Same Actor/Character in Different Continuities

[Turtletrekker]

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.

She also had a cameo in the first Superman movie as Lois Lane's mother (which, IIRC, was mostly cut from the final version). Check out the scene where the little girl on the train is watching young Clark pacing the train. The woman sitting next to her is Noel Neill. The little girl was supposed to be a young Lois.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

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.

Not only a hard time, but an impossible time, since X-Files is established as a fictional TV show within that shared L&O/H:LOTS 'verse (in an early Homicide ep, Munch says something about "on Friday nights most people are at home watching X-Files").

And don't anyone even think of bringing up that Tommy Westphall crap.

 

[Joel_Kirk]

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.

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.

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

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

^^

Interesting...!

***

Another I thought of is Dan Tanna from the legendary Vegas, who was portrayed/introduced in Charlie's Angels.

We can go back further in time as several shows were in the same continuity: Mary Tyler Moore, Rhoda, and Lou Grant....

(I had to look on Wikipedia to find out there was another spinoff called Phyllis).

Interestingly, Lou Grant was more of a serious drama..

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

The comedy/drama issue isn't really an issue. The sequelness, or lack thereof, can still be valid. Dragnet '67 was a drama, yet its sequel film from '87 was a comedy. Also the original movie Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore was also a drama, yet its spinoff TV series Alice was a comedy.

 

[Chris3123]

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

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

You are correct. There were a number of crossover episodes.

 

[Dick Whitman]

On a "Lois & Clark" episode Jimmy Olsen was prematurely age. At which point he was played by Jack Larson. Jimmy from the George Reeves television series.

 

[WillsBabe]

Jennifer Darling, Richard Anderson and Martin E Brookes all played the same characters on different shows, in kinda different continuties, and then I suppose so did Lee Majors and Lindsey Wagner.

 

[Mr. Sin]

I'm pretty sure the 60s Peter Cushing Doctor Who movies used the same Dalek operators and voices from the TV show.


Also, various anime productions have had voice actors play their characters in different continuties or timelines, such as the Tenchi Muyo series.

 

[Captaindemotion]

Has anyone mentioned the original Star Trek crew voicing the Animated Series? Or is that particular can of worms - the canonicity of TAS - best left sealed?

 

[Mr. Sin]

^Same thing could go for a lot of sci-fi based 'toons as well. Christopher Lee and Samuel L. Jackson were in the Clone Wars pilot film reprising Dooku and Mace Windu; Ahmed Best did at least one Jar-Jar appearence, and Matthew Wood continues to play General Grievous's voice.

Of course Anthony Daniels has played Threepio in a ton of 'toons, radio dramas etc.


There's also audiobooks as well, I suppose. Some Trek actors have done them and sort-of reprised their roles (as well as playing everyone else). Not to the extent Doctor Who has though, who pretty much got back the last three classic series Doctors to reprise their roles in full-cast audios.


Although whether the WHO stuff is a seperate continuity from the TV series isn't exactly made clear (Canon isn't exactly Doctor Who's strong suit).

 

[Shawnster]

ETA: Leonard Nimoy as Spock

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

You're preachin' to the Choir.

Though I expect this point to be belabored shortly.

OK, I'll belabor the point.

Isn't the creation of a new timeline by definition a new continuity?

Not that the Nimoy Spock should count. The premise is that he was deliberately transported from our continuity to the new one.

 

[Christopher]

OK, I'll belabor the point.

Isn't the creation of a new timeline by definition a new continuity?

Not if that continuity already includes multiple timelines (such as the Mirror Universe), so that they're still part of the same overall fictional reality. And not if it's the same character with the same personal history so that there's a literal continuity to him. "Same character, different continuities" means that the same actor is playing two separate versions of a character. For instance, the Batman that Kevin Conroy plays in the Gotham Knight anime shorts is not the same person as the Batman he played in the DC Animated Universe. They're two different interpretations of the character with two different sets of life experience, but the same actor is playing both of them.

But in the case of Star Trek, Leonard Nimoy is playing the exact same Spock he's always played, the same person who has relocated permanently into an alternate timeline, in the same way that Kirk, Scotty, McCoy, and Uhura temporarily relocated to the Mirror Universe.

 

[Dick Whitman]

Well said Christopher.

I was not sure if I should use the word "universe" so I used "continuity" in the thread title and original post. Considering for example even the actual Mirror Universe doubles of Kirk, Spock, Sisko, and Archer are different people played by the same actors.

But that was not the intent of this thread. Those cases are part of the same series were the actors normally appear. This is about actors reprising a role in a different film or tv series.

 

[Christopher]

How about Lurch and Colonel Klink doing cameos in Batman in the '60s? Not to mention the full-episode guest appearance by the Green Hornet and Kato. I don't think Batman and The Green Hornet could be considered to share a continuity, despite being from the same producers, since Batman was a sitcom/parody in a zany reality while TGH was a much more straightforward crime drama, albeit with high-tech gadgetry.

In the TV reunion movie The Return of the Man from UNCLE: The Fifteen Years Later Affair, there was a sequence where a character played by George Lazenby and identified as "J.B." used his tricked-up Aston Martin to help the heroes out of a jam.

 

[Dick Whitman]

Is it crazy that I know about all of these??? Ok not all but a lot of the ones mentioned.

On top of the Batman cameos, the Simpsons have had some. Mulder and Scully's appearance.

This has been a minor obsession of mine over the years. I was very happy a few years ago when IMDB created their character filmography listings. I just wish they could be categorized by actors.

This seemed to be more common in the past. Particularly with characters from classic literature like Dracula and Sherlock Holmes. Where new adaptations and takes on those types of characters were done by different studios and production teams. But in which familar actors in the roles were used.

Peter Cushing played Holmes for Hammer Films and also an unrelated tv series.

Christopher Lee was most famous for playing Dracula for Hammer but also played him in a film that was closer adaptation of Bram Stoker's novel.

Here is one I almost forgot about -

Long before Michael McKean appeared on Smallville he played Perry White in a Saturday Night Live sketch. (yeah I am a Superman geek!)

 

[Alidar Jarok]

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.

He also arguably played the same character in a brief cameo for The Wire.

 

[Greg Cox]

This seemed to be more common in the past. Particularly with characters from classic literature like Dracula and Sherlock Holmes. Where new adaptations and takes on those types of characters were done by different studios and production teams. But in which familar actors in the roles were used.

Peter Cushing played Holmes for Hammer Films and also an unrelated tv series.

What about Basil Rathbone and Nigel Rathbone? Are their early Holmes and Watson movies, which were set in the Victorian era, in the same continuity as their later films, which were set during World War II?

There's a thorny fannish connundrum!

 

[Captaindemotion]

If we're venturing out of sci-fi and fantasy, there's James Garner who played Wyatt Earp in John Sturge's Hour of the Gun in the 1950s. It's a serious take on the Gunfight at the Ok Corral. Some 30 years later, Garner played Earp in Sunset, a comedy set in the 1920s, where an ageing Earp is an advisor to legendary cowboy actor Tom Mix (Bruce Willis), who is playing Earp in a movie.

 

[Greg Cox]

Venturing into history, what about Peter O'Toole, who played Henry II in both THE LION IN THE WINTER and BECKETT? Do fictionalized versions of actual historical personages have their own continuities?

 

[Harvey]

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.

He also arguably played the same character in a brief cameo for The Wire.

Pick a hell of a day to quit drinking?