A Study in Minor Characters
Meet Figwit, my new Lord of the Rings fave
So there I was, reading Wikipedia’s exhaustive compendium of internet phenomena (you know, as you do when Twitter or X or whatever we’re calling it now is dying and you just need something to scroll) when I came across an entry about Figwit.
Played by Flight of the Conchords’ Bret McKenzie, Figwit is a blink-and-you’ll-miss-him elf character in The Lord of the Rings film trilogy who catapulted into the spotlight despite having mere seconds of screen time. (Figwit is actually a fan-coined name short for “Frodo Is Grea… Who Is THAT?!”) His fanbase admired him for “smoldering enigmatically in the background” after Frodo announces he will take the ring to Mordor. (Clip here!) Student Iris Hadad even made a fan website for him called Figwit Lives. (Tagline: “Legolas for the Thinking Woman.”) In a fun twist, Peter Jackson ended up giving McKenzie actual dialogue in The Return of the King because he was so tickled by the idea of Figwit having fans.
Over the years, I’ve gotten a ton of delight myself out of speculating about the stories of various side characters (not to mention the SAG-AFTRA strike has many of us considering the role of the background actor), so I figured I’d use this month’s issue to celebrate some of my favorites!
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Alive in My Heart!
I remember reading Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead for a high school English class and being absolutely floored by it. By revisiting the events of Shakespeare’s Hamlet through the eyes of two minor characters, Stoppard made me realize that every story is a springboard for a thousand more stories like it.
That play in particular opened up the possibilities of fiction for me in a new way. I’m still captivated by the idea that every single character has their own unique arc, regardless of the role they play in the one I happen to be reading. Stories that embrace this truth are stronger for it. And life’s kinda like that, too — empathy often stems from the realization that every stranger you meet has an entire history that led them to the single solitary moment of your interaction. RIP Rosencrantz & Guildenstern!
Gary Oldman and Tim Roth rocked these roles in the 1990 film adaptation! Here’s an AV Club piece revisiting their work.
“I Don’t Think He Gives a Shit”: My Favorite Character in Predator 2
I’ve seen every Predator movie and I still think about this iconic response from the woman whose apartment gets invaded in Predator 2. Hair’s in rollers, husband’s asleep, and there’s a Predator in your bathroom — gotta do what you gotta do. (Which here means grab a broom and prepare for battle. We love to see it!) Ruth epitomizes bravery (and sass) in an appearance less than two minutes long.
Prey was great — probably my second favorite after the original entry in the franchise. Now let’s greenlight a feature film about Ruth defending her apartment from an extraterrestrial onslaught!
Sylvia Kauders didn’t start acting until her 60s, but kept going pretty much up until her death in 2016. She has over 50 IMDb credits and held roles on both the SAG and AFTRA boards.
Creator Cameos (Yes, That Was Stephenie Meyer in the Twilight Diner)
I know feelings can be mixed on this front, but I personally get a huge kick out of spotting directors or writers in their own work. I think the big complaint is that these kinds of cameos can puncture the viewer’s immersion, but I guess I’m just a sucker for the “Hey, it’s that guy!” spark of recognition. Not to mention it’s pleasantly meta to see someone who’s doing so much behind the scenes play a small part in the front-facing side of the story.
ScreenCrush has a fun list of director’s cameos here. (My favorite is probably Wes Craven’s Freddy Krueger janitor in Scream.) I was trying to think of a female creator cameo to balance out all those dudes, and the first one that popped into my head made me laugh. For some reason I have an absolutely vivid memory of recognizing Stephenie Meyer in the diner scene of the first Twilight movie. My favorite part is that she’s writing on her laptop. Does this mean Stephenie Meyer is a character in the Twilight universe? Is this a Stranger Than Fiction situation? Is she writing Twilight?!
Stephenie Meyer’s most recent book was Midnight Sun, which tells the story of Twilight from Edward Cullen’s point of view. I was unsurprisingly very intrigued by the idea of revisiting a familiar narrative from the perspective of a different character and actually read the entire thing out of curiosity back in 2020. I can only describe the experience as a kind of visceral time-travel back to my adolescent self at the height of the pandemic — quite the ride!
The Character Erased From a Movie About Memory
Earlier this month I checked out the recent Criterion release of Kasi Lemmons’ Eve’s Bayou from my local library. When I saw there were theatrical and director’s cuts to choose from, I turned to the internet to determine which version was recommended for first watch. It turns out that at the financier’s behest, a disabled character was fully excised from the theatrical cut in an involved CGI procedure — something Lemmons calls “an emotional move,” since the character was inspired by her own great uncle.
I later came across a forum post where a group of users were discussing how to interpret the film — some had seen the director’s cut, others the theatrical, but initially no one realized that there were multiple versions. So when one person brought up Uncle Thomy as a potential key to the events of the film’s climax, the others were lost. The group collectively assumed they were referencing the same story, but their viewing experiences had been completely different. Interestingly, this disconnect mirrors the entire thematic premise of the film itself — we each have our own unique context and experience that may lead to different interpretations of what is ostensibly the same event. (Needless to say, watch the director’s cut!)
Sure, Uncle Thomy might only appear in a few scenes, but I found myself thinking about him long after the credits rolled. In a film that’s so much about the malleability of memory, his character functions as a silent and objective witness. Uncle Thomy is a reminder to the viewer that there is a single truth to be found in the events of the past. And in a film that’s so much about the distortion of memory, that might actually make him the most important character of all.
Uncle Thomy was played by an actor named John O’Neal. The fact that Thomy isn’t an officially credited character on IMDb complicates things a bit (not to mention almost all of the online writing about him misspells the character’s name), but I was able to turn up this obituary. He passed away in 2019 at 78, but devoted his life to the civil rights movement as well as the drama workshop and arts organization he founded.
The Art of “Surprise Matt Damon”
I’ve seen more than forty Matt Damon movies and I’m not even close to finishing that man’s filmography. This is because at some point in his career, Matt Damon decided to lean into the art of the cameo. The Ringer’s Damon ranking also offers fascinating context for the origins of the cameo appearance in film history. (Apparently in his later years, Buster Keaton lost the ability to pull off his more grueling stunts and Hollywood had more or less moved on from him, so he opted smaller roles because he wanted to keep acting.)
An A-list cameo is fun because it hinges on subversion. An Oscar-winner pops in for a minute or two just to make you laugh or raise your eyebrows. But as Noah Gittell at The Ringer notes, part of the appeal of Damon’s appearances specifically is that he never fails to give a performance his all, whether he’s the main character or only onscreen for a moment. With Damon, I always have that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern sense that his character’s life sprawls far beyond this screen, and I as a viewer have the privilege of witnessing it — if only for a moment.
Matt Damon was not in Titanic, but he was in Oppenheimer. Have y’all seen Oppenheimer? Oh MAN.
In publication news, July saw the release of Best Microfiction 2023! Each piece in this anthology is 400 words or less — perfect for readers with short attention spans trying to wean themselves off of social media. Table of contents features yours truly and a whole bunch of writers I greatly admire.
And to continue my Summer of Anthologies, tomorrow is pub day for How to Write a Novel: An Anthology of 20 Craft Essays About Writing, None of Which Ever Mention Writing! Find creative inspiration in essays about hot sauce, delivering mail, Tom Cruise running very fast, and more. (You’ll never guess which one I wrote. Did I say Happy Mission: Impossible Release Month yet?)
Back in your inbox in August, friends!
Thank you again for your remarkable observations. Minor characters in films, with or without lines give viewers like myself more connections to the main characters and the story being told. I love director cameos in their films, especially when they blend effortlessly into a busy scene. Makes me laugh approvingly.
I feel like Matt Damon in titanic would turn into him racing back and forth with a firm passionate "dad" tone of voice pitching an idea to the captain and meanwhile the ship is sinking and everyone is literally dying lol