In some cases, for the sake of one role, an actor can spend months preparing hard to play well. Keep in mind, of course, that in some others he has to play not one role, but two (sometimes more) in one film – and often these roles are contradictory, mixed, even work like Easter eggs. .

Indeed, we recently learned that Robert DeNiro will take one dual role in his upcoming film Barry Levinson. In fact, “Smart Guys” tells the story of Vito Genovese and Frank Costello two leaders of the Italian-American mafia, whose enmity even reached the point of assassination.

However, until we see Robert De Niro as a double on the big screen, we remember a few more times when one role for each actor was too little.

Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958)

In one of Alfred Hitchcock’s masterpieces, Kim Novak plays a dual role and becomes the catalyst for the film’s mysterious atmosphere. On the one hand, the blonde Madeleine. But when she kills herself, she becomes Judy’s brunette, until James Stewart asks her to go blonde so she looks like Madeleine, and that’s when things start to go downhill… dizzy.

Lost Highway (David Lynch, 1997)

The good always learn from the best, so Leeds, following the path blazed by Hitchcock, gives Patricia Arquette two roles in Lost Highway: Renée the brunette, Fred Madison’s wife, and his blond lover, Alice. And like any self-respecting David Lynch film, the lines are blurred here.

Dead Ringers (David Cronenberg, 1988)

In David Cronenberg’s psychological thriller, Jeremy Irons plays twin gynecologists Elliot and Beverly Mandle. One is more dynamic and seduces women who are then “captured” by the other, more timid brother. What the women don’t know, however, is that they are two twin brothers and not the same person.

“Adaptation.” (Spike Jonze, 2002)

For Nicolas Cage, playing meta roles is second nature. That’s exactly what he did for Adaptation. Spike Jonze, who played the screenwriter of the film, Charlie Kaufman. In the film, Kaufman also has a twin brother who, with his social comfort, lends a helping hand when Charlie Kaufman suffers the inevitable for those who write in the style of “writer’s block” to get things right from there … according to Kaufman’s script.

“In the Mind of John Malkovich” (Spike John, 1999)

John Malkovich also entered the trajectory of Spike Jonze and Charlie Kaufman in 1999, not so much to play many different roles, but to play himself several times in one of the most impressively strange films of the 90s.

“The Great Dictator” (Charles Chaplin, 1940)

In his first talkie, Chaplin, who was the man-orchestra in his films anyway, directing, writing and starring in the scripts and music, took on two roles: the dictator Hynkel (guess who he could copy) and also A Jewish hairdresser who looks eerily like a dictator.

“SOS Pentagon Calling Moscow” (Stanley Kubrick, 1964)

In the most delightful Cold War satire ever to hit the big screen, Stanley Kubrick and the sprawling Peter Sellers played a triple role: the British actor played the President of the United States, the Commander-in-Chief of the British Royal Air Force and a Doctor. Strangelove from the film’s original title, i.e. a former Nazi in a wheelchair who is now an expert in nuclear warfare.

The Wizard of Oz (Victor Fleming, 1939)

In the film, from which the cinema will never cease to draw fabulous inspiration, Frank Morgan played not one or two, but as many as 5 roles. And you might notice two of them, the wizard of the same name and Professor Marvel, but if you look closely, you will see that the actor also plays the guardian of the Emerald City, the carriage driver, but also the keeper of the room … The Wizard of Oz.

Flaming Saddles (Mel Brooks, 1974)

Mel Brooks, in addition to making films that have made him one of the best comedians of his generation, loves to play several roles in them. In Burning Saddles, for example, Brooks is the commander, but also the leader of the Indians – he also has another “hidden” role, as he dubs the voice of one of Lil Von Stup’s “guards”.

Kind Hearts and Tiaras (Robert Hammer, 1949)

If someone, of course, “finished” with the idea of ​​a multi-role, it’s Alec Guinness, who played 9 (!) Roles in Kind Hearts and Crowns. In fact, he played all members of an aristocratic family. However, trouble begins when a distant poor relative sets out to kill the other 8 heirs of the duke.

“The Prestige” (Christopher Nolan, 2006)

It’s not that Nolan’s films themselves aren’t complex enough for the abstract viewer, with their space-time tossing back and forth, but in The Prestige, the American director also casts Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman in dual roles. The first is the magician Alfred Borden, but also Freddie’s brother, and the second is another magician, Robert Angier, who also becomes his bodyguard for the needs of the trick for a while.

“The Enemy” (Denis Villeneuve, 2013)

Before Denis Villeneuve drove fans of fantasy (and not only) Blade Runner 2049 and Dune crazy, he twice cast Jake Gyllenhaal, who in this case is a professor who, when he discovers that there is an actor who looks exactly like him, the search begins in the unknown.

“The Parent Trap” (Nancy Myers, 1998)

Those who grew up in the 90s are familiar with the adventures of real-life twins Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen, but let’s not forget that Lindsay Lohan also played two twins lost at birth and accidentally reunited at camp in The Parent Trap.

“Viva Rena” (Kostas Karagiannis, 1967)

However, not to stop only at the international production, who does not remember Rena Vlahopula in “Viva Rena”, who was, on the one hand, the popular Corfu singer Rena Fafaliau, and on the other hand, the great Italian diva Pepita di Corfu?