How the Judy Blume Cameo Happened in Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret

Judy Blume asked Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret director Kelly Fremon Craig outright if she could have a cameo in the film.

"I actually asked Kelly, 'Do you think that maybe I could have a cameo?'" she tells Town & Country of her short, but memorable appearance in the film. "I was there on set, twice, for a couple of weeks at a time. I really wanted one. And she said, 'Oh, we've been talking about this, of course we want you to have a cameo.'"

"We were completely on the same page with it," Craig tells T&C. "I was so happy to get her in there—just a flash for everybody who remembers her picture on the book jacket."

Blume appears in Margaret's neighborhood, walking a dog. "I had my choice of dogs," Blume recalls. "That was really funny because one of them was a little bit bigger and one of them was this—I didn't realize how ancient and sleepy this little dog was!"

When they prepared to film the scene, Blume says, "It was very hot and the dog didn't wanna do anything. It just wanted to sit there and, and the trainer gave it water and we took a little walk together. It was fun." She also loved getting into costume, which was designed by Ann Roth. Her husband, George Cooper, joins her in the scene.

Abby Ryder Fortson, who plays Margaret, wasn't in the shot with Blume, but she made sure to be around to watch the author film. "I was on set when she was filming, it was really fun to see her walking down the set," Fortson tells T&C. "She's not an actor, so it was really just cute to see her figuring everything out!"

So, Blume appears in the credits twice: as the author of the book, and as "Neighbor Walking Dog #1."

Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret is in theaters now.

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