Having an actor play two different roles in the same film or TV show has been seen a lot throughout the history of film. One of my favorites was in Cat Ballou where Lee Marvin played a washed gunfighter and his own nemesis Tim Strawn.They both battle it out in the film, and for years, I didn’t even know it was the same actor.
It’s also been seen in a lot of tv shows, such as Friends, in which Lisa Kudrow plays Phoebe and her twin sister Ursula. Even Peter Jackson did it in his first film Bad Taste, playing two characters in the same scene, one torturing the other.
While it may seem tricky, it’s actually a lot easier than one might expect. It definitely makes production a little slower, but if done properly, it should be fairly simple. We experienced this while filming Avarice, in which the main character plays a darker version of herself. Here’s how we did it:
