Same Actor/ Different Character(in name only)

[Mr. Laser Beam]

^ You kidding? With all that Broadway talent, the shows whose casts can be easily 'raided' (and who typically jump at the chance, since L&O usually films in the daytime which leaves the actors free to do the shows at night), L&O can never run out of actors. And given that the L&O franchise uses legitimate NYC theater talent, the actors thus employed are typically *better* than stock Hollyweird.

 

[Dude]

^ You kidding? With all that Broadway talent whose casts can be easily 'raided', they can never run out of actors.

Of course I'm kidding. But seriously, combined the four L&O series have run for around 40 seasons. How many frickin' actors could there actually be?

 

[the Dagman]

Here's one:

Mark Hammil played the Trickster in a couple of episodes of The Flash that ran on CBS back in the early 90's, only to use the same voice and character personality later as the Joker in Batman: The Animated Series.

 

[StarshipDefiant]

I see this on the various Law & Order shows a lot. An actor will play two or three different judges, defense attorneys, etc., but otherwise act exactly the same in each, so there's no real reason why they have to be different characters.

Possibly to avoid paying the writers of the original episodes?

Likely to be the case, or if it's years apart, the name's probably forgotten anyway.

Every Michelle Rodriguez role?

Yeah, I could see this being true

Depending on how you want to define it, I've seen some say this to be true for Summer Glau, crazy people, or semi crazy people. I honestly don't see it, but maybe I am biased.

 

[Christopher]

Depending on how you want to define it, I've seen some say this to be true for Summer Glau, crazy people, or semi crazy people. I honestly don't see it, but maybe I am biased.

Cameron Phillips (Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles) was anything but crazy. She was a cunning, hardcore killing machine. Eccentric, yes, but dangerously rational. Profoundly different from River Tam, an innocent teenage girl who'd been driven mad by the things that had been done to her. Or from Bennett Halvorsen (Dollhouse), a shy, neurotic, ruthless scientific genius. True, there are points of commonality among her characters, but you could say the same for the repertoire of most any actor, since actors tend to get cast based on their suitability for a particular role. Really, the only Glau character who's particularly similar to River has been Tess from The 4400. The proximity of those two roles in her career is presumably the source of the perception of typecasting, but her subsequent works have disproved the meme. The only thing Cameron had in common with River was fighting prowess, and Tess and Bennett didn't have that.

 

[Dick Whitman]

Here's one:

Mark Hammil played the Trickster in a couple of episodes of The Flash that ran on CBS back in the early 90's, only to use the same voice and character personality later as the Joker in Batman: The Animated Series.

True, so much so in fact that the Trickster was altered a bit when he reprised him on JLU. He was no longer a psychotic killer and more of harmless crazy person. To be less like the Joker.

 

[StarshipDefiant]

Depending on how you want to define it, I've seen some say this to be true for Summer Glau, crazy people, or semi crazy people. I honestly don't see it, but maybe I am biased.

Cameron Phillips (Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles) was anything but crazy. She was a cunning, hardcore killing machine. Eccentric, yes, but dangerously rational. Profoundly different from River Tam, an innocent teenage girl who'd been driven mad by the things that had been done to her. Or from Bennett Halvorsen (Dollhouse), a shy, neurotic, ruthless scientific genius. True, there are points of commonality among her characters, but you could say the same for the repertoire of most any actor, since actors tend to get cast based on their suitability for a particular role. Really, the only Glau character who's particularly similar to River has been Tess from The 4400. The proximity of those two roles in her career is presumably the source of the perception of typecasting, but her subsequent works have disproved the meme. The only thing Cameron had in common with River was fighting prowess, and Tess and Bennett didn't have that.

Bennett did have quite the right hook though, from Tophers bloddied lip, but then maybe Boyd or Paul would have easily deflected her punch, so how knows. That's beside the point though, and you made several good ones. For all the perceptions of similarities that may, or may not exist, there are good reasons written in place for why her characters act the way they do. Cameron (Phillips) is a machine, trying (perhaps desperately, depnding on how you perceive it) to act Human, having been program to act differently then other machines have, River was experimented on, Bennett went through an extreme trauma and a perceived betrayal and was a bit off to begin with, don't know about Tess, I never really kept up with 4400 behind season 1/the miniseries.

What about Pauly Shore? Would anyone consider his characters essentially the same, or mere typecasting/similar roles.

 

[Christopher]

I think there's a difference between an actor playing roles based on his established persona, like Shore or Abbott & Costello, and an actor playing a role that's intended to be a disguised version of a specific earlier character played by that actor.

And there's a difference between typecasting and "playing yourself" (or playing your default celebrity persona), because typecasting tends to be more random and often has little to do with the actor's pre-existing personality or career ambitions. For instance, Adam West started out as a heroic/romantic lead type, but then he took a job in a campy version of Batman and got inescapably typecast as a cartoony ham, totally scuttling the leading-man career he could've had otherwise. Then there's Leslie Nielsen, who for decades was typecast as an ultraserious dramatic actor, and then got cast in Airplane to play a spoof of his ultraserious dramatic reputation, which led to him being typecast as a comedy actor.

 

[Captaindemotion]

Been a long time since I've seen Hill Street Blues, but might Dennis Franz' character there have been Andy Sipowicz (NYPD Blue) in all but name?

 

[Christopher]

Franz actually played two characters on Hill Street Blues, Detective Sal Benedetto in the first season and Lt. Norman Buntz in the last couple of seasons. I think they were pretty much the same character, except Benedetto was a clear-cut dirty cop and Buntz was more just ethically challenged.

 

[Captaindemotion]

^Ah, ok, thanks. Buntz certainly sounds like a proto-Andy all right.

 

[sbk1234]

Has this been mentioned? Morgan Freeman as the wise old sage?

 

[ManOnTheWave]

Steve Coogan played Alan Partridge on Knowing Me, Knowing You and I'm Alan Partridge. Alan Partridge was partly based on Tony Wilson, and Granada TV persona and founder of Factory Records. Steve Coogan then played Tony Wilson in 24 Hour Party people. (To make matters slightly more interesting, Steve Coogan then played "himself" being interviewed by Tony Wilson in Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story.)