'Deadpool 2' Director Spills the Story Behind That Amazing Celebrity Cameo (Exclusive)

While Terry Crews, Bill Skarsard, Lewis Tan and Rob Delaney all have more screen time as members of the hero's X-Force before their premature demises, there's one vigilante with much bigger cache: Vanisher. The invisible avenger shows his face for only a split second, as he's electrocuted after crashing into telephone wires after parachuting from the groups' helicopter. But what a beautiful face it is: Brad Pitt.

Before Josh Brolin landed the role of the time traveling Cable, Pitt was one of the names in talks for the part. According to director David Leitch, his cameo stemmed from those early conversations.

"We really liked the idea of Brad playing Cable and we had reached out early on, and there was a lot of talks and discussions of how it could work," Leitch confirmed to TooFab. "Ultimately, it fell at the other projects in the way and schedules and things he wanted to do at the time, but he always left the door open for us to call and say, if there's something else, let me know, if it's something I could help out with. So we kept that in our back pocket."

Pitt's addition to the film came after most of principal photography, so they could show him how he'd fit into the story.

"We had an eye on the Vanisher character possibly being him, but we were sort of waiting until we got everything in the can and cut together so we could really do the pitch in the right way," added Leitch. "Look, it was sort of a great connection, the global phenomenon Deadpool is, the fact that Simon Kinberg and myself had worked with Brad in the past, and Ryan being funny as hell, that we could all get in a room and ask Brad to play Vanisher."

Leitch, a former stunt man, was actually Pitt's double in five films -- "Mr. & Mrs. Smith," "Troy," "Ocean's Eleven," "Spy game" and "Fight Club" -- while producer Kingberg wrote "Mr. & Mrs. Smith."

"It is a win win all around," Leicht said of landing Brad for a cameo and Brolin for the role of Cable. "I'll say this, I never lose when I bet on great actors. You hang a scene on a great talent like Ryan or you hang a scene on a great talent like Keanu or Charlize or Josh Brolin, you're betting a good hand."

Pitt wasn't the only celebrity cameo in the film, however. A few X-Men -- including Evan Peters' Beast, James McAvoy's Professor X and Nicholas Hoult's Beast -- did their best to avoid the title character at Xavier's School for the Gifted. Hugh Jackman's Wolverine also appeared in a post-credits scene where Deadpool kills the version of him from 2009's "X-Men Origins," while Ryan Reynolds cameos as himself in a stinger where he's blown away by the Merc with a Mouth for considering to make "Green Lantern."

"Deadpool 2" is in theaters now.