[Question] What actor played more than one part and blew your mind?

Dave

Dave

Staff member
Okay, so I was watching a movie the other night and an actor seemed familiar somehow but I couldn't quite place why. So I went to IMDB and found out what was happening in my mind.

Jon Gries.

He played both Lazlo in "Real Genius" and Uncle Rico in "Napoleon Dynamite".


So what actor played two parts and blew YOUR mind?
 
Denbrought

Denbrought

Dulé Hill. I watched Psych a while back, and just last year I finally got around watching The West Wing (finished a month ago). I kept thinking that Charlie bore an uncanny resemblance to Gus, but dismissed it as racially-enhanced face blindness.

Imagine my surprise.
 
drawn_inward

drawn_inward

When I watched Bridge on the River Kwai when I was a kid and about half way through my dad told me that was Obi-wan Kenobi, my little brain exploded.

I can't think of a recent one.
 
Dave

Dave

Staff member
If you've ever seen the movie "Tag" the pot-smoking dad is played by an unrecognizable Brian Dennahey.
 
Dei

Dei

If I hadn't watched the first season of Breaking Bad and jumped in late, I would have been really confused that Walter was played by Brian Cranston.
 
GasBandit

GasBandit

Staff member
Eddie Murphy and Arsenio Hall in Coming To America. When I was a kid, the revelation that they also played all three people in the barber shop hit me like a ton of bricks.
 
PatrThom

PatrThom

Gary Oldman.
In everything.

...EV-ERY-THING.

Seriously, I rank Oldman as possibly the greatest actor of our generation. I don’t know of anyone else who is as good at completely becoming someone else (as opposed to just being “that guy he always plays,” like, say, John Goodman or Jack Nicholson. Or Johnny Depp.).
GasBandit said:
Eddie Murphy and Arsenio Hall in Coming To America. When I was a kid, the revelation that they also played all three people in the barber shop hit me like a ton of bricks.
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Thanks to Siskel and Elbert, I knew going in that they performed multiple roles, so it wasn’t such a shock (except for the old Jewish guy).
...but the first time I saw Mary Poppins? I was caught completely unawares.

—Patrick
 
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evilmike

evilmike

Both Boris Karloff and Thurl Ravenscroft (the voice of Tony the Tiger) in the original Grinch Who Stole Christmas.
 
Gruebeard

Gruebeard

Patrick McKenna.

At the same time he was playing pimply-faced Harold on the Red Green Show, he was on a show called Traders paying a stressed out middle aged man.
 
WasabiPoptart

WasabiPoptart

Robin Wright

I was mindblown when I was watching House of Cards and realized that Claire Underwood was also Princess Buttercup from The Princess Bride.
 
Celt Z

Celt Z

PatrThom said:
I think I first took notice of D'Onofrio from MiB, but of course my wife had already been watching him on Law & Order for ages.
I hear he plays a mean Kingpin.
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I'm going to hop on the D'Onofrio train, but prior to L&O, it was realizing Pyle/Edgar was also Dawson, a.k.a. Thor, from Adventures in Babysitting.

Watching Mr. Z's head explode about 3/4 through Tropic Thunder when I told him Les Grossman was Tom Cruise was almost as entertaining as the movie itself.
 
PatrThom

PatrThom

Ok, one more.
John C Reilly.

Who would think that the bumbling guy from Stepbrothers (and ugh...the upcoming Holmes and Watson) could also voice Wreck-It Ralph, a character with plenty of growth and depth? And even though I haven't seen it yet (and probably won't for a looong time), his performance in Stan and Ollie looks like it's going to be amazing, chock full of both comedy and tragedy regardless of whether the movie is a success or not.

--Patrick
 
Ravenpoe

Ravenpoe

PatrThom said:
Gary Oldman.
In everything.

...EV-ERY-THING.

Seriously, I rank Oldman as possibly the greatest actor of our generation. I don’t know of anyone else who is as good at completely becoming someone else (as opposed to just being “that guy he always plays,” like, say, John Goodman or Jack Nicholson. Or Johnny Depp.).

Thanks to Siskel and Elbert, I knew going in that they performed multiple roles, so it wasn’t such a shock (except for the old Jewish guy).
...but the first time I saw Mary Poppins? I was caught completely unawares.

—Patrick
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^this

Also:
 
checkeredhat

checkeredhat

Tinwhistler said:
Vincent D'Onofrio

Pyle in Full Metal Jacket


Edgar in Men in Black


The Wizard in Emerald City
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When I watched the Magnificent Seven remake, I Watched it knowing full-well that Vincent D'onofrio was in it, and after they had assembled the whole crew, I was like "Wait, where's D'onofrio? He must be one of the bad guys, I guess?". There was like, ten minutes left in the movie when I realized he was the mountain man.
dnofrio-magseven.jpg


And it's not like he's under a lot of prosthetics or anything. He Looks like himself there just with a beard. But when he plays a role, he REALLY inhabits that role and you really do lose sight of him and just see the character he's playing. He and Gary Oldman are both fucking chameleons. They both have movies I've seen multiple times before realizing they were in them.
 
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PatrThom

PatrThom

Ravenpoe said:
^this

Also:
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It even took me years before I even knew that the .GIF was Oldman (and no I haven’t seen the movie it’s from).
I don’t know how he does it, how he’s able to be someone different each and every time, and not just “it’s Gary Oldman in a suit” or “it’s Gary Oldman with glasses and a beard” or “it’s Gary Oldman but with one arm CGI’d out.”
sixpackshaker said:
Oh come on, nobody remembers Corvette Summer. Or the Big Red One.
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I’ve seen Big Red One.
I’ve even seen the Amazing Stories episode with him in it.

—Patrick
 
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Wahad

Wahad

Karl Urban. In the Lord of the Rings. I did not recognize him when I first saw Two Towers. And then watching the credits and looking through the actor list it was like :Leyla:
 
Dave

Dave

Staff member
Wahad said:
Karl Urban. In the Lord of the Rings. I did not recognize him when I first saw Two Towers. And then watching the credits and looking through the actor list it was like :Leyla:
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Okay. You got me on this one. I had to go see what he looked like in the movie and I had no clue, either.
 
GasBandit

GasBandit

Staff member
I knew it was him the instant the line "I would cut off your head, Dwarf, if it stood but a little higher from the ground!" Of course, at that point, I'd only ever only seen him in Hercules/Xena as Julius Caesar, so it was more "Oh, I guess he got his big break!"
 
checkeredhat

checkeredhat

GasBandit said:
I knew it was him the instant the line "I would cut off your head, Dwarf, if it stood but a little higher from the ground!" Of course, at that point, I'd only ever only seen him in Hercules/Xena as Julius Caesar, so it was more "Oh, I guess he got his big break!"
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He also played Cupid in those shows.

Which, side note, brings me to a longtime issue I've had with every iteration of Hercules: they pick and choose when to use the Roman names vs when to use the Greek names. Still bugs me.
 
Gruebeard

Gruebeard

checkeredhat said:
He also played Cupid in those shows.

Which, side note, brings me to a longtime issue I've had with every iteration of Hercules: they pick and choose when to use the Roman names vs when to use the Greek names. Still bugs me.
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Well. In defense of those shows, they were an anachronistic jumble that saw Xena visit both Helen's Troy and Caesar's Rome, cities that existed 1000 years apart.

Yes. I said that in defense of those shows.
 
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