‘The Studio’ Has 1 Hollywood Heavyweight to Thank for All Those Celeb Cameos
Seth Rogen’s new Apple TV+ original series, The Studio, joins the likes of Abbott Elementary and Only Murders in the Building, to be positively packed with celebrity cameos. Every single episode of the comedy about the inner workings of Hollywood features big names. But one in the first episode of The Studio “started” it all.
Martin Scorsese got ‘The Studio’ celeb cameos started
Thanks, Marty! James Weaver, a producer on The Studio, revealed to Deadline that acclaimed director Martin Scorsese’s appearance in the pilot paved the way for more celebrity cameos. “It really came down to Martin Scorsese saying yes, and it all started from there,” Weaver said.
In The Studio Season 1 opener, which began streaming on March 26, 2025, the acclaimed filmmaker pitches a movie about Jonestown to studio head Matt Remick. Remick, unbeknownst to Scorsese, has been tasked with making a more family-friendly Kool-Aid movie happen.
So, Remick agrees to greenlight the movie on the condition that it be titled Kool-Aid in reference to how the cult members died. Later, though, at a party hosted by Charlize Theron (she makes a cameo), the studio head reluctantly admits he won’t move ahead on the project, which brings the director to tears. Moments later, Matt bumps into Steve Buscemi, who quickly consoles Scorsese.
‘The Studio’ cameos went through a ‘normal casting process’
As for the “process” of getting Hollywood stars to appear on The Studio, the show’s casting director Melissa Kostenbauder explained it involved lots of checking schedules and making lists.
“We tackled it like a normal casting process, checked availabilities, who would be open to playing themselves because a lot of people weren’t, actually,” Kostenbauder said. “If someone couldn’t do it or wasn’t available, we came up with more lists and talked about more people who would fit in those places.”
Some of the celeb cameos even surprised the cast. “You don’t read everything on the call sheet,” Ike Barinholtz, who plays Remick’s subordinate, Sal Saperstein, and is also a producer on the series, said.
“So you would be there acting,” he continued, “and go, ‘Oh, that’s Jean Smart. They got Jean Smart. There’s Aaron Sorkin.’ It was crazy how many people showed up.”
Celeb cameos in the next episode of ‘The Studio’
Who’s next on The Studio’s already star-studded list of cameos so far this season? Actor-director-producer Olivia Wilde and actor-producer Zac Efron. Viewers can expect to see the two in the April 7, 2025, episode titled “The Missing Reel.”
In the season’s fourth installment, a reel goes missing from a Wilde movie starring the High School Musical alum. That, in turn, sends “Matt and Sal on a race against the clock to find it,” per the episode’s official logline.
The most cameo-filled episode of The Studio is still yet to come. Look for it—and all the famous faces—when Matt goes to the Golden Globes. Spoiler: Quinta Brunson of Abbott Elementary makes an appearance. (She filmed her scene on the way to an actual awards show.)
A new episode of The Studio drops every Wednesday on Apple TV+.
