Dual Role - Film

Film

See also: List of actors who have played multiple roles in the same film

In film, this technique has often been used for comic effect, examples being Peter Sellers in movies such as Dr. Strangelove and Mike Myers in the Austin Powers films. In The Wizard of Oz the farmhands also play the parts of the Tin Man, Cowardly Lion and Scarecrow. The Prisoner of Zenda, with its tale of lookalikes, has a long tradition of dual roles: from Lewis Stone (1922) to Ronald Colman (1937) to Stewart Granger (1952) to Peter Sellers (1979). An early and unusual example is the 1925 silent film Lady of the Night. Two women are portrayed by Norma Shearer to spotlight their very different social classes; otherwise, nobody takes any notice of their identical appearance. Lee Marvin won a Academy Award for Best Actor for his dual role in Cat Ballou, while Nicolas Cage was nominated for Adaptation.

More extreme cases exist. Buster Keaton played nearly every part in his 1921 film The Playhouse. Alec Guinness brought to life all eight members of one family in Kind Hearts and Coronets. Likewise, in The Nutty Professor and its sequel, Eddie Murphy played the title character and almost every member of his family.

In Bollywood, the "irony and excitement of having a living double has been exploited ad nauseum", becoming "almost a genre in itself". Angoor (1982) features two pairs of identical twins, played by Sanjeev Kumar and Deven Verma. Tamil film actor M. N. Nambiar played eleven parts in the early 1950s film Digambara Samiyar. Another Tamil Indian film actor, Kamal Hassan, had ten roles in the 2008 film Dasavathaaram (The Ten Avatars). Sivaji Ganesan played nine roles in the Tamil film Navarathiri.

In some cases of low-budget films, or community theater, actors may play more than one role to save money. In one of Peter Jackson's early films, Bad Taste, he played two characters; in one scene, one of them tortures the other. In Nigeria Christian Movie World, there is Another Record Breaking Movie which is One-Man Movie where the actor, seun Adedokun played all the character in the movie 2010 (Ifarahan Ajoji)i.e. The appearance of a Stranger.