Let’s not forget Christopher Lloyd on this anniversary of Back to the Future. Also his role in the Taxi series: looking that disheveled and dissolute must have taken a long time in the makeup room.
There’s some behind the scenes stuff explaining how they film it. Any time there’s more than one of her in the shot they have to film it once for each clone.
At the end of one of the seasons (2?) all of them were in a scene together. I have to assume it was just to pull see if they could pull of the SFX. They shot it like four times and if you watch carefully any time Felix goes from interacting (dancing, in this case) with one clone to another he’ll quickly bob off screen and jump right back. You wouldn’t notice it unless you were watching for it.
I think this is the video that explains it.
How about actors who do a lot of physical comedy? The top of that list obviously is Lucille Ball but Debra Messing(who has been compared to Lucy) is pretty good at mugging for the camera and basically acting the clumsy fool. Both Julie Bowen and Sofia Vergara of *Modern Family * do the physical stuff pretty well also.
Dick Van Dyke did a lot of physical comedy (such as the pratfall over the ottoman in the credits of his show) and Chris Farley did on SNL (such as when he was Matt Foley falling onto the coffee table).
Good examples. And not to be insulting to her by lumping her with Chris Farley because she’s heavy or anything, but Melissa McCarthy give it her all. Bridesmaids has been on tv a lot recently and she just sells the hell out of her character, Megan. She pretty much knows no boundaries when *she’s *on SNL either.
I think Megan Mullally is close to her regular voice…isn’t she?
I got the impression the OP was primarily looking for actors doing specific roles; but of course plenty of actors in sketch comedy shows like SNL have to do lots of different accents, personas, crazy personalities, etc. So do voice actors who perform lots of distinct characters (like Seth MacFarlane or Dan Castallaneta), though at least their jobs aren’t physically demanding.
I want to give Harry Shearer some props for his extensive voice acting on The Simpsons, literally dozens of distinct characters. I’ve heard that watching him do scenes with Smithers and Mr. Burns is jaw-dropping. He nailed those characters and their voices consistently from season 1, even though he did and does so many. Hank Azaria, as well.
Not really. Here’s her Karen Walker voice and here she’s talking in her normal voice.
Bobcat Goldthwait is another person who became famous using a stage voice. Here he is in an interview talking in his normal voice.
Speaking of which, check out Jimmy Kimmel. Funny stuff.
How could I forget Pee Wee Herman? He’s working his butt off!
Ron Jeremy is a hard actor.
He says now that it has been so long since he did the character he doesn’t even know how to do the voice anymore.
And Dominic West on The Wire.
DING DING DING
I’d give honorable mention to the star of iZombie. She has to fake an American accent and has to try to emulate different traits of the murder victims whose brains she eats each week. It’s not quite as much playing a bunch of different characters as Orphan, but it’s similar enough that I find it impressive.
I’m surprised, as those are not super far from her normal voice. But I guess it doesn’t take much to get problematic when you’re starting from that place.
Dan Castellaneta changed Homer’s voice early on because he found it too hard to do his original (Walter Matthau inspired) voice so much. Guess he was the smart one!
And Miranda Otto is nailing it on Homeland this season.
He apparently did this a lot. He was a perfectionist himself and expected the same from everyone else.
On the accents theme, when I saw American Sniper last year, I didn’t know anything about Sienna Miller and thought she was well cast because she came across as so quintessentially American. The first time I heard her speak on an interview show I almost fell out of my chair! She was actually born in the US but lived in Britain since she was a year old, and her accent is very British. I thought she did an outstanding job.