Bowfinger

Bowfinger is a 1999 American comedy film directed by Frank Oz. It depicts a down-and-out filmmaker in Hollywood attempting to make a film on a small budget with a star who does not know that he is in the film. It was written by Steve Martin, and stars Martin, Eddie Murphy, and Heather Graham.

Plot

Z-grade film producer Bobby Bowfinger is extremely eager to direct a film of his own and has saved up for it his entire life — he now has $2,184 to pay for production costs. He has a script ("Chubby Rain") penned by an accountant, Afrim, and a camera operator, Dave, with access to studio-owned equipment. Bowfinger then lines up several actors who are hungry for work; the only other thing he needs is access to a studio in order to distribute his masterwork.

He manages to extract a promise from a film studio executive, Jerry Renfro, that the executive will distribute the film if it includes currently-hot action star Kit Ramsey. Ramsey — a rather pompous, neurotic, and paranoid actor — refuses, so Bowfinger constructs a plan to covertly film (on an extremely low budget) all of Ramsey's scenes without his knowledge. The actors, told that Ramsey is method acting and will not be interacting with them outside of their scenes, walk up to Ramsey in public and recite their lines while hidden cameras catch Ramsey's confused reactions.