Dropping a celebrity into a big Hollywood film can be a sure-fire way of attracting a little bit of extra publicity, especially if your film is as bad as Jack & Jill and your guest star is as big (or as formerly important) as Al Pacino. And on a smaller level, cameos can have a similar effect, generating column inches when the star cameos are announced. To a certain extent, a cameo is designed as a self-conscious nod to a universe outside of the film's own boundaries - whether that's in terms of a celebrity appearing as themselves, or a character from another film world appearing (such as Wolverine's excellent appearance in X-Men: First Class.) But sometimes it can go too far and cameos can be just too weird or can pull you too far out of the film, and that's where this article comes in. This is a celebration of the ten weirdest cameos of the past twelve months...
10. John Barrowman - Zero Dark Thirty
The flamboyant stage and Torchwood actor appears in one scene in as a top CIA chief, says two lines and mostly sits in the background, before disappearing again without so much as a goodbye. His wasn't the only cameo in the film, but it was certainly the most distracting, considering Barrowman's established profile and how brief and sudden his appearance is.