That Perfect “Deadpool & Wolverine” Cameo That Linked to the Best “Mission: Impossible” Fight Ever

Spoiler alert – if you haven’t seen Deadpool & Wolverine yet and have somehow avoided all cameo-related spoilers, you might want to step away from this article.

There’s been a lot written about all the cameos in Deadpool & Wolverine—heck, we’ve written about them, too—but one of the most interesting cameos of all—with respects to Jennifer Garner, Wesley Snipes, Channing Tatum, and Chris Evans (who appears not as Captain America, but as Johnny Storm, from his first appearance in a superhero movie in 2005’s Fantastic Four, the Fox era of Marvel)—belongs to Henry Cavill. Cavill appears as the Cavillerine, a Wolverine variant who beats the stuffing out of Deadpool during the Merc with the Mouth’s recruiting session through the multiverse to find a Logan who can help him save his world.

The cameo works on several levels. First, Cavill has been a popular fan choice for playing Wolverine once Hugh Jackman is really and truly done with the character. Cavill surely looks the part in Deadpool & Wolverine, jacked as he is, sporting a thick beard, and unleashing all the berserker vitality that made Jackman such a perfect choice for the character when he was first cast in the role more than 24 years ago. It doesn’t hurt that he’s wearing a tank top to expose his massive arms and is chomping on a cigar while working on a motorcycle; all very on-brand for Wolverine, especially a younger Wolverine, before the entire weight of the universe is on his shoulders. (That Wolverine can be found in the variant of Logan Jackman plays in Deadpool & Wolverine and in the Logan he played in…Logan.)

Second, Cavill’s appearance as the Cavillerine is also a sly nod to his most famous cinematic sequence of all time (we’re sure fans of his portrayal of Superman might quibble with this, but hear us out), the iconic bathroom fight scene in Mission: Impossible – Fallout. In that scene, Cavill’s nefarious CIA agent August Walker, who’s briefly aligned with Tom Cruise’s Ethan Hunt during their epic, brutal brawl with Lian Yang’s butt-kicking assassin, does this thing with his arms that has become a beloved meme.

In Cavill’s brief Deadpool & Wolverine cameo, you notice that he does a very similar move before he clobbers Deadpool, where it looks like he’s loosening or reloading his arms. It’s more or less the same exact movement Cavill did as August Walker in the Mission: Impossible bathroom fight before Walker and Ethan Hunt finally get the upper hand on Yang’s brilliantly resourceful fighter.

Is this reading too much into what might be a bit of muscle memory on Cavill’s part? That argument might hold water, but then you have to factor in that Yang is not only an extremely talented stunt performer but also a stunt coordinator—in fact, he was the stunt coordinator on Deadpool & Wolverine. 

It seems much more likely that Yang and Cavill planned this little performative Easter Egg as a nod to their previous, beloved work together, and it also happens to work perfectly in the moment. Although he gets his clock cleaned in the encounter, even Deadpool is gobsmacked over how cool the Cavillerine is.

Here’s the Mission: Impossible Fallout bathroom fight scene. The Cavill shoulder-reload moment comes at the 31-second mark:

For more on Deadpool & Wolverine, check out these stories:

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“Deadpool & Wolverine” Critical Reaction: Killer Chemistry Equals Bloody Good Fun

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Featured image: (L-R): Ryan Reynolds as Deadpool/Wade Wilson and Hugh Jackman as Wolverine/Logan in 20th Century Studios/Marvel Studios’ DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE. Photo by Jay Maidment. © 2024 20th Century Studios / © and ™ 2024 MARVEL.