Same Actor/ Different Character(in name only)

[Dick Whitman]

I always thought that PREDATOR could have been a sequel to COMMANDO.

 

[Greg Cox]

Aside from some of Groucho's more colorful aliases (Cap'n Spaulding, Rufus T. Firefly, etc), there was really no point. Does anybody actually remember the names of the characters played by Harpo or Chico? Harpo was always Harpo: with the same costume, make-up, and schticks.

In one of the later movies, Harpo's character was called "Wacky." They weren't even trying by that point.

I think the only movie where all four Marx Brothers used their own stage names as their character names was Horsefeathers (the one on the cruise ship).

Actually, Monkey Business was the one on the cruise ship. Horse Feathers was the one on the college campus.

But I think you're right about Monkey Business being the only one where they just went by their stage names . . .

 

[Captaindemotion]

^ Actually, when I first saw the trailer, I thought it was! In my defence, I saw it in Spain and in Spanish. Remember last year when Stallone planned to make the villain of next Rambo movie a quasi-sci-fi genetically modified superman? Back in 1987, I thought the makers of Commando had decided that only an alien would be tough enough to defeat John Matrix.

Edit - oops. This was meant to reply to Don Draper's Predator reference, not to Greg.

 

[Silvercrest]

Connery's character in The Rock is so obviously a riff on James Bond.

Tommy Lee Jones' probation officer hunting down Ashley Judd in Double Jeopardy could easily have been Sam Gerard from The Fugitive/ US Marshals

Bill Nighy's washed up rockers in Still Crazy and Love, Actually are well-nigh(y) indistinguishable

Bruce Willis' character in The Last Boy Scout was described by the makers as his Die Hard character John McClane but a bit more beat up and run-down, as if he'd lost his wife and hit the bottle. Ironically, when the next DH movie came out, McClane had lost his wife and hit the bottle!

Joe Pesci's psychotic gangsters in Goodfellas and Casino could well have been the same guy (funnily enough, each was supposed to be a real person)

Jerry Maguire was viewed by many critics as Tom Cruise's character from Risky Business all grown up

Marlon Brando's gangster character in The Freshman was more than just a nod to his Don Corleone from The Godfather

When there were copyright issues to the old B&W version of The Saint with George Sanders, the makers simply changed the title of the movies to The Falcon and continued on more or less identically.

Anyone else think that Jack from Speed could have been re-tooled as Johnny Utah and the movie called Point Break 2? (then again why would you want to make it a sequel?) Coincidentally, Sandra Bullock from Speed got famous when Lori Petty, the female lead from Point Break, got fired from Demolition Man

Clint Eastwood has never been the most diverse of actors, but many felt that The Gauntlet, The Rookie and even Grand Torino could have as easily been Dirty Harry movies.

Jack Nicholson. In everything.

 

[Christopher]

Eddie Anderson, who played Rochester on The Jack Benny Program, appeared in a number of movies playing characters who were basically Rochester with the name changed (and with a lot more racial stereotyping than Benny himself would've ever tolerated), such as Eddie the chauffeur in Topper Returns. He was even billed in the credits as Eddie "Rochester" Anderson, or in some cases just as Rochester, even when playing characters with different names. (In Topper Returns, he even name-drops his former employer Mr. Benny.)

 

[Ensign_Redshirt]

I always thought that PREDATOR could have been a sequel to COMMANDO.

Both movies even take place in the fictional country of "Val Verde".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Val_Verde_%28fictional_country%29

 

[Joel_Kirk]

*George Sanders: Portrayed very similar characters The Saint and The Falcon

 

[Andrew_Kearley]

Peter Cushing as Dr Abner Perry in "At the Earth's Core" is quite clearly just playing Dr. Who again, presumably going an alias. Since the film is written and produced by the same people who made the two Dalek films, this is probably intentional.

 

[Ensign_Redshirt]

Patrick McGoohan as John Drake and Number Six?

 

[Greg Cox]

Peter Cushing as Dr Abner Perry in "At the Earth's Core" is quite clearly just playing Dr. Who again, presumably going an alias. Since the film is written and produced by the same people who made the two Dalek films, this is probably intentional.

Except, of course, that Abner Perry is a character from an Edgar Rice Burroughs' novel written several decades before Doctor Who was created. I doubt he was meant to be the Doctor.

 

[Andrew_Kearley]

You're really not trying to play this game, are you?

 

[Greg Cox]

You're really not trying to play this game, are you?

Just trying to make sure we're all playing the same game!

 

[jbny67]

Johnny Weissmuller played both Tarzan and Jungle Jim (not too similar, but both jungle adventure characters).

In the last few "Jungle Jim" movies the characters name was changed to Johnny Weissmuller. Yet the character and format of the films were exactly the same. That's more on target to the thread theme than the Tarzan/Jungle Jim comparison.

 

[MeanJoePhaser]

James Garner in Support Your Local Sheriff/Gunfighter.

 

[Joel_Kirk]

John Saxon as Dylan Hunt and Anthony Vico in 'Planet Earth' and 'Strange New World,' respectively...

 

[Gaith]

Clint Eastwood has never been the most diverse of actors, but many felt that The Gauntlet, The Rookie and even Grand Torino could have as easily been Dirty Harry movies.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: we few, proud San Franciscans don't retire to Detroit! So no, the GT protagonist could not in any sense have been Harry Callahan.

 

[Lonemagpie]

Patrick McGoohan as John Drake and Number Six?

Except they're at least partially *meant* to be the same, depending on which behind-the-scenes interview you believe.

As for Clint - he's been on record that his character in Two Mules For Sister Sara is meant to be the same character as in the Dollars trilogy.

 

[Christopher]

Patrick McGoohan as John Drake and Number Six?

Except they're at least partially *meant* to be the same, depending on which behind-the-scenes interview you believe.

But Number Six's biographical data (actually McGoohan's) were incompatible with Drake's. I think this is a perfect example -- a character that was implicitly meant to be perceived as the same character but who was presented as nominally a different character because the rights to the original character were unavailable. At least, that's a popular theory for why McGoohan insisted it wasn't Drake while others insisted it was supposed to be.

 

[Flying Spaghetti Monster]

My first thought:

Ronny Cox in Robocop and again in Total Recall.

Michael Ironside as well, seems the same in every film.

 

[Hermiod]

Perhaps not quite what people are looking for, but multiple actors - Sid James, Kenneth Williams, Hattie Jacques etc - played very, very similar characters in many Carry On films.

Sid James' characters almost invariably shared the first name Sid.