The Best and Worst of Actors in Dual Roles Article by: Greg Roberts Support KR and share this article with your friends! Share Discuss this article! Next week, Adam Sandler looks to make a splash at the box office with his new film Jack & Jill, a comedy which finds the talented actor taking on two roles within the same film. This will mark the first time that the veteran thespian has donned make-up in an attempt to play dual roles but the move is hardly revolutionary. Bud Abbott and Stan Laurel were doing double and sometimes triple acting duty on films before even color was introduced to our viewing reels. And watch any Eddie Murphy film today and you will notice during the end credits that his name can appear as many as five or six times beside different character listings. But the technique doesn’t always work. Make-up and effects will help hide an actor in another character, but the actor themselves has to pull off the convincing. Killer Reviews looked back on the best and worst of the Dual Roles and came up with our Best and Worst List for each. Starting with the Top 5, our list begins here: The Best Nicholas Cage – Adaptation (2002) In this wickedly funny and dark drama, Nicholas Cage plays both Charlie and Donald Kauffman. One is a forever stressed screenwriter looking to adapt a non-fiction book and the other is his twin brother who is as easy going as the California wind. Cage was nominated for an Oscar for his dual roles in this Spike Jonze film and is able to show us enough acting range that the two brothers feel like completely different characters even as their looks remain almost identical. Mike Myers – Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me (1999) Myers plays not one, not two, but three separate roles and is able to make each one of them unique and memorable. Myers embodies the title character of Austin Powers, the antagonist role of Dr. Evil and throws in a humorous, kilt-clad Scotsman named Fat Bastard to the mix for good measure. All three of the characters have become part of 21st Century pop culture, each carved with the wit and flamboyance of the talented star. Jeremy Irons – Dead Ringers (1988) Veteran actor Jeremy Irons played both Beverly Mantle and Elliot Mantle in David Cronenberg’s sly masterpiece, Dead Ringers. Irons plays the twin brother combo of gynecologists that are eventually torn over the love of a woman. 1988 didn’t have the special effects that might be used to pull off such a feat in today’s films, so the onus lay squarely on Irons’ shoulders and he nails both roles. Arnold Schwarzenegger – Last Action Hero (1993) With so many to choose from, we decided to go off the path and pick Arnold Schwarzenegger for his dual roles as both Jack Slater and….himself in John McTiernan’s Last Action Hero. The film is a film inside a film and in one particular scene, we get to see Schwarzzie play himself while watching as Jack Slater. It’s meta-extreme, but is done with a grace and tongue-in-cheek to make it warrant the final spot on our list. Arnie Hammer – The Social Network (2010) So convincing was Arnie Hammer as real life-twins Cameron Winklevoss and Tyler Winklevoss in David Fincher’s depiction of the birth of Facebook that many still don’t realize that it was actually one actor playing both roles. Camera trickery helped pull off the stunt with incredible effectiveness, but still, nothing should be taken away from Arnie Hammer’s embodiment of both brothers. The Worst Jackie Gleason – Smoky and the Bandit II (1980) It pains me to put such a talent on the list (and Jack Nicholson barely escaped for his dual roles in Mars Attacks!), but Jackie was so bad in the three roles of Sheriff Buford T. Justice, Galyord Justice and Reginald Van Justice in the dreadful sequel Smokey and the Bandit II, that I can’t let it escape mention. Jackie barely tries to separate the three characters and the result is a groan worthy performance in a bad bad film. Eddie Murphy – Meet Dave (2008) Eddie has almost made a career out of playing multiple characters on screen. He played 4 characters in Coming to America, 3 in Vampire in Brooklyn, 2 in Bowfinger, 7 in The Nutty Professor and 3 in Norbit. But we will circle the wagons around his two roles in 2008’s Meet Dave as the worst of a terrible bunch. In Meet Dave, Murphy plays both Dave Ming Cheng and The Captain, an alien inside of Dave’s brain. Unfunny and just plain embarrassing, Eddie’s depiction of the multiple characters on screen prove that no matter how much talent you may have, you can sometimes bite off more than you can chew. Jean Claude Van Damme – Double Impact (1981) Believe it or not, Van Damme has played dual characters in films three times. He had double duty in Maximum Risk (1996) and with The Order (2001). But we single out 1991’s Double Impact as the worst of the bunch. Here he plays Alex and Chad Wagner, two twins that were separated at birth – one becoming a good citizen, the other a crook – only to come face to face after the death of their parents. Van Damme doesn’t have the acting range to barely convince us that he is from Brussels, but here, he shows that two bad English accents and four flying legs can make one bad movie. Lindsay Lohan – I Know Who Killed Me (2007) Where to start. The same actor that was able to pull off dual roles as a youngster in The Parent Trap shows us that a thin paper bag might be all we need to contain Ms. Lohan’s talent. As Aubrey Fleming and Dakota Moss, Lohan gives a Razzie Award winning performance (that’s not a good thing) and embarrasses herself more than showing up at a morgue with a plate of cupcakes.