As the final film in the Austin Powers trilogy, Goldmember features an array of cameos from some of the most famous celebrities of all time. Following Saturday Night Live and the success of the spin-off Wayne’s World movies, Mike Myers made an even bigger name for himself as the titular character in the Austin Powers film series. Austin Powers is one of the most popular comedy franchises of the past few decades, raunchily spoofing famous action and spy thrillers, most notably the James Bond series, while also including homages to pop culture and the 1960s Swinging London archetype.
Austin Powers in Goldmember (2002) parodies multiple James Bond films, most specifically Sean Connery’s Goldfinger and You Only Live Twice. In Goldmember, Austin Powers sees a biopic on his own life while an imprisoned Dr. Evil forms his world domination plan to travel back to 1975 and team up with gold-obsessed Johan van der Smut whose alias is “Goldmember.” Austin travels back in time to stop Goldmember, who abducted his father, with the help of his ex-girlfriend and FBI agent Foxxy Cleopatra (Lion King and Black is King's Beyoncé).
Austin Powers in Goldmember’s opening sequence is a self-parodied movie of the events that occurred in the film trilogy. The movie-within-a-movie, Austinpussy, features cameos from an all-star cast of some of the biggest actors and actresses at the time. Aside from Austin’s biopic, Goldmember features a vast list of cameos by notable celebrities as either themselves or characters within the film. Here’s a breakdown of every celebrity cameo in Austin Powers in Goldmember.
Renowned director Steven Spielberg makes a small Goldmember cameo as himself. Spielberg appears in the film as the director of the self-parodied movie, Austinpussy. Though his role is very minute, it makes one wonder what the unmade Spielberg-directed James Bond movie would actually look like, especially with the star-studded cast in the fake Goldmember film. Thankfully for Austin, Steven Spielberg, the “grooviest filmmaker in the history of cinema,” made a film about his shagadelic life.
Austin likely thinks very much of himself, casting Tom Cruise to play Austin Powers himself in Austinpussy. Cruise briefly appears when he parodies Powers in the movie-within-the-movie, though it reassures one that Mike Meyers is the only actor who can get Austin Powers’ mannerisms right. Since Tom Cruise has tried his own hand at spy and action thrillers with his Mission Impossible franchise, cameoing in Goldmember was likely a way to make fun of his own role as a leading action man.
Gwyneth Paltrow also makes a small cameo in the opening scene as herself, acting as Dixie Normous in Austinpussy. Considering Tom Cruise and The Goop Lab's Gwyneth Paltrow never actually starred opposite each other as the romantic leads in a film, Austinpussy gives audiences a parodic sneak peek of what a collaboration between the two would look like.
In only a tiny speaking role and facial close-up, Kevin Spacey dons a bald cap and gray suit as he plays himself as Dr. Evil in Austinpussy. Just from Spacey’s attempt at Dr. Evil’s iconic pinkie-to-mouth signature, Austin Powers reveals just how dark a non-parodic Dr. Evil could appear. Curiously enough, the last time Kevin Spacey and Gwyneth Paltrow were featured in a movie together, his character notably put her head in a box.
Surprisingly, Spielberg could get DeVito to sign on for a relatively small role like Mini-Me, but he still wears the bald cap and stands far below Kevin Spacey in Austinpussy. In a great cameo as himself, Danny DeVito turns Mini-Me into a much more lethal and intense character when he readies his machine gun in the opening scene. Surprisingly, DeVito as Mini-Me gets more lines than Spacey as Dr. Evil in Austinpussy’s opening credits scene.
Though not featured in the opening sequence with the rest of the Austinpussy cast cameos, John Travolta appears as himself at the end of the film. Travolta is revealed to be a part of Austinpussy’s cast where he plays the film’s villain, Goldmember. In the final scene where Austin and Foxxy are finally watching the release of his biopic, Travolta does the final scene as Goldmember where he does an especially terrible Dutch accent.
Austin pays tribute to the masterful music composition and arrangements in films by music legend Quincy Jones in the opening sequence. Jones appears in a tiny cameo as himself in Goldmember’s opening credits scene where Austin jumps out of his Singin in the Rain parody to put his hand around Jones and tell the audience he’s the reason for the Austin Powers mojo.
Though her role is confusing as it takes on several levels throughout the film, Britney Spears makes two cameos as herself in Goldmember. The first cameo comes in the Austin Powers opening credits sequence where, confusingly, she is playing a Fembot who is posing as Britney Spears during her music video for “Boys.” Britney as a fake Fembot Britney seems to be one of the only stars that amaze Austin at first until they get into a dance battle a la West Side Story during her music video. The singer's first appearance as her Fembot self ends up dying when Austin glitches her with his dance moves and her head explodes. Britney Spears makes another cameo during the closing credits sequence where she is actually playing herself. In the end credits, Britney appears as herself having a chat with Mini-Me.
The Osbourne family appears as themselves in a meta-scene in which they pause the TV which happens to be playing Goldmember, where Ozzy criticizes the new film for using the same raunchy joke from the last Austin Powers movie. Ozzy, Sharon, and their kids Kelly and Jack all sit on the couch together debating the joke that Goldmember is repeating before it cuts back to the rest of the movie. The gag they’re discussing is that Goldmember makes a joke where Dr. Evil’s satellite looks like a pair of breasts. This is a slightly different version of the joke in Austin Powers in The Spy Who Shagged Me, where Austin's brother Dr. Evil’s parodic rocket has a phallic appearance.
Grammy-winning singer, composer, and songwriter Burt Bacharach makes a quick cameo during the end credits of Goldmember. At first, it appears the credits are simply using a song sung by him until the Austin Powers montage ends to show Bacharach playing piano and singing the song. He had two prior cameos as himself in the other Austin Powers movies, involving a meta-spoof that references how Buchanan had scored the original James Bond parody film Casino Royale.
Though not playing himself, Miami Vice's Nathan Lane appears in a cameo when Austin first travels back to 1975 to find Goldmember. Only credited as “Mysterious Disco Man,” Nathan Lane sits down with Austin at the disco where he mouths the words Beyoncé's character Foxxy Cleopatra is saying to Austin while she speaks behind him. Foxxy tells Austin they can’t be seen talking to each other, so Lane’s character sits between them to mouth her side of the conversation.
One of the only other cameos in which the celebrity doesn’t appear as herself, renowned journalist Katie Couric plays a small role as the Georgia State Prison guard. Couric wears a fake unibrow as the head prison guard when Dr. Evil has a supervised visit from his wife Frau Farbissina. Her only line is “time's up,” said when Dr. Evil and Farbissina exhibit far too much PDA. Couric is one of the stranger Goldmember cameos considering her only major connection to the entertainment industry was as a news personality, but she did go on to make cameos of either herself or a parody of herself in more movies afterward.
source https://screenrant.com/austin-powers-goldmember-cast-cameos-explained/
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