Watch: This Year's Nobel Prize Winner In Economics Cameoed With Selena Gomez In 'The Big Short'

By Stephen Gossett in News on Oct 9, 2017 8:50PM

Richard Thaler in "The Big Short"

Richard Thaler, the University of Chicago professor who on Monday was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, was already quite famous well before his win. His 2008 book Nudge, which he co-authored with Harvard Law School Professor Cass R. Sunstein, was a well-regarded best-seller, and he contributes to the New York Times as a columnist. But behavioral economist's most high-profile turn, at least for we lowly laymen, came via his cameo in an Oscar-winning drama.

Thaler appeared in a memorable cameo alongside Selena Gomez in the Christian Bale-, Steve Carrell-starring 2015 financial-crisis chronicle The Big Short. Like a handful of others who pop up briefly in the film, Thaler and Gomez show up to help elucidate, directly to the audience, the complexities of concepts like subprime mortgages and collateralized debt obligations.

For Thaler's appearance, he quickly and thoroughly debunks the so-called "hot hand fallacy," wherein people on a hot streak illogically assume their luck will continue in perpetuity.

According to the Tribune, Gomez sent Thaler a congratulatory text on Monday after his award was announced.)

The Thaler/Gomez sequence starts at about the 3:30 mark in the clip below, but its worth watching in its entirety for context.

Much of Thaler's output in fact hinges on how irrational human behavior influences economics. The New York Times has a handy roundup of seven of his greatest hits here if you want to dive in beyond his Hollywood reel.