10 More Actors You Didn't Know Played The Same Character in Different Movies
This bunch of actors really just couldn't let go of these movie characters...
Transcript
00:00 From diabolical orderlies returning for an unexpected round two, to actors being so damn
00:05 convincing as historical figures that it'd be plain rude to not ask them back for another
00:11 showing, here's another bunch of stars who showed up as the same character in separate
00:15 feature spectacles.
00:16 I'm Gareth from WhatCulture.com and here are 10 more actors you didn't know played
00:21 the same character in different movies.
00:24 10.
00:25 Michael Sheen - Tony Blair The deal, the queen, the special relationship
00:29 To many, Michael Sheen is fondly known for his blockbuster work on the likes of The Underworld
00:34 and Twilight Flicks.
00:35 But for those outside of the vampire-obsessed demographic, the Welsh powerhouse is more
00:40 intrinsically linked to folks such as David Frost and Brian Clough, producing mesmerising
00:45 turns in both Frost/Nixon and The Damned/United, respectively.
00:49 However, when looking back on the Bafta-nominated thespian's career, it's hard to look past
00:53 one role in particular as the one that he was simply born to play, evidenced in the
00:58 fact he's played the part on three separate occasions.
01:01 Though not classed as directly connected in the traditional sense, Sheen would play Tony
01:06 Blair in The Deal, the Queen and the Special Relationship.
01:09 Unofficially, this trio of flicks made up the Blair Trilogy, seeing Sheen bring the
01:13 former Prime Minister to life in the various stages of his political career.
01:17 Rounding out his real-life figure work, Sheen has also strutted his stuff as comedy actor
01:22 Kenneth Williams and Who Wants to Be a Millionaire host Chris Tarrant in Kenneth Williams'
01:27 Fantabulosa and Quiz, respectively.
01:30 9.
01:31 Michael Schurd – Adolf Hitler Five Different Times
01:35 Some folks are born to play the British Prime Minister, while others are destined to take
01:40 up the reins of one of the world's most infamous leaders.
01:43 That's just show business, I guess.
01:45 In the case of Scottish actor Michael Schurd, his most consistently witnessed character
01:49 came in the form of Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler.
01:53 Rocking up as the unmistakable presence on a whopping five different occasions, Schurd
01:58 would play the leader of the Nazi Party in TV flicks Rogue Mail and the Dirty Dozen,
02:02 Next Mission, TV series The Tomorrow People and Secret History, Hitler of the Andes, and
02:07 the big-screen blockbuster that was Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.
02:11 Strangely enough, he'd also play leading Nazi Party member Heinrich Himmler on three
02:15 occasions too, appearing in The Death of Adolf Hitler, The Bunker and Space as the historical
02:21 figure.
02:22 Schurd found quite the niche in playing deeply despicable human beings of days gone by.
02:27 8.
02:28 Stanley B. Herman – Uncle Hank, Requiem for a Dream and Black Swan
02:32 Speaking of despicable human beings, Stanley B. Herman had the largely overlooked honour
02:37 of bringing a particularly heinous character to the table on two separate occasions, both
02:42 of those being helmed by Darren Aronofsky.
02:44 First showing up in the director's deeply unsettling and unfiltered psychological drama,
02:48 Requiem for a Dream, as one of the chilling guys goading Jennifer Connelly's character
02:53 of Marion to go ass-to-ass in the midst of a sex show, she was taking part in to raise
02:57 heroin habit funds.
02:59 Aronofsky would credit Herman as the pervert initially.
03:02 However, after confessing that he felt somewhat bad over hiring the actor to play such a volatile
03:06 part for one day only, the director would bring Herman back for Black Swan, after gifting
03:11 him with the new moniker of Uncle Hank.
03:13 Here, playing the same part as he did in Requiem for a Dream, Herman is seen harassing Natalie
03:18 Portman's Nina while she's riding the subway.
03:21 Weirdly enough, he'd also play a part known as the pervert in Aronofsky's short film,
03:25 Fortune Cookie, and turned up as Fornicator in Mother 2.
03:28 Again, quite a niche.
03:30 7.
03:31 Ben Stiller – Orderly Hal Happy Gilmore and Hubie Halloween
03:35 Though perhaps not the major talking point coming out of Adam Sandler's golfing riot
03:39 that was Happy Gilmore, Ben Stiller still made a sizable impact on those chuckling on
03:44 when terrorising the titular character's grandma.
03:46 In her nursing home throughout the flick.
03:48 In a scene which unfortunately didn't make it into the theatrical cut.
03:52 Stiller's orderly Hal ultimately got his just desserts in the form of being sent flying
03:56 through a window.
03:57 But far from forcing him to change his ways, Gilmore's retaliation seemed to only serve
04:02 as the catalyst for a career change.
04:05 Returning as the devilish handlebar moustache sporting Hal in 2020's Hubie Halloween,
04:10 Stiller is seen mocking and abusing what he thinks is a sleeping Ritchie Hartman, before
04:14 discovering in the movie opening scene that Ritchie had actually bolted from the bed instead.
04:18 It's an unfortunately brief nod to one of Stiller's more volatile but no less hilarious
04:23 turns, but one that provided audiences with a sweet laugh and dose of nostalgia before
04:28 having to endure the rest of another largely painful comedic Sandler experience.
04:33 6.
04:34 Ian Hart – John Lennon The Hours and Times and Backbeat
04:39 Playing the part of one of the most influential artists ever to set foot on planet Earth isn't
04:43 quite your class' easy feat by any stretch of the imagination.
04:47 But it was clearly one that Ian Hart didn't see any issue in taking a stab at, on two
04:51 separate occasions no less.
04:53 Years before he'd immortalised himself as the snivelling vessel that Lord Voldemort
04:57 was taking residence in – Professor Quirinus Quirrell to you and me – during Harry Potter
05:01 and the Philosopher's Stone, Ian Hart was thrown into the spotlight on the back of a
05:05 deeply convincing portrayal of the legendary Beatle John Lennon, in Christopher Munch's
05:11 The Hours and Times.
05:12 Then following on from the fictionalised telling of what might have gone down between the Beatles
05:16 and their manager Brian Epstein, during a holiday in Barcelona in the 60s, Hart was
05:21 brought back to play Lennon once again in Ian Sofley's Backbeat three years later.
05:27 Portraying a younger version of the imagined creator, when asked whether he was worried
05:30 about being oddly typecast, the actor would confess, "Yes, I have played John Lennon
05:34 twice.
05:35 But they were two completely different characters who happened to have the same name.
05:39 Yeah, sure."
05:41 5.
05:42 Thomas Lennon – Nolan Doctor – Memento and The Dark Knight Rises
05:46 From one Lennon to another, here's an actor who took it upon himself to join the dots
05:50 between two characters from two separate Christopher Nolan entries.
05:53 And you can't exactly fault his logic, to be honest.
05:56 Despite the iconic filmmaker never explicitly saying, or even visually alluding to the fact
06:00 over the course of both Memento and The Dark Knight Rises, actor Thomas Lennon is convinced
06:05 that he is actually playing the same role in both of those Nolan-helmed features.
06:10 Speaking to HuffPost Entertainment around the time of the latter film's release, Lennon
06:14 would confess, "Basically, I guess, I kind of think it's the same character from Memento,
06:19 the doctor who's testing Sammy Jankis in that movie.
06:22 I like to think I'm exactly the same doctor and it's all happening inside of Guy Pearce's
06:26 mind."
06:27 He would later go on to admit that whether or not that's true is probably for Nolan
06:30 to say.
06:31 But it does make for an interesting theory as to how Nolan's bombastic flicks are all
06:35 connected as part of an unofficial Nolanverse.
06:38 It also remains to be seen whether this doc will be along for another high-octane ride
06:42 in the not-too-distant future.
06:44 4.
06:45 Judi Dench – Queen Victoria Mrs. Brown and Victoria and Abdul
06:50 As I've already alluded to over the course of this list, some actors are simply born
06:54 to play certain famous faces from the very real past.
06:57 And in the case of the formidable Dame Judi Dench, the role of the Queen of England seems
07:02 to fit her like a regal glove.
07:04 Yet while her only Academy Award win to date may have come thanks to her show-stealing
07:08 turn as Queen Elizabeth I in Shakespeare in Love, this isn't actually the Queenie that
07:13 Dench has spent the most time bringing to life on a movie screen.
07:17 After picking up her first Oscar nod for her work as Queen Victoria in Mrs. Brown, playing
07:21 the monarch after she'd recently become widowed and exploring her relationship with
07:25 Scottish servant John Brown, Dench would return to the role a whopping 20 years later in Victoria
07:31 and Abdul.
07:32 This flick would once again delve into Victoria's relationship with a servant, this time by
07:36 the name of Abdul Karim.
07:37 Her return to the role may not have generated the same buzz as her initial outing, but it
07:42 still earned Dench an impressive 12th Golden Globe nomination.
07:46 Not too shabby.
07:47 3.
07:48 Ian Holm – Napoleon Time Bandits and the Emperor's New Clothes
07:51 Though not completely against returning to a role within a long-running movie franchise,
07:56 seen in his triumphant comeback as the legendary Bilbo Baggins in the Hobbit prequel trilogy,
08:01 Ian Holm had largely steered clear of going back over old ground throughout a frankly
08:05 absurdly varied big-screen career.
08:08 However, away from stellar one-and-dones in the form of Aliens' unsettling android Ash
08:13 and Athletics trainer Sam Masabini in Chariots of Fire, there is actually another character
08:18 that the late Force of Nature found himself in the shoes of on multiple occasions in entirely
08:22 different projects.
08:24 After playing the well-known French political and military leader Napoleon Bonaparte in
08:28 TV miniseries Napoleon and Love, Holm was once again drafted into play the infamous
08:33 figure for Terry Gilliam's Time Bandits flick.
08:36 Not content with his time in the Napoleon driving seat, a final outing as the figure
08:40 who dominated Europe for over a decade was realised with Alan Taylor's The Emperor's
08:45 New Clothes shortly after the turn of the century.
08:48 2.
08:49 Alan Tudyk – Gerhardt Weinhardt 28 Days and Transformers Dark of the Moon
08:54 In another case of an actor filling in his own blanks and coming to the conclusion that
08:58 he was actually playing the same role in two largely different cinematic entries, Alan
09:02 Tudyk has gone on record to admit that his role of Gerhardt Weinhardt didn't disappear
09:06 entirely after the events of the Sandra Bullock-starring comedy-drama 28 Days.
09:11 As Tudyk put it himself upon looking back with Empire at his role as Dutch, Seymour
09:16 Simmons' personal assistant in Transformers Dark of the Moon, "I decided that it's
09:20 the same guy.
09:21 He had gotten out of rehab, got himself on the right track and then entered the army,
09:26 became a specialist, found that he had skills in computers and weapons.
09:29 Then he got burned out after too much killing.
09:31 And just decided to become a valet to Agent Simmons.
09:34 There's a moment where he goes crazy and I say, 'That's the old me.'
09:38 And that was all based on that BS idea that it was the same guy."
09:42 Though at a glance it may seem crazy to suggest that Tudyk's Gerhardt theory carries any
09:46 real weight.
09:47 Don't forget that this is the same series that introduced robot dinosaurs later down
09:51 the line.
09:52 So anything's possible, right?
09:54 1.
09:55 Sam Rockwell – Sam Bell Mute and Mune
09:58 When deciding to finally pursue what was ultimately classed as a spiritual sequel to one of his
10:02 most acclaimed films to date, that being Mune, it felt like only a matter of time before
10:07 that film's leading man made his presence felt in Duncan Jones' Netflix project Mute.
10:12 Set within the same universe as that first project, which saw Sam Bell going through
10:16 a bit of a drama on the back end of a three-year solo trip mining helium-3 on the far side
10:21 of the moon, I was wondering when Sam Rockwell would ultimately pop up in the story of a
10:25 Mute bartender searching for the love of his life, but put out of their misery thanks to
10:30 a brilliant cameo sequence.
10:32 Hammering home what would turn out to be Jones' first film's big twist, that being that
10:36 Bell had actually been cloned against his own will, Mute sees Sam Bell #156 taking part
10:42 in a trial against Lunar Industries, on a TV in a cafe where Alexander Skarsgard's
10:47 Leo Baylor is enjoying some toast and a cuppa.
10:50 As Jones would later go on to add, "If we do ever get a chance to do a third movie,
10:54 maybe we can tie all of these things together a little bit more."
10:58 So we may not have seen the last of the many Sam Bells after all.
11:01 And that's our list!
11:02 Know of any other actors people didn't know played the same character in different
11:05 movies?
11:06 Let us know all about them in the comments section right down below and do not forget
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11:19 I've been Gareth from WhatCulture.com, thank you as always for clicking on this video
11:23 today and I'm sure I'll see you very, very soon.