In Brad Silberling's 1995 ghost comedy "Casper," Kat Harvey (Christina Ricci) and her widowed father James (Bill Pullman) move into a large, spooky mansion haunted by cartoonish, playfully destructive spirits. Casper (Malachi Pearson) is a friendly ghost
, but his ghostly roommates Stretch (Joe Nipote), Fatso (Brad Garett), and Stinkie (Joe Alaskey) are more sinister, able to scare, harm, or bodily possess any interlopers.In order to scare him out of their home, the ghostly trio attack James, chasing
him around the house, using their supernatural powers to creatively terrify him. In a standout sequence, James stares into a mirror, and the ghosts transform his face into other people's. James looks up from the sink, and he suddenly looks like Clint Eastwood. Then his face morphs, and he looks like Rodney Dangerfield. Then he morphs again to look like Mel Gibson. Finally, and most terrifying, he morphs to look like the Cryptkeeper from "Tales from the Crypt." He screams and sounds just like the Cryptkeeper's original voice actor, John Kassir.
It may surprise the reader to learn that the cameos from Eastwood, Dangerfield, Gibson, and Kassir were all genuine, and not the result of stock footage or fakery. But maybe it's not all that surprising, as "Casper" was a major release, sporting state-of-the-art CGI, and a budget of $55 million (which is about $116 million in 2025 dollars). It was also a big hit, earning over $288 million worldwide. It was the sixth-highest-grossing film that year after "Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls."
Clint Eastwood's appearance in "Casper," as one might predict, came with a stipulation. According to Syfy, Eastwood would only do his cameo if the film's executive producer, Steven Spielberg, also had a cameo in the same morphing sequence. Silberling and Spielberg both agreed.
They did, however, wink to each other behind Eastwood's back.
Read more: Every Actor Who Has Played Nosferatu (And What They Look Like Without Makeup)
Clint Eastwood Would Only Appear In Casper If Steven Spielberg Did As Well
Alert readers may immediately notice that I mentioned Eastwood, Dangerfield, Gibson, and the Cryptkeeper, but not Steven Spielberg. As it so happens, Spielberg and Silberling pulled a fast one on Eastwood. Silberling recalls, in the Syfy article, that he was worried about getting celebrity cameos for his movie. He also recalls Spielberg flexing his sizable clout, saying that he could arrange everything. And lo, he did. In Silberling's words:
"I turned to Steven and was like, 'How are we going to do it?' [...] He goes, 'Don't worry about it. I'll make some calls.' Because the part of him that's a proud executive producer wants to bring the mouse home to the doorstep. He came back to me on set and said, 'Okay, it's all good. Mel's in, Clint's in, we got Rodney Dangerfield, we got the Cryptkeeper.' [...] He said to me, 'I've got to do it, but it's never going to be in the movie.'"
That was, it seems, Eastwood's stipulation. I'll do it if you do it. Spielberg figured it would be easy to do a cameo of his own ... but also easy enough to remove from the final feature. Spielberg agreed to appear in a cameo for Eastwood's sake, but he never promised to leave it in the movie.
All of the celebrities in question were going to visit the set on the same day that Spielberg was there. Eastwood was a Universal contract player from the early days of his acting career, and he had long nostalgic conversations about the 1960s. Eastwood, Dangerfield, Gibson, and Spielberg all put on the same sweater (the Cryptkeeper puppet was outfitted as well), and they took turns filming their three-to-five-second scenes.
Eastwood went first, and Spielberg went last.
Brad Silberling And Steven Spielberg Never Intended To Include Spielberg's Cameo
This means, of course, that unused "Casper" footage exists somewhere of Spielberg mugging in front of a mirror. Silberling, however, never edited it into the final cut of his movie. They both knew that this was all for Eastwood's sake. As Silberling said:
"We did Steven last and it was awesome. I got to direct Steven, which was really fun. And he was really nervous, even though he knew it was never gonna be in the film. We went through a whole series of really funny things ... And then again, he looked at me afterwards, he was walking off set going, 'This is not going in.' I was like, 'We're good.' But yeah, that was pretty fun."
As far as anyone knows, Eastwood never caught wise to the scheme, and it's unclear if he even watched "Casper" in theaters. If Eastwood doesn't know, and is a regular reader of /Film, I apologize that you had to find out this way, Mr. Eastwood.
"Casper" proved to be the first in a string of hits for Silberling, who went on to direct the "Wings of Desire" remake "City of Angels," the moody Oscar bait drama "Moonlight Mile," and the adaptation of "Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events." Eastwood, meanwhile, had recently won Best Picture and Best Director for his 1992 film "Unforgiven" and had already moved on to "A Perfect World" in 1993 and the blockbuster romance "The Bridges of Madison County," released the same year as "Casper." As far as Eastwood was concerned, "Casper" was an afternoon's trifle, and a favor for Steven Spielberg.
Spielberg, meanwhile, got to fool around for a few minutes as his payment to Eastwood.
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