10 Actors Who Played The Hero And Villain In The Same Film
These actors pulled incredibly double duty - and you possibly didn't even notice.
What is any movie without a quality hero and villain? A diametrically opposed Good Guy and Bad Guy are one of storytelling's key dramatic cornerstones, typically requiring filmmakers to cast two well-matched performers against one another.
Yet every now and then, the very same actor will end up playing both roles, because why hire two people when you can just hire one and slather them in a ton of makeup instead?
It's not that uncommon for actors to play multiple roles in movies, especially in comedies, though it is rarer that actors will end up playing both the lead hero and a primary antagonist, given that these characters will often end up sharing the screen together, as creates a major technical and logistical headache.
Yet with a committed cast and crew it's far from impossible to pull off, as these 10 actors categorically proved, opting to play both the hero and villain in the same damn movie.
In some cases the actor simply acted out scenes twice in both parts while the filmmakers made canny use of body doubles, while in others complex visual effects were deplored to complete the illusion. Either way, the results are astonishing examples of cinema's power to transform...
10. Mike Myers - Austin Powers
Let's kick this list off with perhaps the all-timer example of an actor playing both hero and villain in the same movie: Mike Myers in the Austin Powers franchise.
In addition to donning a wig, specs, and bad teeth to play the "shagadelic" titular hero in the original film, Myers also underwent an impressive physical transformation to portray the bald-headed, Blofeld-esque Dr. Evil.
Believe it or not, Myers didn't initially intend to play both characters, but after Jim Carrey was forced to turn down the Dr. Evil role due to scheduling conflicts, he decided to step in.
And after Myers' dual performance was so enthusiastically received, he ventured to one-up it in both of the sequels.
In the second movie, he played Austin, Dr. Evil, and hefty Scottish assassin Fat Bastard - requiring use of a fat suit and prosthetics - and in the third film played all the aforementioned characters plus the new Goldfinger-parodying villain Goldmember.
Myers evidently has a penchant for extreme transformations, as in his recent Netflix series The Pentaverate he played eight separate characters - some heroes, some villains.