Actors playing the same part in a Sequel or Series by a Different Studio

[Q.Q.Switcheroo]

Paul Reubens played Pee-We Herman in Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure (Warner Bros.), Big Top Pee-Wee (Paramount), and Pee-Wee’s Big Holiday (Netflix).

[CalMeacham]

@Elmer_J.Fudd

Back in the day if you wanted to cast Teddy Roosevelt you just called Sidney Blackmer (Ruth Gordon’s husband in Rosemary’s Baby). He played TR seven times for a variety of film and TV studios.

Bobby Watson played Hitler in nine films. He was the go-to guy in the 40s if you wanted a cameo appearance of the Nazi leader, and did it for several studios.

This is the sort of thing I thought would show up more often – when an actor becomes so identified with a role that they become almost the default. After the movie 1776 came out you saw Howard da Silva appearing as Benjamin Franklin (who he played in the film, and on stage) as a spokesman for General Electric (because of that kite and key thing). William Daniels, who plated John Adams on stage and on screen, appeared as various members of the Adams family, playing John Adams again in the TV miniseries The Rebels and Sam Adams in the miniseries The Bastard . He also did John Adams’ voice in the 1994 series The American Revolution. And he was John Quincy Adams in the TV series The Adams Chronicles. He had a lock on the family, even though he didn’t really resemble them at all.

(Just a side note: His appearing as various Adams family characters might actually be surpassed by the number of times he provided the voice of K.I.T.T. Besides 84 episodes of Knight Rider, he did it again for the TV movie Knight Rider 2000 , an episode of The Simpsons, the 2006 movie The Benchwarmers, Lego Dimensions in 2015, and Superinteligence in 2020)

Other role identifications are Ian Holm as Napoleon Bonaparte (The Emperor’s New Clothes (2001), Napoleon and Love (1974) and Time Bandits (1981))
Herbert Lom played Napoleon twice, in 1942’s Young Mr. Pitt and the 1956 version of War and Peace

Paul Reubens played Pee-We Herman in Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure (Warner Bros.), Big Top Pee-Wee (Paramount), and Pee-Wee’s Big Holiday (Netflix).

This is what I didn’t expect – lots of portrayals around the same time , but with different companies becausev of series-hopping. I knew about the Deadpool and Wolverine thing recently, but there are a lot more of these than I realized.

[CalMeacham]

Another guy who was identified with one role, in this case because of his looks, was Robert Sacchi, who played Humphrey Bogart many times:

Sacchi played the title role in the 1980 comedy The Man with Bogart’s Face (also titled Sam Marlow, Private Eye ) about a private investigator who gets plastic surgery to take after Bogart. He starred alongside Franco Nero, Michelle Phillips, Olivia Hussey,[2] Yvonne De Carlo, Mike Mazurki, and George Raft (making his final film appearance).[1] Writing in The New York Times , Tom Buckley was of the opinion that Sacchi “shows considerable acting skill in the title role, although his hopes for future employment in films would seem to be limited”.[4] In spite of this prediction, he went on to gain more roles as Bogart.[1] These included Phil Collins’s music video in 1990 titled “I Wish It Would Rain Down”,[1][5] as well as Sacchi’s one-man show called Bogey’s Back .[3][5] He also played Bogart in Fantasy Island (1981),[6] Sledge Hammer! (1987),[5] and the Cybill episode “In Her Dreams” (1997).[6] He later recounted how he “never thought Bogie was too terrific-looking”, adding that “like most kids at the time, I wanted to look like Gregory Peck”.[1]

Robert Sacchi - Wikipedia(March%2027,look%20and%20sound%20like%20him.

I thought that Kate Mulgrew might be bound for a similar fate as a Katherine Hepburn look-alike, but as far as I know she only played Hepburn in the 2003 one-woman play Tea at Five

Mulgrew has frequently been compared to Hepburn—a comparison she has described in interviews as “odious.”[2] Although she was not initially a fan of Hepburn, Mulgrew reportedly developed a deep appreciation for her while researching the role.[3]

Tea at Five

[Q.Q.Switcheroo]

Another example à la Pee-Wee: Jim Varney’s character Ernest P. Worrell made his first film appearance in Dr. Otto and the Riddle of the Gloom Beam, produced independently by director John Cherry. He went on to appear in five Touchstone-produced Ernest films, after which Touchstone apparently lost interest in the character, and Cherry produced the remaining limited-release and direct-to-video installments himself.

[CalMeacham]

And the character himself already existed, appearing around the country in commercials for various local companies (out in Utah he represented a dairy). I don’t know who made these, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t either of the studios that made his movies.

[Q.Q.Switcheroo]

@CalMeacham

I don’t know who made these, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t either of the studios that made his movies.

Wikipedia says it was also John Cherry, who worked as an ad exec before he became a film director.

[iamatractorboy]

David Duchovney and Gillian Anderson played Mulder and Scully in The X Files (obviously…) but also in The Simpsons as a one-off.

[veryfrank]

Those are both Fox (studio, not Mulder), though.

[Q.Q.Switcheroo]

Martin Short played Ed Grimley on SCTV (CBC), Saturday Night Live (Broadway Video) and The Completely Mental Misadventures of Ed Grimley (Hanna-Barbera).

[Q.Q.Switcheroo]

@CalMeacham

when an actor becomes so identified with a role that they become almost the default.

Another example is Timothy Bottoms, who played George W. Bush as a spoof character on That’s My Bush! and in a Crocodile Hunter film, then played the role straight in DC 9/11: Time of Crisis.

[CalMeacham]

@Q.Q.Switcheroo

Another example is Timothy Bottoms, who played George W. Bush as a spoof character on That’s My Bush! and in a Crocodile Hunter film, then played the role straight in DC 9/11: Time of Crisis.

Will Ferrell has also become a go-to for playing George W. Bush, too, having portrayed him on SNL many times, on TV specials, and once on Last Week with John Oliver.

[zimaane]

Sean Connery played James Bond in several films in the 1960s for Eon Productions, and then played the same character in Never Say Never Again for Taliafilms/Warner Bros.

Fun fact: Never Say Never Again was directed by Irving Kershener, who also directed The Empire Strikes Back

[mbh]

In In Harm’s Way (Paramount, 1965), Henry Fonda played CINCPAC, an admiral whose name was never stated, but who pretty much had to be Chester Nimitz.

In Midway (Universal, 1976), Henry Fonda played Chester Nimitz.

[Smapti]

Maurice Lamarche has played Orson Welles in a number of shows and movies, including The Simpsons, The Critic, Futurama, Ed Wood, and most notably Animaniacs and its spinoff Pinky and the Brain where he used his Welles voice to play the Brain, and in one short reenacted Welles’ famous “frozen peas” outtake.