Are there any examples of fictional characters who were themselves played by other fictional characters?
The only example I can think of is Dr. Drake Ramoray, who was played by Joey Tribbiani.
Any others?
Not sure what you mean. Sherlock Holmes, for example, played many other characters in makeup, but he’s defi nitely not the first, or only.
Heck, Kevin Kline playes Artemis Gordon playing U.G. Grant (a real persomn) in the execrable The Wild, Wild West.
You get that with a play within a play, e.g., Gonzago, played by the First Player, in “The Murder of Gonzago, or, The Mousetrap”, in “The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark”; or, Pyramus, played by Nick Bottom, in “Pyramus and Thisbe”, in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”.
During his three-year “Great Hiatus” after allowing the world to think he’d died along with Prof. Moriarity at Reichenbach Falls, Sherlock Holmes spent part of his time posing as the Scandinavian explorer Sigerson (first name unknown).
Come to think of it, just about any movie or show about actors will probably fit your definition, right? Several of the actors playing characters in William Shakespeare’s company in Shakespeare in Love were fictional. The same is true of just about everyone in the soap opera spoof Soapdish (Kevin Kline, Sally Field, etc.).
In the comedy Dave, Kevin Kline plays a guy who plays the (fictional) president of the US.
ETA: Link.
This is an example where the guy playing the other guy isn’t an actor. Though, of course, the guy playing the guy who’s playing the guy is.
That does bring up the question of a three deep.
A play/movie/TVshow about a actor on a play/TV Show/movie that is about a play/Movie/Tv show.
I’m wondering about about Gilderstern and Rosencrantz are dead. I vaguly recall something about a play within a playwithin the book/Movie, but I might be making crap up.
McBain is a fictional parody of…well, jsut about every action movie hero ever, played by Rainer Wolfcastle, a parody of Arnold Swachahardotspelllastname.
Some of these qualify, although they should be under “fictional fictional characters.”
The French Lieutenant’s Woman had Meryl Streep and Jeremy Irons portray actors who are performing in a film version of The French Lieutenant’s Woman.
In the second season of The New Dick Van Dyck Show, Van Dyck played an actor playing an actor in a soap.
The movie and play Noises Off has various actors playing actors appearing in a play.
The Muppet Christmas Carol and Muppet Treasure Island feature the muppets (fictional characters) protraying characters from those classic novels.
The amazing film Lilies includes characters portraying other characters from the pasts of still other characters, including younger versions of some of those other characters. Within that some of the characters have scenes in which they are rehearsing a play based on the life of St Sebastian.
This has some similarities with the previously mentioned Hamlet in that the plot of The Mousetrap mirrors many of the events in Hamlet itself.
How about Bob Zmuda pretending to be Andy Kaufman pretending to be Tony Clifton?
Jerry Seinfeld played the fictional Jerry Seinfeld on the sitcom “Seinfeld”. That fictional Jerry Seinfeld played a fictional Jerry Seinfeld on the short-lived sitcom “Jerry”.
Anton Karidian in ST:TOS “The Conscience of the King” was a three-fer: a former mass-murdering planetary governor, under an assumed identity as an actor, playing Macbeth and other Shakespearean roles.
Mickey Mouse plays other characters, like The Brave Little Tailor, and Bob Cratchit in A Christmas Carol. This kind of confuses my daughter, when I’m reading her a story, and she can see that it’s Mickey, but I’m calling him by some other name!
In the movie Tootsie, Dustin Hoffman, a real person, played a man called Michael Dorsey who was pretending to be a woman called Dorothy Michaels in order to get a part playing a character named Sally Armitage in a soap opera.
In “Kim Possible,” Ron Stoppable once took over the role of the Fearless Ferret from Timothy North, an actor who ended up confusing his TV character with reality.
I just remembered a 4th season “Kim Possible” episode in which Dr. Drakken was possessed by the ghost of Black-Eye Brown, a fictional pirate.
And ST:TNG had a whole passle of plots where characters played other characters: Data was Sherlock Holmes, Picard was a film noir private eye.
At one point in WKRP in Cincinatti, the fictional Johnny Fever hosted a TV dance show using another persona.
What was that cheesy Flash Gordon/Commander Cody serial on Voyager’s holodeck? That may qualify.