The title (sort of) says it all. I’m talking about instances where the same actor is in two different movies, playing two different roles but performing a similar scene.
Not talking about self-parody or type-cast actors such as Arnold who is in lots of movies where he delivers a one-liner and then blows the bad guy away.
Quick example: Bill Murray performs the Heimlich maneuver in Groundhog Day and What About Bob.
Better example: Jack Nicholson has a scene where he is a writer who becomes supremely annoyed when he is interrupted as he’s working. He goes off on Shelley Duvall in The Shining and Greg Kinnear in As Good As It Gets. Same actor, two different roles from two different movies, very similar scene.
In Blazing Saddles, Gene Wilder (as the Waco Kid) tells the story of how his gunfighting days ended when he was challenged to draw by a six-year-old kid. (“Little bastard shot me in the ass.”) In Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, when Wilder (as Willy Wonka) first meets Mike Teevee, Teevee is dressed in a cowboy outfit and pulls a toy gun on him.
Frank Oz plays a warden in the Blues Brothers, and returns all of Jon Belushi’s belongings to him when he leave prison. There’s a similar scene in Trading Places where Frank Oz is going through Dan Aykroyd’s belongings after he’s been arrested.
I just saw Bluse Brothers 2000 the other day (yeah, I know) and Oz was the warden of the prison Elwood was released from. That falls under the self-parody exemption of the OP, though. Didn’t see Spielberg in it anywhere, presumably he’d now be the mayor of Chicago.
John Hurt having an alien burst from his chest in Alien and in Spaceballs.
Of course, the latter is a direct parody of the former. It’d be better if they were wholly unrelated.
Kate Capshaw got to scream while watching the Villain reaching into a guy’s chest, tear out his victim’s heart, and show it to the victim (who doesn’t die) in both Dreamscape and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, both from 1984.
While not specifically the very same thing, at least the mood carries through in Clint Eastwood quotes: Top 5 – and these are just the tip of the iceberg,
Ryan O’Neal says “Love means never having to say you’re sorry” in Love Story, but when Barbra Streisand repeats the line to him in What’s Up, Doc?, he deadpans, “That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”
Not that there are rules to this or anything but I was thinking of more fleshed-out scenes.
I know certain actors are known for performing a similar action in lots of their movies. Tom Hanks peeing was mentioned up thread. It seems Jeff Goldblum is eating in lots of his films.
I also wasn’t thinking of scenes where the actors are winking at the audience with sly allusions to some previous work.
I was going to ring in earlier with another example illustrating what I had in mind but I’ve got nothing.
Anyway the topic is out there and can be interpreted however one would like. I thought there would be a ton of examples but I’m temporarily drawing a blank.
Ellen Burstyn has twice in one year played an elderly woman with a parent who is much younger, in Interstellar and The Age of Adaline. In both there is a scene where the younger parent leaves, seemingly for forever.
