{"id":117732,"date":"2025-09-06T02:55:12","date_gmt":"2025-09-06T02:55:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/117732\/"},"modified":"2025-09-06T02:55:12","modified_gmt":"2025-09-06T02:55:12","slug":"the-paper-josh-holloway-cameo-explained","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/117732\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018The Paper\u2019 Josh Holloway Cameo Explained"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\t[This story contains spoilers for episode five of The Paper<\/a>, \u201cScam Alert.\u201d]<\/p>\n

\n\tThe fifth episode of The Paper<\/a> features an out-of-left-field guest appearance by a very well-known actor playing himself \u2014 more or less.<\/p>\n

\n\tJosh Holloway<\/a> (Lost, Yellowstone, Duster) appears in the episode, titled \u201cScam Alert.\u201d The Toledo Truth-Teller digs into a catfishing scam that\u2019s been targeting residents of the city, and it turns out the scammer is using Holloway\u2019s likeness \u2014 and even paying him to make videos through Cameo \u2014 to bilk the victims. The catfisher poses as a soldier stationed in Germany who needs money to help buy a ticket home for Thanksgiving, escalating things from there. <\/p>\n

\n\tAs Truth-Teller editor Ned (Domhnall Gleeson) is laying out the details of the scam in a meeting, Esmeralda (Sabrina Impacciatore) silently leaves the room and closes her office door. The staff quickly realizes she\u2019s a victim too \u2014\u00a0much to the delight of Nicole (Ramona Young), whom Esmeralda has repeatedly insulted. When Ned confronts her (hoping to get her first-person perspective into a story), though, she doubles down and insists that the person she\u2019s communicating with, \u201cJarson,\u201d is real and really loves her. <\/p>\n

\n\tTo prove it, Esmeralda shows the office a picture of Jarson, whom everyone else immediately recognizes as Holloway \u2014 \u201cSawyer from Lost, Roarke from Yellowstone,\u201d Oscar (Oscar Nu\u00f1ez) notes. Holloway-as-Jarson then sends her a video message, referring to himself in the third person and other sketchy business that reads \u201cscam\u201d to everyone but her. <\/p>\n

\n\tSo \u2014\u00a0why Josh Holloway? The Paper creators Greg Daniels and Michael Koman and casting director Leslie Woo told The Hollywood Reporter that in writing the episode, they discussed several possibilities for the catfisher\u2019s avatar. \u201cWe tried to figure out, \u2018Well, if it\u2019s this person, this is the story. If it\u2019s that person, we could use that as their background,\u2019\u201d Daniels recalled. <\/p>\n

\n\tWoo said Holloway\u2019s name rose to the top of the list fairly quickly. \u201cWe had to cast an extremely attractive actor who is so well-known globally that it would be shocking for one of our other characters to not know who he was,\u201d she said. \u201cAlmost immediately after we sent over the pages for his consideration, he enthusiastically responded. He was on set a few days later.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHolloway (as himself, this time) also records a Cameo video for Nicole in the episode, explaining to Esmeralda that he is not, in fact, Jarson. \u201cI don\u2019t know how our wires got crossed,\u201d he says. \u201cI just say what they tell me to say on here. We\u2019re not in love. I\u2019m in love with my wife, Yessica. Mahalo!\u201d The story closes with Esmeralda watching a Lost episode where Sawyer takes a beating. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt worked really well for a variety of reasons,\u201d said Koman. \u201cPart of it is just the way he looks, and he has a very nice, friendly quality that I could see him talking on a Cameo very sincerely. And he had this show where there\u2019s footage of him having the shit kicked out of him that Esmeralda would enjoy watching at the end of the episode.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"[This story contains spoilers for episode five of The Paper, \u201cScam Alert.\u201d] The fifth episode of The Paper…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":117733,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[6491,96,56399,15405,55447,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-117732","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-celebrities","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-josh-holloway","11":"tag-peacock","12":"tag-the-paper","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom","15":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117732","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=117732"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117732\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/117733"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=117732"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=117732"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=117732"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}