I just realized that Glenn Close and Meryl Streep are two different people!
Do we really need both of them? They never appear together. Both are homely, middle-aged, highly-talented actresses who play the same type of roles. I think the world would be just fine with only one of them. If they really are two different people in the first place, that is, which I tend to doubt.
Okay, I’m kidding about thinking they are the same person. But they do seem pretty much interchangeable. What other pairs of actors or actresses are out there that you consider basically equivalent to each other and, in effect, redundant?..TRM
I don’t see them as interchangable at all. Glenn Close would never have played Sophie or Lindy Chamberlain (A Cry in the Dark), and Meryl Streep would never have played Alex (Fatal Attraction) or the Marquise de Merteuil (Dangerous Liaisons). (Well, I could see Streep playing the Marquise, but she would bring more of a vulnerability to the role. I think Close does dangerous/sociopathic particularly well.)
SodoesStreep. Those were taken a few days ago at the Oscar Nominee Luncheon.
Neither are homely. Both are excellent actresses, who are, the addled OP aside, very different from each other. Streep is the better actress, but we need both.
Having said that, I do occasionally tend to get Jessica Alba and Jessica Biel confused. I’m getting better, but I still have to stop and think sometimes.
Not that Biel and Alba belong on any list that includes Streep and Close, unless it’s about statistics (they all have two eyes, two breasts, one vagina each, etc.).
I used to get Karen Allen, Brooke Adams, and Margot Kidder mixed up:
In saying “I used to,” I mean more than thirty years ago. Then they all seemed to be young, upcoming actresses who had appeared in a couple of interesting roles who I hadn’t yet clearly distinguished. Now they don’t seem to look so much alike and have had quite different careers.
I recall reading an article many years ago about “clone actors and actresses.” These were what we’re talking about here - sets of actors and actresses that could be confused. I suspect that we’re always going to get this among younger actors and actresses. There will be a lot of them contending for the same roles, and slowly they are going to get winnowed out.
Early on in his career Paul Newman was considered a Marlon Brando lookalike. Tony Randle got the same response as a cut rate Jack Lemmon, I have heard.
What about Bill Paxton/Bill Pulman? Although Paxton has done some pretty unique work on Big Love
Or the ones I STILL can’t keep apart - Dermot Mulroney and Dylan McDermott
Or going out on a limb a bit - Rupert Everet and Hugh Jackman. Both foreign, darkly handsome song and dance men (although the whole gay thing seperates them, I suppose).
That’s who I was thinking of – Richard Long. So who does Robert Cummings look like? Is he another Jack Lemmon? Or a young (pre-Marcus Welby) Robert Young? I’m always confusing Cummings and Young with other actors, but right now I can’t remember who.
How about Cornel Wilde as the poor man’s Tyrone Power?
