Same Actor/Character in Different Continuities

With all the franchise reboots of recent years there is tendency to think that compete recasting is always the route taken. But it is not unheard of for an actor to play the same character in different productions with largely different cast and separate continuity.

I thought it would be interesting to list as many of these cases as we can think of.

Noel Neill as Lois Lane.

She first played the role in the Superman theatrical serials starring Kirk Alyn. She later returned to the role when she replaced Phyllis Coates starting with the second season of the George Reeves television series.

 

Judi Dench as M

 

Sean Connery in "Never Say Never Again".


And a lot of the JL/JLU voice cast reprising their characters in non-DCAU movies.

 

Lou Ferrigno as the Incredible Hulk

Most prominently in the Bill Bixby tv series and tv movies. But he also voiced the Hulk in the 90s animated series. Also again in the Ed Norton film.

 

George Newburn as Superman, Dana Delany as Lois Lane, and Clancy Brown as Lex Luthor reprised their roles for The Batman

 

Peter Cullen as Optimus Prime

ETA: Leonard Nimoy as Spock

 

Kevin Conroy, Mark Hamill and Arleen Sorkin played Batman, Joker and Harley Quinn in various DC Animated series and movies as well as Batman: Arkham Asylum.

Ann Robinson played Dr. Sylvia van Buren in the 1953 version of War of the Worlds and then later reprised her role in the late 80's television show (as well as appearing in the 2005 Spielberg movie as another character).

 

Michael Gough as Alfred Pennyworth

Its debatable whether all the Burton and Schumacher Batman films took place in the same continuity. But in addition to that he played Alfred in two BBC radio dramas. One of which adapted the Knightfall storyline from the comics. Also a Batman Onstar commercial.

 

I dunno. Was "Never Say Never Again" a different continuity for the Connery Bond? Maybe for the Ms and Qs.

 

Garry Chalk first voiced "Optimus Prime" (I put that in parenthesis for a reason, if you've seen the series you know why) in "Beast Machines". He went on to voice Optimus Prime in the "Unicron trilogy" of Armada, Energon and Cybertron.

David Kaye played Megatron in Beast Wars and Beast Machines, and then went on to voice Megatron in Armada, Energon and Cybertron as well.

Frank Welker was the voice of the original Megatron in the 80's series, and would later voice the movie Megatron in the video game based on the first film.

 

Yes, it was. There's a whole load of reasons why. As loose as the continuity between the official Bond movies is, Never Say Never Again is not part of it.

 

I think this qualifies. It basically is a remake of "Thunderball" which Connery himself had starred. Either that or SPECTRE likes to reuse the same blackmail schemes again.

 

You also had different actors playing Blofeld and Felix Leiter. (Not that the original films were terribly consistent there either!)

 

Doesn't count, since the new movie is supposed to be part of the same overall reality as previous ST, just a different timeline.

Ditto here -- the '88 TV series was meant to be a direct, in-continuity sequel to the '53 movie.

And, oddly, then played Optimus Prime in Transformers Animated.


David Hayter played Captain America in the '90s Spider-Man animated series (though not in the '90s X-Men series in the same continuity), and then reprised the role of Cap in X-Men Evolution, which was in a distinctly different continuity. (He went on to write the first two X-Men movies and had a bit part in the first one. His Evolution appearance was after the first X-movie.)

Robby the Robot appeared (and was voiced by Marvin Miller) in Forbidden Planet and The Invisible Boy, which certainly couldn't be in the same continuity. He made many subsequent appearances in various continuities, but not voiced by Miller (except in stock audio from FP) and usually not "in character" as Robby, just as various unnamed or differently-named robots.

 

Richard Roundtree portraying 'Uncle Shaft' in the mediocre Shaft sequel starring Sam Jackson....

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Richard Belzer portray John Munch on 'Homicide' then on 'Law and Order: SVU'?

EDIT: I just realized that both of these characters aren't exactly in 'Sci-fi/Fantasy' series...

 

You're preachin' to the Choir.

Though I expect this point to be belabored shortly.

 

I think those shows exist in the same continuity. Kind of like the old "Murder She Wrote"/"Magnum P.I."/"Simon and Simon" crossovers.

 

True, but Belzer also played Munch on "The X-Files" and on "The Wire." You'll have a hard time reconciling those continuities with the "Homicide: Life on the Street" and "Law & Order" universe.

 

In fact, he's in Guiness for playing the same character in more tv shows than any other actor-ever. He even did a Dt. Munch cameo on The Simpsons.

 

But as you say, that was a sequel, intended to be in the same continuity.

How about Bud Collyer and Joan Alexander playing Superman and Lois Lane in multiple series: on the radio, in the Fleischer cartoon shorts, and in the '66 Filmation TV series?

And get this: Olan Soule and Casey Kasem first played Batman and Robin for Filmation in '68 or so, contemporaneously with Adam West and Burt Ward playing those roles in live action. But in the '70s, Soule and Kasem moved over to Hanna-Barbera to play Batman and Robin in Superfriends (and The New Scooby-Doo Movies) -- and meanwhile, West and Ward reprised Batman and Robin in Filmation's New Adventures of Batman. And then, in Super Powers Team: Galactic Guardians, the final incarnation of Superfriends, Adam West played Batman alongside Casey Kasem as Robin! Holy mix and match, Batman!

Then there's the Ghost in the Shell movies having the same voice cast as the GitS: Stand Alone Complex TV series despite being two separate continuities (at least in Japanese; in the English dubs, only the second feature film has the same voice cast as the TV series, though I think Richard Epcar is Batou in all versions).

Here's a case I'm unsure of: Harry Morgan reprising Bill Gannon in the comedy Dragnet movie from the '80s. The movie purported to be an in-continuity sequel to the TV series, but given that it was a comedy/parody, it's hard to say whether it should really count as such.

Then there's Leslie Nielsen as Frank Drebin in Police Squad! and the Naked Gun movies. The movies aren't really in the same continuity as the show; indeed, the first movie's script consisted largely of recycled gags from the show, so it's kind of a semi-remake. Also, their styles are different. Police Squad!, like Airplane!, was set in a universe where absurd things happened all the time and were taken in stride, and Drebin was a deadpan character who was serious by the standards of a lunatic reality. But the Naked Gun Drebin was a klutzy buffoon whose absurd behavior was looked on with scorn by the more normal people around him. So the character and the world were pretty much rebooted from the series to the movie. (Most of the other roles were recast.)