Actors Who Play Two or More Characters in the Same Movie

Huh... actually Dustin Hoffman is just pretending to be Michael Dorsey who then pretends to be Dorothy Michaels who pretends to be the soap actress. I’m not sure where you draw the distinction... it’s a gorgeous Matruschka doll of a performance.

From Pauline Kael’s review..
“Hoffman’s performance works at so many different levels in this movie that when Michael is in women’s clothes you keep watching his crooked, lipsticky smile and his mascaraed eyes, to see what’s going on in his head. And when Michael is only Michael, you miss Dorothy, and Emily, too. You can believe that Micheal would be a hit playing Emily Kimberly, because this scrappy woman, with thick wrists and oddly sharp, crooked teeth and a bouffant red hairdo, is more eccentrically, believably alive than anyone you’re likely to see on the soaps”

 

Jack Warden in "Used Cars". He played both brothers with car dealerships. Funny film. John M.

 

Eddie Murphy

 

Yup! I was just going to post about HAIRSPRAY. When Divine shows up as a different character out of drag, it's creepy.

Some things just are not right. Divine dressed as a dude is one of them.

 

Eddie Murphy in Which Way Is Up?

 

The distinction is that Michael and Dorothy are the literal same person.

It's not like both people exist separately.

Does Chris Reeve get credit for playing 2 different characters because he's Superman and Clark Kent?

 

O’tay!

 

Wow. That better be a parody

 

That’s kind of the point... for the purposes of those in the Tootsie universe, both (actually all three) characters do exist separately. And yes, Chris Reeve does get credit, even though the cartoon universe is a lot more simplistic than Tootsie’s.

You know, every website has a guy or two like you who can’t exist unless he has the last word... it’s sad when someone who claims to be a critic feels like it’s more important to try to split hairs into infinity than simply acknowledge that there is a different (and in this case, better) viewpoint.

Is it a greater accomplishment for Peter Sellers to play multiple broadly drawn satirical characters, or for Dustin Hoffman to scale the heights of acting by having his character, with every bit of his artistic integrity intact, invent and inhabit a second character, who then triples the stakes with another character?

So go on and have your final word... ultimately, in my universe, you’re the guest who refuses to leave.... but never gets invited back.

 

Karen Black in TRILOGY OF TERROR. Yes, there are three separate stories, but in one of them she plays two different sisters.

 

@Solitaire1
Typically, the thread starter makes the call...

 

Tony Randall in "7 Faces of Dr. Lao"

 

Wow - someone needs a hug!

 

Richard Pryor in Which Way Is Up?

 

Concerning characters who are actors playing other characters within a movie, since it basically that person's job I would not count the role as a separate character. Concerning Tootsie, I'd consider Dustin Hoffman as only one character who is playing two other characters within the movie, rather than each role being a separate individual. To me, it is the same with Superman where Superman and Clark Kent are the same character but Clark Kent putting on the Superman outfit allows him to go out in public as a superhero while he can still have a private life as Clark Kent.

Compare this to Brent Spiner in Star Trek - Nemesis. He plays two character, Data and B4, and both are separate individuals in the story. Likewise, in the movie Star Trek - The Undiscovered Country William Shatner plays two roles, James T. Kirk and a shape-shifter who takes on Kirk's form for a short time.

 

Roger Moore in The Man Who Haunted Himself. We don’t not quite know what the other thing is but it sure ain’t the main character played by Moore.

 

An Oscar winning film. Best actor? Or makeup?

 

Both Naomi Watts and Laura Elena Harring in Mulholland Drive.

 

Walter Brennan in The Gnome-Mobile.

1967, and had the "Mary Poppins kids!"

 

In the Basil Rathbone-Nigel Bruce Sherlock Holmes film, "The Scarlet Claw"
Gerald Hamer played Ramson, Potts, Tanner, Nora, and the monster.

 

I just saw this movie for the first time recently... I liked it, but one thing about Michael Caine's dual role was a bit of a head-scratcher for me:

Spoiler

Are we really supposed to believe that Lawrence Olivier's character couldn't tell that the detective was Michael Caine in disguise?

It was blatantly obvious to me within about 5 seconds of his appearance on screen.

 

Female Trouble is one film I remember Divine 'performing' in dual roles. Too funny!

 

Jeremy Bulloch in The Empire Strikes Back.... his main role is Boba Fett, but he also plays the Imperial officer on Cloud City who's grabbing Leia when she screams "it's a trap!" to Luke.

 

Indeed, one of the characters Devine played in Female Trouble "impregnated" the other.

"Just because you got them big udders don't mean you're something special!"