only take two minutes." Of course,the show being what it is he ends up chained to a stair-rail while the leisure centre is pillaged and sacked by an army of Romans.
• Jane the Virgin occasionally has celebrities cameo as themselves; the likes of Britney Spears, Gloria Estefan, Bruno Mars, and Mario Lopez have appeared as hotel guests or as contacts of Rogelio.
• The L Word:
  • Gloria Steinem appears as herself in "Lacuna" for Melvin's memorial service, as an old friend of his. There is a lot of Reality Subtext here, as not only was Steinem really friends with Melvin's actor Ossie Davis (the two are shown in a real together) but Davis actually died shortly before it aired.
  • Former tennis player Billie Jean King later appears interviewing Dana about her career and being (like King) an openly lesbian athlete. Dana gushes that King is her hero and had paved the way for later lesbian athletes like her with her own coming out.
  • Tegan & Sara appear as themselves in one flashback performing their song "Love Type Thing" while Dana and Shane listen. Dana hallucinates due to being on LSD at the time that they tell her she's a lesbian, urging her to come out of the closet, which she hadn't yet at the time.
  • In Generation Q lesbian soccer player Megan Rapinoe and later bisexual feminist writer Roxane Gay show up too as themselves.
• Kevin Bacon appears as himself in The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special, where the plot revolves around him being kidnapped by Drax and Mantis to cheer up a despondent Peter “Star-Lord” Quill.
• Ana de la Reguera plays a Denser and Wackier version of herself in Ana (2020).
• Die Hart sees Kevin Hart as he attempts to become an action movie hero, as opposed to his usual comic relief roles.
• Sex/Life: Journalist Soledad O'Brien appears as herself in "Georgia on My Mind" interviewing Sasha.
• A Touch of Cloth: At least once a series.
  • Series 1: Radio DJ Henry Kelly makes a voice-only appearance joyfully announcing Aidan Hawkchurch’s death on his show. EastEnders and Grange Hill actor Todd Carty is a Detective Constable in the City of Town police and his death at the hands of Macratty’s gang kicks off Series 2.
  • Series 2: The Help a Blameless Child telethon is presented by Konnie Huq and Rufus Hound, and features a segment where Richard Osman juggles grapefruit. Various EastEnders cast members show up to pay their respects after Todd’s death.
  • Series 3: Football pundit Chris “Kammy” Kamara gives half-time commentary on Cloth and Oldman’s interrogation of a suspect.
• The Chair (2021): The dean recruits a celebrity as distinguished lecturer to help boost enrollment. Said lecturer is David Duchovny (himself a former English grad student), who appears in "The Last Bus In Town".
• Barry:
  • Jay Roach (Austin Powers, Meet the Parents) appears as himself in "The Audition", in which he is the director giving Barry an audition for what sounds like an awful surfer movie.
  • Joe Mantegna pops up in Season 3 as himself, an old enemy of Cousineau back in the day who wants to make amends when he hears about the good things Cousineau is doing for veterans (that is, Barry).
  • In "It Takes a Psycho", Sian Heder (Coda) appears as the director of the deeply silly fantasy movie that Sally's acting student is starring in. Heder's embarrassed about it.
• Black Mirror: "Joan is Awful" goes for the Mind Screw. An apparently automatic television show is greenlit about Joan's life, starring real (and credited as such in-show) actors Salma Hayek as Joan, Himesh Patel as Krish, Ben Barnes as Mac, Jaboukie Young White as Eric, Camirin Farmer as Sandy, and Lolly Adefope as Joan's lawyer among others. And then Salma Hayek herself shows up complaining about the depiction of her...before it's revealed that she and the other actors all unknowingly signed away their likenesses, and those are essentially deepfakes. The final twist is that we are already watching the first layer of the Nested Story, and Annie Murphy (Joan) shows up at the end as herself. So Murphy is the only one actually playing herself, Hayek et al are playing multiversal CG renditions of themselves...get it?
• Welcome to Sweden: Several celebrities make guest appearances playing fictional versions of themselves.
  • Amy Poehler plays a deranged version of herself who is absolutely hopeless with money without Bruce's mitigating influence.
  • Aubrey Plaza wonders if she can pass off her Brazilian waxes as business expenses. She's also Amy Poehler's drug dealer.
  • Will Ferrell^note who, like Greg/Bruce, is married to a Swedish woman in Real Life arranges for his family to visit Sweden just so he can have Bruce take care of his finances.
  • Gene Simmons does the same and hits on Emma at the same time.
  • Swedish author Björn Ranelid is completely loopy and speaks almost entirely in non sequiturs.
  • Björn Ulvaeus apparently lives and works in an ABBA museum and only wears one of his old stage costumes^note a reference to the fact that ABBA wore ridiculous outfits in order exploit a tax loophole that gave exemptions to clothing provably not meant for everyday use.
  • Jason Priestley is now an acclaimed movie director who wants Bruce to show him the places where Ingmar Bergman shot his films and introduce him to someone who worked for him.
  • Pro skier Anja Pärson appears in "Scrapbook/Skidresa". She and Emma were schoolmates, and Emma brags that she once beat her in a junior skiing competition.
  • Malin Åkerman appears as a potential client of Bruce's whom he inadvertently offends by dissing Swedes while talking with her, unaware that she's Swedish herself.
• Gen V: In "The Whole Truth", Jason Ritter appears on a Sesame Street-esque television puppet show called Avenue V, as part of one of Sam's hallucinations.
• Homicide: Life on the Street:
  • Tim Russert appeared in "The Old and the Dead" in a cameo, and was revealed to be Captain Russert's cousin.
  • Jay Leno pops up briefly at the Waterfront in "Sniper, Pt. 1" to buy a drink. Despite Leno clearly wanting to make conversation, the main character assume he wants solitude and leave him alone until he leaves in frustration.
  • In "The Documentary", Barry Levinson, who produced and directed a few episodes of the series, shows up in a cameo when Lewis and Kellerman chase a suspect into his movie set.
• Each season of Only Murders in the Building has a different celebrity playing him- or herself in a recurring role: Sting in Season 1, living in the same building as the main character trio and even ends up as a suspect in the murder mystery, Amy Schumer in Season 2, moving into Sting's appartment and wanting to turn the titular podcast into a TV show starring herself, and Matthew Broderick in Season 3, being hired to replace main character Charles in a musical.

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