In the aughts, when Seth Rogen and his longtime creative partner Evan Goldberg were writing the script for “This Is the End,” an apocalyptic comedy about friends left behind by the rapture, a question arose: Would it be funnier to watch the actors play completely fictional characters or heightened versions of themselves?
The pair decided on the latter, casting Rogen, James Franco, Jonah Hill and others as postapocalyptic versions of themselves.
In an interview, Goldberg said that the rise of reality television had made audiences increasingly curious about the lives of stars. So he and Rogen decided to lean into that curiosity and found that playing a worse version of the celebrity “was usually more fun.”
Ken Marino and David Wain, the writers of the comedy “Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass” (in theaters), agreed. In their raucous adventure, Gail (Zoey Deutch) and her boyfriend, Tom (Michael Cassidy), offhandedly establish a “celebrity sex pass,” which hypothetically allows each to sleep with one celebrity of their choosing should the opportunity arise. When Tom cashes in his pass during a chance encounter with Jennifer Aniston (playing herself), Gail books a flight to Los Angeles with a singular goal: to have sex with Jon Hamm (also playing himself). Upon arriving, Gail searches Hollywood for Hamm, bumping into Henry Winkler, Weird Al Yankovic and Hamm’s fellow “Mad Men” star John Slattery along the way. “Gail Daughtry,” like “This Is the End,” capitalizes on the audience’s preconceived ideas of its celebrity cast, exploiting expectations for laughs.
The films are part of a growing trend. Earlier this year, the pop star Charli XCX portrayed a heightened version of herself in the mockumentary “The Moment” (on HBO Max), and Lady Gaga tussled with Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep) in “The Devil Wears Prada 2” (On Disney+ and Hulu July 29). Shows like “Hacks,” “The Studio” and “The Comeback” mingle their fictional characters with Hollywood glitterati. Nicolas Cage appears as a struggling and largely unemployed version of himself in the 2022 film “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent.” In 2025, James Marsden earned an Emmy nomination for playing a self-obsessed avatar of himself in the show “Jury Duty.”
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