Actors who played the same character in different (non-sequel, non-series) films

Charlton Heston played Andrew Jackson in The President's Lady and The Buccaneer (1958)

James Garner played Wyatt Earp in Hour of the Gun and Sunset

Jeff Chandler played Cochise in Broken Arrow and Taza Son of Cochise

Flora Robson played Queen Elizabeth I in Fire Over England and The Sea Hawk

 

I got the impression Rodriguez always intended to do a Machete film, but happened to make Trejo's character in the Spy Kids films Uncle Machete as a nod to that.

 

Christopher Lee played the Count in 7 of the 9 Hammer Dracula films. Lee also played the role in the following movies, all of which are unrelated to the Hammer series:

One More Time, 1970
Count Dracula, 1970
Vampir-Cuadecuc, 1971 (uses behind the scenes footage from Count Dracula)
Dracula and Son, 1976

For a man who was usually reluctant to portray the character, Mr. Lee sure did appear in an awful lot of Dracula films, wouldn't you say?

 

I think the ideal definition of a sequel would take into account the context of the characters and situations from the original in the new film. Taking the example of Charters and Caldicott from The Lady Vanishes, their appearances in several other movies - with no reference to the main plot and situations from The Lady Vanishes - don't really live up to most people's expectations of a sequel. This seems like exactly the kind of thing the term "spin-off" would cover.

Things get dicey with a film like Teen Wolf Too, where the situations are similar and there are a couple of secondary returning characters, but the main character is completely different. But I don't think too many people would be upset with an attempt to demote this film to a "follow-up" or "spin-off" rather than a sequel.

 

Massey also played abolitionist John Brown in Santa Fe Trail (1940) and Seven Angry Men (1956)

 

What about a situation where someone is essentially playing the same character, but for whatever reason (legal or rights issues), they are named differently?
I'm thinking of Angela Jones in Pulp Fiction. Esmerelda Villalobos is essentially Jones' character Gabriela from the short (and later feature) film Curdled, if I'm not mistaken.

 

Clark Gable in Red Dust, 1932 with Jean Harlow and a remake in 1953 Mogamba with Ava Gardner. Lucky guy!

 

As long as people don't start listing things like Roger Moore in the Bond movies and Christopher Reeve as Superman, I'm fine.

 

To be fair to Mr. Lee I think he was getting more fed up with the direction the Hammer movies were going with Dracula rather than the character itself.
Back to the thread though and Bradford Dillman played Captain McKay in the Dirty Harry film the Enforcer and then Captain Briggs in Sudden Impact, different names but essentially the same character. Confusingly Briggs sharing the same surname as Lt Briggs played by Hal Holbrook in Magnum Force... Definitely a different character though as Lt Briggs got blown up at the end of Magnum Force!!

 

George Lazenby as Bond in OHMSS and The Return of The Man From U.N.C.L.E.

 

A man's got to know his limitations.

 

Yeah. Machete Kills ..Danny Trejo doesn't seem to age this and the earlier film...still looks about 70.

 

Lionel Barrymore as Andrew Jackson in The Gorgeous Hussy and Lone Star

 

Paul Reubens played Pee-wee Herman in own his films as well as Back To The Beach (1987).

 

The Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Unless you count it as one huge series, it contains many examples. Too many to bother listing here.

 

Martin Sheen briefly (and comically) reprised his role as "Apocalypse Now's" Captain Willard in 1993's "Hot Shots! Part Deux."

 

Carroll Spinney played Big Bird in both The Muppet Movie and Follow That Bird.

 

Robert Patrick reprised his T-1000 role in Wayne's World.

 

This doesn't really qualify under OP's rules, but it's a fun fact, so I'll post it anyway.

Dick Miller has played a character named Walter Paisley in many different films/shows. The first was in the Roger Corman film Bucket of Blood. He then went on to appear as Walter Paisley in such films as The Howling, Chopping Mall, Night of the Creeps, Twilight Zone: The Movie, and a couple others. Each time he had a different job, and was technically not the same character per se, but he was always Walter Paisley.

 

Harvey Lembeck played Eric Von Zipper in the Beach Party movie series, and also made a cameo (in character as Von Zipper) in the non-Beach Party movie Doctor Goldfoot And The Bikini Machine.

 

That's who I was going to mention. Pretty obviously the same character, but with a name change for reasons known only to Quinton.

 

The first example I thought of is Ryan Reynolds playing Deadpool in X-Men Origins: Wolverine before then reprising the character in his own standalone origin movie (plus the upcoming sequel, assuming this still happens after the project recently lost its director), since they're not part of the same continuity.

 

It seems to me that The Three Stooges, in one iteration or another, appeared basically in their Stooge characters floating through a number of full-length movies, didn't they?

 

Charles Laughton played (and won the Oscar for Best Actor) for portraying King Henry VIII (not the Herman's Hermits song) in "The Private Life of Henry VIII" for London Films in 1933. 20 years later he reprised the role for MGM's "Young Bess" starring Jean Simmons as his daughter Elizabeth.