In Shakespeare’s As You Like It, Orlando is in love with Rosalind. For reasons, Rosalind is forced to flee her home, disguised as a man, Ganymede. Orlando meets Ganymede but does not recognize him as Rosalind. Orlando talks of his love for Rosalind, and Ganymede proposes that Orlando act out his courtship plans for Rosalind, with Ganymede playing the part of Rosalind (who “he” actually is).
So in this scene we have a real-life actor pretending to be Rosalind, who is pretending to be Ganymede, who is pretending to be Rosalind, three different instances of “acting” all exhibited by the same person.
I’m sure there are other instances of even deeper “nesting” of acting. What are some other cases in drama or movies where one character is exhibiting multiple levels of acting?
ETA: Note that I’m not asking about an actor playing several different roles in a production.
I think Greta Garbo did that in a movie. She was a Queen pretending to be a pauper who falls in love. Then pretends to be a man traveling with her love interest to get back to the palace. Forget the movie title. Old.
In Tropic Thunder, American actor Robert Downey Jr plays fictional Australian method actor and five-time Academy Award winner Kirk Lazarus, who has had a controversial “pigmentation alteration” surgery to temporarily darken his skin for his portrayal of the black character, Staff Sergeant Lincoln Osiris, who, at one point in the movie, during a daring rescue, then impersonates a Vietnamese villager with a water buffalo.
Some LIke it Hot. Tony Curtis plays a man who goes into drag to avoid the mob, and later plays Junior, pretending to be a rich heir in order to woo Marilyn Monroe.
My favorite example of this is when Dean and Sam Winchester in the TV series Supernatural end up in an alternate dimension where they are movie stars on the set of the TV series Supernatural. They then have to act out events they experienced in universe. They turn out to be horrible actors.
Speaking of Don Quixote, Man of La Mancha has four layers. You’ve got an actor, playing the role of Cervantes, who’s playing the role of Alonzo Quihano, who’s deluded into thinking he’s Don Quixote.
If the Quantum Leap episode was specifically that play, then it’s six layers, which is tough to top.
I was in a play in high school where I got a four-layer part, but I think the play was written by the faculty member who directed the drama club, so folks are unlikely to have heard of it. It was a murder mystery. My character was a priest… except the priest was actually a Mafia member trying to shake down the main character, and who was involved in some unspecified way in the death of the main character’s wife… except the Mafia member was actually a sheriff’s deputy, in an attempt to scare the main character into confessing to the murder of his wife in an insurance scheme.
On Jane the Virgin, Yael Grobglas played both Petra and her twin sister Anezka. There’s a brief scene where Petra pretends to be Anezka pretending to be Petra.
Tootsie has Dustin Hoffman playing Michael Dorsey, who disguises himself as Dorothy Michaels, who plays Emily Kimberly on a soap opera, who eventually reveals herself as Edward Kimberly, her twin brother.
Noises Off has all its actors playing actors who play characters in a play.
Fringe had Anna Torv playing Olivia, playing an alternate version of Olivia, playing Olivia who thinks she is the alternate version, and if I recall correctly, playing Olivia pretending to be the alternate version (or possibility the other way around). Torv also played Olivia momentarily possessed by Willam Bell - a character usually played by Nimoy, and Torv did a great job of seeming to be Nimoy, too.
The Patty Duke Show had the star playing “identical cousins” Cathy and Patty (plus a guest appearance by cousin Betsy). In multiple episodes, Patty posed as Cathy - sometimes for one or two lines on a phone call, but often as a major plot point.
And let’s not forget William Shatner in Star Trek’s “The Enemy Within” playing evil Captain Kirk impersonating good Kirk.
At the beginning, John Travolta plays hero cop Sean Archer, and Nick Cage plays nefarious villain Castor Troy.
Then they trade faces, and each is required to live in the other’s world.
It’s not just that Travolta is playing Troy and Cage is playing Archer — Travolta is effectively playing Cage playing Troy pretending to be Archer, and vice versa.
(A lot of people can’t get with Face/Off because they say it’s campy and over-the-top ridiculous. But the campy ridiculousness is the point. It’s great fun if you can surrender to that vibe.)
Tatiana Maslany was masterful at this in “Orphan Black” often playing multiple characters in the same scene and often pretending to be one of the other clones. Each clone had their own unique personality. In one episode Sara pretended to be Allison pretending to be Sara. It really felt like she was Allison trying to be Sara. The acting was amazing.
Only one level deep, but Nick Bottom, of the Mechanicals theatrical troupe in Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream wanted to play pretty much every character in the play-with-a-play Pyramus and Thisbe. Fortunately for the real audience and the wedding party watching their play the roles had to be shared around with the other ham talent.
