James Marsden’s Burt Reynolds belongs to a fictional advert filmed for the world of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. His brief appearance has a different exhibition history from the intended participation of the real Reynolds.
One actor playing another in an advert
James Marsden portrayed a young Burt Reynolds in a fictional Red Apple cigarettes advert made for Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. The piece presents him as a celebrity endorsing the brand within Tarantino’s recreated universe. His appearance is brief and does not form part of a longer storyline in which Reynolds spends the film alongside Rick Dalton.
The cameo was left out of the initial 2019 theatrical cut. The advert footage could be seen in connection with the US re-release in October and later among the bonus content. Sony announced that re-release with new material placed before and after the feature. That presentation should be distinguished from a completely recut version in which all deleted scenes had been integrated into the main story.
The distinction explains why someone may remember Marsden’s name in casting news and not find him when revisiting the standard film. Shooting a piece does not guarantee an appearance in every edition. The advert has a verifiable audiovisual existence, but its circulation as an extra explains why different viewers’ experiences do not match. There is no need to invent a longer missing scene to resolve that apparent contradiction.
The advert expands the imaginary television world
The advert mixes a historical figure with an invented brand. Reynolds brings the recognition of a face associated with film and television, while Red Apple belongs to Tarantino’s fictional repertoire. The combination produces an advert that feels as though it comes from the past, even though it is not a real campaign recovered from an archive. Marsden has to play a star and, at the same time, that star doing promotional work.
The piece is linked to the abundance of screens and adverts surrounding Rick Dalton. An actor may appear as a character in a series and then use the familiarity of his image to sell a product. That shift shows another side of the profession, where public persona becomes a commercial pitch. Reynolds’s cameo broadens the industrial setting without needing to add a new dramatic conflict to the main story.
The effect also depends on brevity. The celebrity identification works as a recognisable punchline within the advert, rather than demanding a full biographical introduction. Anyone who does not immediately recognise Reynolds can understand the logic of the spokesperson; anyone who does adds a layer of film memory. The scene allows both levels of reading without turning every second into an explanation of the real actor’s career.
Two Reynolds appearances that should not be confused
Burt Reynolds had been attached to the project to play George Spahn, but he died before filming that role. Bruce Dern ended up playing the ranch owner. This intended participation by the real Reynolds is different from Marsden’s work as his younger version. Confusing the two stories would lead one to imagine that Marsden replaced Reynolds as Spahn or that Dern played the younger actor, when each name corresponds to a different role.
The tribute may be linked to Tarantino’s admiration for 1970s action heroes, but the existence of the cameo does not allow any specific sentimental meaning to be attributed to it. Nor is it enough to establish why it was left out of the release. Reynolds’s death and the editing decision are facts that should not be joined by invented causality if there is no documented explanation connecting them.
The interest of the piece lies in that coexistence of history and fabrication. A real star reappears, played by someone else, promoting a product that never existed outside the director’s fiction. The advert extends the feeling that Rick’s world has its own television archive. By identifying it as extra material, its value is preserved without altering what the main cut of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood actually contains.
More context in the Once Upon a Time in Hollywood guide.