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