16 celebrities who played multiple characters in the same movie or TV show
- Some actors will take on multiple roles in movies and TV shows.
- Stars like Lisa Kudrow have portrayed on-screen twins, while other celebrities have played various different characters in the same project (like Mike Meyers in "Austin Powers").
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Mark Ruffalo stars as twins named Dominick and Thomas Birdsey on the HBO miniseries "I Know This Much Is True."
The show is based on a 1998 novel of the same name from Wally Lamb.
Ruffalo first filmed his scenes as Dominick, then took a few weeks off to gain 30 pounds and portray Thomas.
"Putting on the weight for Thomas was really challenging," Ruffalo said at the TV Critics Association Winter Press Tour in January 2020, per "E! News." "I didn't expect it to be. I thought I was going to have a fun time doing that, but when you're force-feeding yourself, some of the romance of food sort of leaves."
Mike Meyers played a few roles in the "Austin Powers" movies, like the titular character and Dr. Evil.
Prior to the "Austin Powers" movies, he was a cast member on "Saturday Night Live."
Nicolas Cage starred as twins Charlie Kaufman and Donald Kaufman in "Adaptation."
Cage also earned an Oscar nomination for best actor in a leading role.
Tom Hardy played dangerous twins named Ronald and Reginald Kray in 2015's "Legend."
The movie was based on real-life criminals.
The two characters, they were pretty easy to slip between," Hardy told Entertainment Weekly. "The complicated part was to make an audience believe it wasn't one performer doing both parts."
Younger generations recognize Lindsay Lohan as the star of the 1998 "Parent Trap" remake.
Lohan played twins Hallie Parker and Annie James, who reunited at summer camp and devised a plan to try and get their divorced parents back together.
Hayley Mills starred as Susan Evers and Sharon McKendrick in the 1961 version of "The Parent Trap."
The film was nominated for two Academy Awards and two Golden Globes.
"TVD" costar Paul Wesley also played a few doppelgangers.
Aside from portraying brooding vampire Stefan Salvatore, the actor also played Silas (the first immortal man) and Tom Avery.
On "The Vampire Diaries," Nina Dobrev is known for playing Elena Gilbert, but she also portrayed the character's doppelgangers.
On The CW series, Dobrev played the first immortal woman, Amara. The character then led to a line of doppelgangers: Tatia, Katherine (also known as Katerina Petrova), and Elena Gilbert.
On an hour-long episode of "That's So Raven," Raven Symone played four characters.
She appeared as Raven Baxter, Auntie Faye, Cousin Delroy, and Baby G on an episode titled "Country Cousins."
Troian Bellisario played Spencer Hastings and her evil twin sister, Alex, on "Pretty Little Liars."
The villainous Brit made her first appearance on the final season of the Freeform show.
Dove Cameron played twins on the Disney Channel series "Liv and Maddie."
Liv was a TV star and Maddie was a regular high school student. In a 2019 Wired interview, Cameron said that playing two characters "was complicated at first."
"In the first season, it was complicated because we still had the same amount of time as every other sitcom on the Disney lot," she said. "We had three days of rehearsal and two days of filming, and we had to do everything twice, so that was a little crazy."
On "Teen Wolf," Dylan O'Brien played fan-favorite character Stiles Stilinski and the season three antagonist Void Stiles.
A dark spirit, known as a Nogitsune, took over Stiles' mind and tortured him (plus his friends) during the second half of season three of the MTV show.
Hilary Duff played Lizzie McGuire and Italian pop star Isabella in 2003's "The Lizzie McGuire Movie."
Lizzie had no idea that she had a look-alike until she visited Rome for a class trip.
On "Living With Yourself," Paul Rudd plays a man who goes to a spa and gets replaced by a better version of himself.
Rudd told "CBS This Morning" that playing two roles on the Netflix show "was a challenge."
"For me, the way it worked best was to record the audio for both characters," he said. "Whatever character is driving the scene is the one they would film first. I wouldn't act with a double or an acting partner, I would put a little earwig in my ear, I would listen to the opposite line."
He continued: "If I'm playing the new version of the character, I can hear the old version replying because there's somebody off-screen hitting the cue."
Lisa Kudrow is known for her role as Phoebe on "Friends," but she also played the quirky character's twin sister.
Ursula appeared on a few episodes and was the one who told Phoebe that they were actually 31 years old instead of 30.
In the 2018 holiday film "The Princess Switch," Vanessa Hudgens played two identical strangers who came face-to-face.
In the Netflix movie, Hudgens played a Chicago-based baker named Stacy who traveled to Belgravia to participate in the Royal Christmas Baking Contest. She encountered Margaret, the Duchess of Montenaro, and the two women pretended to be each other and live different lives.
"[The] most fun [part] was creating two different characters and allowing them to live in moments together," Hudgens told Newsweek. The "most challenging was going back and forth in a scene shooting out both characters. It was a little confusing but a fun challenge."
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