I just finished Glass Onion and at the end credits it had all the actors who were in it but only Kate Hudson and Dave Batista had the prefix of “with” before their name. Is there a reason why only they get it?
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Last billing, as it’s called, is important in Hollywood. Traditionally, the order of credits is listed based on how big the role was. So top billing goes to the stars, and the minor roles get the bottom of the billing.
But then there’s “last billing.” Last billing usually signifies that the person had a cameo role, which is a role where you put a big name star in the movie for a short amount of time. You want to get this big name star in your movie, but they’re too busy and important to take the time out of their life to star in your movie. So they show up for a day, film the scene you want, and go home.
These cameo roles would be the smallest role in the movie. So the actor doing it would go to the very bottom of the credits reel. But they’re a huge star and you want them to stand out. So you’d add “with so-and-so” to break up the list of actors, to signify that the last billing was in fact a big star, and not just the person with a smaller role than Barista #3.
Well, as time has gone on, last billing became more and more prestigious. So now it doesn’t necessarily mean that the actor did a true cameo role anymore. Agents will fight tooth and nail to get their client bottom billing. Which is why now we have roles that will be like “with [actor] and [actress]” or “with [actor]. Also with [actress]” or however it gets negotiated. These two stars are now sharing the prestigious last billing slot.
Oftentimes last billing also goes to late-in-life actors who “earned” the spot throughout their careers.
Bonus fact about movie billing: “and” and “&” are different in movie credits. “Written by Bob & Tom” means that Bob and Tom worked together as a team to co-write the script. “Written by Bob and Tom” means that they didn’t work together. Perhaps Bob wrote most the script and then the studio gave it to Tom to finish it and do rewrites, but Bob did enough work that they can’t take his name off the project.
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