CSI: Vegas season 2 recruited TikTokker Josh Nalley to portray a dead body after he caught their attention by posing as a dead body for 321 days on the social media platform. CSI: Vegas is a crime drama series that first premiered on October 6, 2021. The show is the latest installment in the CSI franchise, which first started back in 2000 with CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. CSI: Crime Scene Investigation ran for 15 years and has continued to live on in its spin-offs, including CSI: Miami, CSI: NY, and CSI: Cyber.
While the first three spinoff series have concluded, CSI: Vegas is still running and is currently in its second season. Season 1 was a sequel to CSI: Crime Scene Investigation and saw the return of William Petersen and Jorja Fox as Gil Grissom and Sara Sidle, respectively. However, Fox and Petersen departed for CSI: Vegas season 2 and the series now focuses on Las Vegas crime scene investigators Maxine Roby (Paula Newsome) and Catherine Willows (Marg Helgenberger).
However, season 2 will also feature a surprising cameo from a TikTokker who gained prominence for posing dead on the platform. As reported by the Louisville Courier-Journal, Nalley, who goes by the TikTok username @living_dead_josh, will appear on CSI: Vegas. Nalley caught the attention of the show by posing dead in a series of macabre and humorous TikTok videos. Though he doesn’t have any acting experience, he made such a compelling body that CBS e-mailed him asking him to appear in season 2. Check out his statement below:
I got an email from CBS that said they’d seen me on TikTok and wanted to offer me the part. At first I didn’t believe it, but they flew me out to California. It turned out that Mario Van Peebles was the director for that episode so besides getting cast in the show, I also got to meet him, which was great.
CSI’s History of Creative Cameos Explained
Viewers of CSI: Vegas season 2 will get to see the Kentucky native appear in a cameo in season 2, but he is far from the franchise’s only creative cameo. CSI has gained a bit of a reputation for featuring unexpected celebrity cameos. Justin Bieber, Kim Kardashian, and Taylor Swift are just a few of the unexpected celebrities who popped up at some point in the franchise’s history. Kardashian’s appearance on CSI: New York marked her acting debut as she portrayed a murder suspect. Meanwhile, both Bieber and Swift appeared in CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, in which Bieber played a young but dangerous criminal and Swift played a homicide victim seen through flashbacks.
Kardashian, Bieber, and Swift are only three of many creative cameos in the CSI franchise. Other cameos include Channing Tatum, Michael B. Jordan, John Krasinski, Shailene Woodley, and Viola Davis. Many of these actors who appeared on CSI went on to become major stars in the future, while celebrities like Bieber and Swift have become so big that many forget they ever appeared on CSI. However, the franchise clearly has a knack for surprise and celebrity cameos, and CSI: Vegas is keeping up the trend by casting a TikTok star to portray a dead body.
Source: Louisville Courier-Journal
