Kirsten Dunst made an unexpected cameo in Black Mirror's season 4, episode 1, "USS Callister" - here's why the actor made this uncredited appearance. Charlie Brooker's dystopian television series Black Mirror premiered in 2011 and released two seasons through the British broadcasting station Channel 4. Following Black Mirror season 2, the show moved to Netflix, where it currently remains.
When Black Mirror premiered on the major streaming service, there were many notable celebrities who starred. This included actor Jesse Plemons, who recently portrayed the lead character, Jake, in Charlie Kaufman's 2020 Netflix original movie, I'm Thinking Of Ending Things. In Brooker's series, he took on the role of the sadistic video game developer Robert Daly in "USS Callister." The episode follows the characters as Robert transfers the consciousness and image of people into a computer program designed to look like his favorite television series, Space Fleet.
Season 4, episode 1, "USS Callister" actually features several major Black Mirror Easter eggs that further elaborate on the series' timeline. There are even a two celebrity cameos that director Toby Haynes fought to keep in the final cut. One of the most unforgettable is Aaron Paul's (Breaking Bad) voiceover at the end of "USS Callister." He acts as an angry gamer who threatens the recently freed crew on Daly's spaceship. Paul's cameo is far more noticeable than Kirsten Dunst's, who makes a very brief appearance within the first ten minutes of the episode. He is even credited for his acting, while Dunst is not.
According to an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Toby Haynes, who directed the episode, fought to keep Dunst's cameo in the final cut of "USS Callister." He claimed that she was sitting on set one day and asked if it would be possible for her to be part of it. He agreed, and was able to capture a single shot where Dunst is merely walking in the background as the main cast members have side conversations. When the episode went into the editing portion of production, she was entirely absent due to continuity. Based on the fact that he had only taken one shot of Dunst, it was presumed to be a mistake and was taken out entirely. As a result, Haynes fought to have her scene put back in.
In the episode, all Dunst does is walk in and out of frame while Plemons's character has a conversation and looks longingly at his coworkers. Dunst's uncredited cameo is now considered to be a fun Easter egg for fans of the series. While it may be bizarre to imagine that such a high-profile actor like Dunst would make an uncredited cameo in a successful series like Black Mirror, it's likely due to how brief the scene actually was. In fact, it doesn't last any longer than three or four seconds. It must also be noted that Dunst had a personal connection to "USS Callister", which afforded her the opportunity to even ask for a feature in the episode. During filming, Dunst and Plemons were newly engaged, having dated for a year after romance sparked between the two on the set of Fargo, and are still together as of this writing.