# Actors with the same LAST name as their character **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 13, 2014, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-with-the-same-last-name-as-their-character/693008 "2014-07-13T18:51:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Shoeless](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shoeless/32/7099_2.png) [@Shoeless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shoeless)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2014, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-with-the-same-last-name-as-their-character/693008/1 "2014-07-13T18:51:55Z")
It’s pretty common, especially in sitcoms, for an actor or actress to play a character with the same first name, like Woody Harrelson playing Woody Boyd or Charlie Sheen playing Charlie Harper. Have there been any instances in movies or TV where an actor played a character with a different first name but the same last name? ---
**Author:** ![Flywheel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/eb8c5e/32.png) [@Flywheel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flywheel)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2014, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-with-the-same-last-name-as-their-character/693008/2 "2014-07-13T19:12:40Z")
Charles Robinson played Mac Robinson on _Night Court_. ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2014, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-with-the-same-last-name-as-their-character/693008/3 "2014-07-13T19:14:06Z")
Will Smith played William ‘Will’ Smith on Fresh Prince of Bel Air, but that’s probably not what you’re looking for… ---
**Author:** ![Flywheel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/eb8c5e/32.png) [@Flywheel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flywheel)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2014, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-with-the-same-last-name-as-their-character/693008/4 "2014-07-13T19:21:03Z")
There was an SNL sketch where Natalie Portman played a girl named “Rebecca Hershlag”… ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2014, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-with-the-same-last-name-as-their-character/693008/5 "2014-07-13T19:37:07Z")
In **[The Pretender](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0115320/)**, Andrea Parker played Miss Parker. Miss Parker’s first name was eventually revealed to be “Catherine.” ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2014, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-with-the-same-last-name-as-their-character/693008/6 "2014-07-13T19:39:12Z")
There was an Australian comedy called _The Games_ in which the lead actors, John Clarke, Bryan Dawe, and Gina Riley, played characters named John Clarke, Bryan Dawe, and Gina Riley, respectively. Clarke and Dawe also did a video that’s been shared around the internet a bit, [The Front Fell Off](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcU4t6zRAKg&feature=kp). ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2014, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-with-the-same-last-name-as-their-character/693008/7 "2014-07-13T19:49:47Z")
In _The Color Purple_, Margaret Avery plays Shug Avery. In _Heaven’s Gate_, Jeff Bridges plays John L. Bridges. ---
**Author:** ![DChord568](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/439d5e/32.png) [@DChord568](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DChord568)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2014, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-with-the-same-last-name-as-their-character/693008/8 "2014-07-14T02:15:57Z")
This is cheating a bit, but in almost all of their films, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy portrayed characters named Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy. If you want be strict about the OP’s criteria, Hardy’s birth name was Norvell Hardy. Laurel’s was Arthur Stanley Jefferson, though at some point he had has last name legally changed to Laurel. ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2014, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-with-the-same-last-name-as-their-character/693008/9 "2014-07-14T02:23:30Z")
The characters on Home Movies were named after the actors who voiced them, with some restrictions, so family members shared the same last names-- that probably isn’t really what you are looking for either, though. But the character voiced by actor Brendon Small is named Brendon Small. ---
**Author:** ![Dale\_Sams](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/779978/32.png) [@Dale\_Sams](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dale_Sams)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2014, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-with-the-same-last-name-as-their-character/693008/10 "2014-07-14T03:07:13Z")
J.D. Lutz plays John Lutz on 30 Rock. ---
**Author:** ![Flywheel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/eb8c5e/32.png) [@Flywheel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flywheel)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2014, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-with-the-same-last-name-as-their-character/693008/11 "2014-07-14T03:39:51Z")
Wilford Brimley played Horace Brimley on _The Waltons_. ---
**Author:** ![Namkcalb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/c89c15/32.png) [@Namkcalb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Namkcalb)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2014, 5:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-with-the-same-last-name-as-their-character/693008/12 "2014-07-14T05:55:50Z")
> [@Ethilrist](#): > > Will Smith played William ‘Will’ Smith on Fresh Prince of Bel Air, but that’s probably not what you’re looking for… The Fresh Prince, Willard ‘Will’ Smith played William ‘Will’ Smith. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2014, 6:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-with-the-same-last-name-as-their-character/693008/13 "2014-07-14T06:01:56Z")
We’re in reruns already? Marie Osmond portrayed her own mother, Olive Osmond, in _Side by Side: The True Story of the Osmond Family_, a TV movie from 1982. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2014, 6:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-with-the-same-last-name-as-their-character/693008/14 "2014-07-14T06:12:34Z")
Not quite the same thing, but it’s amusing that Richard Dreyfuss played a part in a movie about The Dreyfus Affair. (Can’t remember the movie, but it was a good one.) ---
**Author:** ![mbh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2014, 8:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-with-the-same-last-name-as-their-character/693008/15 "2014-07-14T08:58:44Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > Not quite the same thing, but it’s amusing that Richard Dreyfuss played a part in a movie about The Dreyfus Affair. (Can’t remember the movie, but it was a good one.) [Prisoner of Honor](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0102715/) Richard Dreyfuss played Colonel Piquart. ---
**Author:** ![Flywheel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/eb8c5e/32.png) [@Flywheel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flywheel)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2014, 1:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-with-the-same-last-name-as-their-character/693008/16 "2014-07-14T13:01:11Z")
Semi-example: Matt Robinson played Gordon on _Sesame Street_. Years later, the character’s last name was revealed to be “Robinson”…by which time he was being played by Roscoe Orman. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2014, 1:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-with-the-same-last-name-as-their-character/693008/17 "2014-07-14T13:05:28Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > Not quite the same thing, but it’s amusing that Richard Dreyfuss played a part in a movie about The Dreyfus Affair. (Can’t remember the movie, but it was a good one.) Again, not quite the same thing, but Hugo Drax, the bad guy in the James Bond novel _Moonraker_, was described as “a Lonsdale kind of character”. (To this day, I don’t know what Fleming meant by that – another of those now-obscure cultural references.) In the movie **Moonraker** , Drax was played by actor Michel Lonsdale, who had been Commissaire Paul Lebel, who caught the Jackal in 1972’s _Day of the Jackal_. I always wondered if they chose him in part because of his last name. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2014, 1:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-with-the-same-last-name-as-their-character/693008/18 "2014-07-14T13:21:18Z")
In **Chaplin** , Geraldine Chaplin played Hannah Chaplin, her grandmother. Joe Foy, Jr., played his father, Joe Foy, Sr., in **Yankee Doodle Dandy** ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2014, 1:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-with-the-same-last-name-as-their-character/693008/19 "2014-07-14T13:28:12Z")
Maybe Fleming’s use of the phase “a Lonsdale kind of character” was a reference to this person: > **[Konon Molody](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konon_Molody)** > > Konon Trofimovich Molody (Russian: Ко́нон Трофи́мович Моло́дый; 17 January 1922 – 9 September 1970) was a Soviet intelligence officer, known in the West as Gordon Arnold Lonsdale. Posing as a Canadian businessman during the Cold War he was a non-official (illegal) KGB intelligence agent and the mastermind of the Portland Spy Ring, which operated in Britain from the late 1950s until 1961. > A person by the name of Gordon Arnold Lonsdale was born on 27 August 1924 in Cobalt, Ontario, Canada. His f... If we’re going to talk about the casting of people as their ancestors, there’s Desi Arnaz, Jr. playing his father in _The Mambo Kings_. ---
**Author:** ![Joey\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/919ad9/32.png) [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2014, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-with-the-same-last-name-as-their-character/693008/20 "2014-07-14T14:15:31Z")
Another ‘not quite the same thing’ is Workaholics. The main characters play people with very similar names to themselves: Blake Anderson is Blake Henderson Adam DeVine is Adam DeMamp Anders Holm is Anders Holmvik Kyle Newacheck is Karl Hevacheck and I didn’t realize until now, we also have: Waymond as Waymond Jillian Bell playing Jillian Belk and possibly a few others that only had first names in the show. But of course, these weren’t accidents or coincidences, these are on purpose. I’d imagine it makes a difference that a lot of these people got their start in the comedy troupe business. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-with-the-same-last-name-as-their-character/693008.md?page=2)