Mar 22 2012
6 Actors Who Played the Exact Same Role in Two Very Different Franchises
Kevin Spacey is a great actor, and if you peruse his IMBD resume, you can tell the guy has great range. In the mostly “meh” Superman Returns, he was the perfect casting choice for Lex Luthor. He looks and acts the part to a T: Luthor is incredibly manipulative, sardonic, intelligent, successful, and—at his core—pretty goddamn evil. Five years later, and Horrible Bosses gives us Dave Harken, who is essentially the same brand of prick. Luthor has no problem killing off billions of people in the name of…real estate (?), and Harken is equally remorseless when it comes to the prospect of killing dudes in cold blood. Both characters are aloof megalomaniacs who have perfected the art of dickishness, and even if Spacey’s portrayal of them is mostly identical, it totally works both ways.
What the director must have told him on the first day of shooting: “So remember when you were trying to kill Superman and whatnot a few years back with a Kryptonite island? New script, more hair.”
Fun fact: Spacey edged out Tom Cruise, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Jeff Bridges for his role in Horrible Bosses.
Boy oh boy, it was like Christmas morning when I first made this connection (all on my own, thank you very much, but apparently I wasn’t the first). Devito played a disgusting, despicable little man-beast in Batman Returns, and that’s hardly a far cry from It’s Always Sunny’s Frank Reynolds. These characters don’t resemble each other all the time, of course; just when Frank’s at his grossest or weirdest.
What the director must have told him on the first day of shooting: “Just…just do what you do, man. You’re beautiful.”
Fun fact: The pilot for this awesome show was shot on a $200 budget.
In Lars and the Real Girl, Gosling plays a socially inept (and possibly psychotic) introvert, and he genuinely values his alone time. In Drive, the (unnamed) driver has a pretty damn similar personality, and he also goes out of his way to seek isolation. This one might be a bit of a stretch, I’ll admit, but if you watch these two characters side by side, I’d say the latter is a darker, unmustachioed version of the former.
What the director must have told him on the first day of shooting: “OK, dude, remember that Notebook stuff you did back in the day? That’s not what I want. I want a violent Lars who smiles less. Here, check out these sweet gloves.”
Fun fact: Gosling was raised Mormon. Huh.
More Unreal Posts
Great call on Stiller. I can’t imagine why I never made that connection before.
….i feel the same way about reynolds
not to mention Danny from Withnail and I and Del Preston (the roadie) from Waynes World 2. I did wonder if they were infact meant to be the same character 30 years apart.
http://youtu.be/-NeBfY6U4n8
http://youtu.be/k_7kg5ZzDZo
Can’t say I really see the point to many of these. Jeremy Piven is ALWAYS like that. And Frank Reynolds isn’t even close to the Penguin. And check out Stiller in Happy Gilmore – same mustache, same character, right?
I’m starting to wonder if TJ is trying to be ironic or something… Are these supposed to be funny? Witty? I always trail off about part way, like I’m hanging out with a boring friend who’s trying too hard to be “quirky” in his observations of truly unentertaining things… he doesn’t get into the minutae enough to suck you in to his mania, and he’s not pointing out anything outlandish enough to even catch you with the initial “wait, what?”
The implied “Huh? Huh?” that seems to come at the end of every half-hearted “reveal” is at once the most annoying thing about the articles and its potential saving grace, as it’s just such a douchebag move that it screams “I’m trollin’.”
Denzel Washington is the same person in every single movie he has been in.
Fun fact, Kevin Spacey also played the same character in Fred Claus. Hell, he even donned a Superman cape as a play on hiis role as Lex Luthor
How did no one notice that Kevin Spacey’s character in Horrible Bosses is a carbon copy of His character in Swimming With Sharks (awesome movie by the way. Kevin Spacey at his most smarmy/ snarky/ assoholeiest).
OK, I don’t respond to a ton of comments for my articles, but I’ve got a few extra minutes now that my work day is winding down…
@Steve
I just can’t read you, man. You’ve commented on enough of my shit that I assume you’re an Unreality regular, and your comments generally seem to be either neutral in tone or profoundly negative (assuming this is the same Steve, and I think it is). This honestly doesn’t bother me as a writer, and everybody’s entitled to their own opinions; that’s what comments sections are for. Your remarks from this and one other piece I wrote stick out to me, though:
“If this was Paul, I’d have forgiven it, because Paul was a guy doing a blogg about whatever he was into at the time. If Paul went through a ‘torturing myself with bland romantic comedies’ phase, I’d expect this. But, as a guest column? I don’t get it…is this what ‘unreality’ has become; a dumping ground for uninspired stream of consciousness bloggers to unenthusiastically deride their poor entertainment choices?”
(Granted, I did explicitly request negative comments for that previous article, but it reads like something you probably would have written anyway. And even if this is the wrong Steve, my next arguments don’t change a whole lot.)
Well, I don’t really get it either, dude. To me, it’s starting to sound like you simply don’t like my overall writing style or editorial decisions. Like, AT ALL. Again, totally fine. Not every article can be a home run, and my sense of humor is absolutely not for everyone. I’m a huge fan of Cracked.com (if you couldn’t guess), but by now I know which regular columnists I like and which ones I just don’t care for. And if after a few paragraphs I just feel ‘meh’ about a given article, I’ll move on to something I’ll actually enjoy reading. I take the same approach when I’m drinking beer at a house party: I’ll drink the shitty Busch Light in the keg if that’s all there is, but if Magic Hat #9 is in the fridge, wouldn’t that be so much better instead?
It appears you not only continue to read my articles, but also manage to get all the way through them; your angry comments are thoughtful, soundly based, and well-articulated. And my articles are usually at least 1,500 words long, which isn’t the shortest read.
Obviously my goal is to entertain the good denizens of the internet, and hopefully future posts of mine will rub you the right way. But here’s what I don’t get: If you vehemently despise an article by the 5th paragraph, why would you read all the way to the end, let alone take the time to comment? There is SO MUCH MORE internet to peruse!
In short, I feel like you’re doing yourself a disservice by wasting time on posts you simply don’t enjoy. Although, if you’re the kind of person who loves to hate things (I’m definitely like that sometimes), maybe you ARE enjoying my uninspired drivel. If that’s the case, you’re welcome in advance.
Make that three for Ben Stiller. Camp Hope anyone?
To avoid further confusion, I will be Steve2 from now on.
Haha, I referred to Reynolds as my man crush for like 4 years. I believe I’ve finally moved on now though.
Lol Reynolds is also my man crush. Although, I’m a girl, so maybe not so awkward? But I’ve loved his stuff since I first saw him in Two Guys a Girl and a Pizza Place. Man I loved that sitcom. I think he’s a great actor, and a lot of people say Green Lantern was a big negative on his acting report card, but I disagree. I think it was written poorly. He did a good job, otherwise.
I don’t think you actually watched Drive or Lars and the Real Girl. If you had you would know their characters aren’t even remotely the same. Everything else was pretty much spot on.
and Ryan Reynolds is a fucking stud.
S-T-U-D.
Who doesn’t have a man crush on Ryan Reynolds?
@TJ: I think Steve may be your guardian troll. Much like a guardian angle, he has been assigned to be with you at all times. But instead of protecting you, he just acts like a total dickhead.
Reynolds and Jason Statham are my two mancrushes. I’ve adapted use of phrases similar to, “This rhetorical analysis is harder than Reynolds Abs.”
TJ, I understand your frustration with someone who hates your work and seems to be eager to tell you all the time, “Hey, still hate it. Yup, hate it today too. Yes, hated it yesterday!”
I read his remarks and I don’t see where they’re helpful. It wasn’t valuable criticism, it was spewing for the sake of spewing. That seems to be a common thing on the ‘net, as most fanfiction writers can tell you. For some reason, people seem to think that the ‘net exists to provide them endless shitz’n'giggles and feel it is their right to get pissy when something they read does not turn out to be as entertaining as they hoped.
While in the real world, we’d probably stop reading/watching, on the ‘net, because we can leave comments, instead of leaving, folks feel that they have a right to vent their spleen upon the person who had the balls not to be exactly the sort of entertainment they wished them to be at the moment.
A favorite critique of my own writing was someone who told me, “I read that entire novella… that’s three hours of my life you owe me.” Yeah, like if you hadn’t decided to read my writing, you would have cured cancer or something.
Keep writing. Don’t worry about folks like Steve. I’m not saying ignore all criticism, but look carefully and see if it contains useful information you can incorporate. If it does, use it. If it doesn’t, then look at it as useless venting and ignore it.
Sorry, I just reread what I wrote and I’m afraid it comes across like I’m trying to tell you what to do. I’m not. Ultimately, it’s your choice. I just think that you shouldn’t even waste your time responding to someone who is negative and not at all helpful.
@Josh
Good call on Fred Clause; I hadn’t actually seen the movie (just the trailer and a couple other scenes with Spacey in them), so I ended up cutting it off my list. Definitely would have kept him if I’d known about the cape thing, though.
@Dan
Warned you that last one was a stretch. I’ve seen both movies, though, and still think there a lot of similarities between Lars and the driver.
@Brian
“Guardian troll”! Haha, that’s hands-down the funniest thing I’ve heard all week.
@JessKitty
Are you channeling one of my super cool aunts?
But seriously, it didn’t sound like you were telling me what to do. And I’m honestly not frustrated by negative feedback for my written work, though I can see how that long response up there might suggest otherwise; that was kind of my online version of thinking out loud, I guess, after observing the same brand of negativity from one Unreality regular on a consistent basis. I very rarely respond to negative, unproductive comments (it’s almost never worth it), but I genuinely feel a little bad when I see people pouring so much effort into things they don’t even like.
i thought i was the only person that realized that about Heavyweights and Dodgeball. i like to think they are the same person
I totally didn’t realize until just now that it was Ryan Gosling in Lars and the Real Girl. Suffice it to say, my mind is thoroughly blown.
“Just…just do what you do, man. You’re beautiful.”
That’s what they tell Devitto in all his roles.
I would go with Swimming With Sharks and Horrible Bosses instead of Superman for Kevin Spacey.
How did Johnny Depp not make this list?!