Hobbs & Shaw, the first spin-off in the Fast and the Furious franchise, features two notable cameos by a pair of movie stars: Ryan Reynolds and Kevin Hart!Both actors have previously worked with some of the creatives behind Hobbs & Shaw. Helmer David Leitch directed Ryan Reynolds in Deadpool 2, while Kevin Hart has appeared in several films opposite Hobbs star-producer Dwayne Johnson (two Jumanji movies and Central Intelligence).
Reynolds plays CIA agent Locke, who knows Hobbs from way back when. Locke is part-comic relief and part-Basil Exposition. Reynolds pops up at a few points throughout the film, including in two of the three end credits scenes that may hint at him being more foe than friend. Reynolds’ scenes are definitely funny but those end credits scenes also suggest he’s not quite the fool he has so far seemed. He did stab a guy with a brick, after all!
Hart plays Dickley, an Air Marshal who encounters Hobbs and Shaw during their “incognito” escape flight overseas. Dickley claims to be a military vet whose connections and resources as an Air Marshal will come in handy for our titular duo (not that they seem to respect him that much). Unlike Reynolds’ Locke, there’s no suggestions that Dickley is or will be anything other than comic relief.
IGN recently chatted with stars Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham, as well as director David Leitch and producer Hiram Garcia, about these two celebrity cameos.
Johnson actually coyly outed their cameos when we asked him a question designed to be non-spoilerish who he’d love to see be in the inevitable sequel.
“I’d love to see Ryan Reynolds come in to the next Hobbs and Shaw. I think he would be a great team member. I’d love to see Kevin Hart come into the next Hobbs and Shaw,” Johnson chuckled.
He added, “The goal in this one was to set up what the future teams would look like. And who I felt people would find it really appealing to see Hobbs with and create this new unique team. I think, with the names that I mentioned and there’s another one who we’re working on, which is why we left it open at the end with who the voice was, the mysterious voice [of the Director of Eteon]. It was also important for Hobbs and Shaw to have its own identity from Fast and Furious with this unique stylistic action, comedy and in doing that, that will inform the actors who we bring in. So it all depends it the people love it and they love the movie, then we can start having these broader conversations about that actor and that actress, but we’ll see.”
Producer Hiram Garcia said “that when you make a movie like this, people are raising their hands, they want to be a part of it. I’ll never forget, I got a call, randomly. Kevin [Hart] kind of called me one day and he goes, ‘Hey brother, I’m just letting you know, whatever it is, I’m just ready to go.’ I said, ‘Say no more, say no more and we’ll make it happen.’ And Kevin was filming a stand-up special, he wrapped that night jumped straight on a plane, flew to London, got off the plane, shot his scenes, right back on the plane and back to work.”
As for Ryan Reynolds’ casting, Garcia cited Reynolds’ relationship working with David Leitch on Deadpool 2 as the impetus for his involvement in Hobbs & Shaw.
“Dave’s like, ‘Ryan, he wants to play, man.’ We were like, ‘Please let him come play.’ So Ryan, who’s incredible, he kind of crafted this scene and he does his dialogue so well,” Garcia explained. With both Reynolds and Hart, Garcia said “the scenes they did were so good that we went and reshot to add more scenes with them to round it out because the fans [at test screenings] loved it, we loved it and it really added just a special aspect to the film. So for us, we’re thrilled for fans to go into the theater, having no idea and you see Ryan and Kevin pop up, it’s pretty cool.”
Garcia added, “Our goal in spinning this off was in the shared universe where you want them all to be able to cross over. I think that’s the ultimate goal. It’s all part of the family so we like to joke and say you know, if you look at the Marvel world where they started with their spin-offs and then got to the Avengers, we just did it reverse. Our Avengers is Fast and Furious and now we’re starting to spin it off but the idea is that you’d love to see them all cross over. You’d love to see everyone step foot here and there and just make this big shared universe because ultimately, it’s all under the Fast and Furious umbrella and that’s a pretty special universe out there.”
For his part, Jason Statham told IGN his airplane scene with Kevin Hart was “an incredibly funny moment. And one of the hardest things is just to retain your composure. And I was just…I was struggling intensely for literally the whole day because this is a guy who comes with his own bag of tricks and you don’t know what he’s gonna say. And it’s not scripted. It’s scripted in his head. And it makes it the most difficult thing to try and retain your composure because you’re supposed to have this look of disdain for this guy and it’s quite the opposite, which is literally holding our sides.”
Statham added that “the favorite moments for me in this movie are the cameos. … The Fast universe is a big universe and I think this movie allows that to be the vision of what could come down the line.”
That doesn’t mean losing the elements that made the Fast & Furious franchise such a blockbuster success to begin with, something Statham — who, like Johnson, is also a producer on Hobbs & Shaw, seems well aware of as they attempt to broaden the franchise via this spin-off:
“I think we have to tread carefully and we have to give credence to the world that they come from, and respect to that world because they’re a passionate group of fans out there and they get very particular about their property. So we are respectful and we want to keep the DNA of Fast and Furious but we want to expand it and build it out.”
Unlike Johnson, Statham and Garcia, Leitch was far more tight-lipped about bringing Reynolds and Hart into the franchise’s ranks.
“It is a pretty amazing canon of actors and I think we’ve added to that list and there’s some other ones that you’ve mentioned that we don’t want to give names to yet,” Leitch said. Looking to existing members of the franchise who could cameo in a future Hobbs & Shaw sequel, Leitch said, “I think from the bigger family of Fast, it would be great to bring in Ludacris and Tyrese and have fun with those characters in this world. I hope that one day, the worlds can merge and that would be the goal.”
What did you think of Ryan Reynolds and Kevin Hart’s cameos in Hobbs & Shaw? Sound off in the comments below!
For more on Hobbs & Shaw, check out our review, our breakdown of the film’s ending and credits scenes, find out what the cast had to tell us, and catch up on the title characters’ story so far!
