The Fall Guy features some unexpected yet legendary cameos from the original TV series of the same name. The film stars Ryan Gosling in his highly-anticipated follow-up to 2023’s highest-grossing film, Barbie. It’s also a mᴀssive love letter and tribute to the history of stuntmen and stuntwomen in Hollywood, featuring several wild stunts while offering glimpses of behind-the-scenes movie magic. The Fall Guy is part romantic comedy, part action comedy, and 100% crowd-pleasing fun. Gosling shines in The Fall Guy’s cast alongside Emily Blunt, and a stellar supporting cast of Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Hannah Waddingham, and Winston Duke.

Despite its positive critical reception, The Fall Guy underwhelmed at the box office. While it is technically considered a box office flop, The Fall Guy finished as the 26th highest-grossing movie of 2024 and outperformed both Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga and Transformers One. The Fall Guy also called out the Oscars for its lack of representation of stunt workers and called for an official Stunts category to be implemented at the Academy Awards.

Lee Majors & Heather Thomas Have Cameos In The Fall Guy’s Post-Credits Scene

They Play Police Officers In The Final Scene Of 2024’s The Fall Guy

While The Fall Guy features a late surprise cameo from Jason Momoa, it also features cameos from Lee Majors and Heather Thomas, two of the stars of the original 1980s series of the same name. The Fall Guy television series ran for 112 episodes across five seasons from 1981 to 1986. Majors originally played Gosling’s role of stuntman Colt Seavers while Heather Thomas originally played Blunt’s role as Jody, although her character’s full name was Jody Banks while Blunt’s character’s last name is Moreno.

The series was created by the prolific Glen A. Larson, who was also behind iconic series such as Knight Rider (1982), Magnum P.I. (1980), and Battlestar Galactica (1978). After the action-packed closing credits sequence in 2024’s The Fall Guy, which shows behind-the-scenes footage of the stuntwork that went into the making of the film, a post-credits scene appears with a typewritten font that reads “Previously on The Fall Guy.”

It reveals that Aaron Taylor-Johnson’s character Tom Ryder and Hannah Waddingham’s character Gail Meyer survived the helicopter crash but were met with a band of police cars. Lee Majors appears as one of the cops, telling Gail she “has the right to remain silent, so shut the hell up.” Heather Thomas, also dressed in police attire, joins in with, “Will somebody cuff this bitch?“

Lee Majors & Heather Thomas Were The Stars Of The Original The Fall Guy TV Show

Both Majors & Thomas Played Stunt Performers In The Original Series

Despite having brief cameos in 2024’s The Fall Guy before the final credits roll, Lee Majors and Heather Thomas were two of the biggest stars in the 1980s television series. Both Majors and Thomas were two of the three actors who appeared in all 112 episodes of the 1980s television show with the third being the other series lead Douglas Barr, who played Howie Munson. Barr’s Howie and Majors’ Colt were both bounty hunters in the original series, with Howie being Colt’s cousin and a stuntman in training.

Rather than being a film director like Blunt’s Jody character in the film, Thomas’s Jody Banks character was also a stunt performer. It’s evident by these character differences alone that 2024’s The Fall Guy was inspired by the 1980s series but is not necessarily a true adaptation of it. The greatest similarity between any two characters of the film and the television series is Colt Seavers, who share the same name and day job.

Majors, however, delivers a signature bravado to the role in the 1980s series, while Gosling successfully pulls off his usual lighthearted charm, which makes sense for modern audiences and his typical M.O. Several actors such as William Bryant and Ben Cooper played directors in the original series, while that тιтle is given to Blunt alone in the film.

How The Fall Guy Movie Got Lee Majors & Heather Thomas To Do Cameos

Majors Reached Out To David Leitch Directly

Director David Leitch revealed that Lee Majors reached out to him personally about appearing in some capacity in The Fall Guy. “Lee was really excited that it was finally getting redone. And then he reached out personally and we talked about what I was doing. And so he was excited to come out. And we thought we would reach out to Heather as well. I think they were both excited about reuniting in this fun way.”

Leitch also joked that he owes Majors some serious dough since he correctly predicted where his scene would go in The Fall Guy. “I actually owe him $1,000. It’s coming, Lee. It’s coming.”

What Lee Majors & Heather Thomas Did Before Their Fall Guy Cameos

SIx Million Dollar Man, Ash vs. Evil ᴅᴇᴀᴅ, & Retirement

Lee Majors broke out with roles in Westersn like The Big Valley and The Virginian, but his real breakout came when he signed on to play Colonel Steve Austin in The Six MIllion Dollar Man. That saw him star as a U.S. Air Force Colonel involved in a crashed test flight who had bionic implants that gave him superhuman powers, which he used to serve as a secret agent for the U.S. Government. His next big role came with The Fall Guy, but then he became simply a character actor.

His biggest role in recent years came in the second and third seasons of Ash vs. Evil ᴅᴇᴀᴅ. In this spinoff from Bruce Campbell’s The Evil ᴅᴇᴀᴅ movie franchise, he played Brock Williams, Campbell’s Ash Williams’ father. He also had cameos in Fuller House, Magnum P.I., and he had a small role in the crime thriller Renegades in 2022.

As for Heather Thomas, her acting career had come to an end before she agreed to cameo in The Fall Guy. Her role in the TV version of the property was her biggest acting roles, and she ended up retiring from acting in 1998 after citing her fear of stalkers. She focused mostly on her family and became an author. Thomas released her first novel, Trophies, in 2008. She did come out of retirement in 2014 for a movie called Girltrash: All Night Long, but that it since 1998 until her Fall Guy appearance.