Ah, yes - Andy Richter, also in Arrested Development, starring not only as himself but also as Donnie Richter, Chareth Richter, Rocky Richter-Wang, and Emmett Richter. What also comes to mind is pretty much every superhero and their alter ego. Also, technically, Rainn Wilson plays a twin in The Office, seeing as Dwight Schrute resorbedhis twin brother in his mother’s womb. Might not be what you’re looking for.
Joanna Everhart (Katherine Ross) facing her replacement self in The Stepford Wives.
And she played Olivia and Fauxlia’s older versions, Fauxlivia impersonating Olivia, and Olivia brainwashed into thinking she was Fauxlivia - and also did a credible job of Olivia-possessed-by-William-Bell (I assume Anna Torv did the Nimoy-impersonation voice.
Allyson Hannigan’s work as Willow and Vamp-Willow was also good.
Alec Guinness played eight roles in Kind Hearts and Coronets.
Oh my god, I haven’t thought about Serena in years. Serena played a huge role in awakening my adolescence. I think I’ll think about her tonight. Yum.
My nominee for this Thread will be Cate Blanchett in the “Cousins” segment from Jim Jarmusch’s Coffee and Cigarettes.
Blanchett plays herself as well as her cousin. The segment is just a conversation between the two of them. Blanchett manages to really make you believe you’re watching two different people.
I loved Roger Daltrey as the two Dromios in A Comedy of Errors.
I’ll see your Lee Marvin, and raise you an Alec Guiness inKind Hearts and Coronets, where he plays no less than 8 characters.
ETA - I see** Dewey Finn **beat me to it.
Oh my yes. It was a little-seen film, and I can see why people would think they wouldn’t want to see a movie about the horrible Uday Hussein, but it’s a good movie, and in any case it’s worth watching just to see Cooper’s performance. He effortlessly glides back and forth between the frightening Uday and the frightened (he was not being a body double by choice) Latif. Thank you for mentioning it.
I didn’t realize until after I’d seen The Social Network that the Winkelvoss (the Winkelvi) twins were played by one actor, Armie Hammer.
This is painfully obscure, but I saw a movie yesterday from Argentina called Everybody Has A Plan (original title: Todos tenemos un plan), starring Viggo Mortensen as a successful pediatrician who is tired of his life and unhappy with his wife’s plans to adopt a baby, so when his terminally ill twin brother (Mortensen again, of course) visits him to say his goodbyes and dies during his visit, he switches their identities and goes off to live his brother’s life. Unfortunately, his brother lived a squalid life of crime and fuckupedness out in the boonies and the good doctor soon realizes that maybe his life was pretty cushy after all, and maybe his brother’s personality was not as far away from his own as he assumed. It wasn’t great, but Mortensen is always great, and I liked it. Btw, yes, it was in Spanish with English subtitles. Mortensen is fluent, and I read long ago where people have remarked how he has a heavy Argentinian accent when he speaks Spanish, so this role was right up his alley.
John Lithgow as “evil Dick” on 3rd Rock from the Sun.
Not the best, but memorable: William Shatner as Kirk and evil Kirk in The Enemy Within.
I have always admired Jeremy Irons in Dead Ringers. The characters were supposed to be identical twins who were difficult to tell apart. But they had distinct subtle differences. In some scenes he was playing one twin pretending to be the other.
A variation on a theme: Sarah Michelle Gellar and Eliza Dushku on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. In a pair of episodes in a later season, the characters swapped bodies. That was bad enough, but then they had to pass, so each actress had to play her character being played by the other character. I never really had much respect for either actress until I saw Buffy playing Faith playing Buffy, and vice versa.
I thought Nick Cage as the Kaufman twins in Adaptation was hilarious. In a good way, I mean.
Also, Hugh Jackman in The Prestige. His character is a stage magician who needs a double in order to perform a transportation illusion, so his manager finds him a washed up drunk who looks like him. It’s just Jackman made up to look crappier.
Hugh Jackman did a great job as both Robert Angier and as a drunken actor standing in as a double for Angier in The Prestige. When I first saw it I thought the actor did such a great job pretending to be Jackman but was distinctly NOT Jackman that I immediately went on IMDB to find out who it was.
I was very impressed with Enver Gjokaj in Dollhouse. The man had so many different characters and nailed them all. Especially impressive was when he was imprinted with the Topher personality. He completely nailed Fran Kranz’s mannerisms and voice.
Disregarding “Best”, my favorite is the OP’s Jack Lemmon in The Great Race. Wonderfully silly movie, too.
Didn’t Carolyn Jones play Morticia Addams’s sister Ophelia?
I thought that was pretty well done.
I was pretty impressed with Helena Bonham Carter in one of the last Harry Potter films when she played Hermione trying to imitate (badly, awkwardly) Bellatrix Lastrange. Not that I should be surprised - she’s a wonderful actress.
There is a lot to complain about in the 1998 version of The Man In the Iron Mask, but Leonardo DiCaprio does do a good job playing Louis, the evil twin, and Phillipe, the good twin. In a couple of scenes, you are not quite sure which one is imprisoned in the iron mask . . . but then you can tell just by the expression in his eyes.