Most actors to play a single role in a movie?

Cafe Society
#1

Last night I watched Riding In Cars With Boys, and aside from being 2½ hours of my life I’ll never get back, I was slightly amazed at the number of different actors they cast to play Drew Barrymore’s son. Here’s the list from IMDB:

Adam Garcia … Jason D’Onofrio (age 20)
Joseph M. Cannizaro … Jason (Newborn)
Noah Hartwick … Jason (Newborn)
Briana Tilden … Jason (Baby)
Skye Arens … Jason (Age 1)
Patrick Salerno … Jason (Age 2)
Robert Salerno … Jason (Age 2)
Logan Arens … Jason (Age 3)
Cody Arens … Jason (Age 6)
Logan Lerman … Jason (Age 8)

That’s gotta be a record, eh? (Although the 6-yr-old and the 8-yr-old looked absolutely nothing alike…)

#2

Well, I can’t exactly name the movie without pretty much spoiling it, so…

(Spoiler)

How 'bout “Identity?”

#3

Nowhere near the record, but perhap you could count three different actors as Darth Vader in ROTJ.

#4

The Matrix Reloaded and Being John Malkovich both feature large numbers of digitally-altered extras playing duplicates of a principal character. This might not count as a “single role” though, since they’re all on screen at once. Does anyone have a count of how many Smiths and Malkoviches were in the respective scenes?

Movies that feature body-swapping as a plot device like The Hidden and Fallen might also be candidates.

#5

I remember seeing one version of A Christmas Carol where they did a montage of shots of the young Scrooge in his schoolhouse at Christmas, one shot for each year. There must have been a total of six or seven different child actors playing the role, as well as the main adult actor.

I would be interested in seeing an official answer to this question. Maybe someone coud write to Roger Ebert and he’d reply in the ‘Answer Man’ column