10 Mind-Bending Films Where Actors Star Opposite Themselves

Few pre-postmodern writers, save for Franz Kafka, pair deeply psychological work with deadpan absurdism better than Fyodor Dostoevsky, and his 1846 novella The Double is a perfect example of the form. Fitting, then, that habitually kooky and deadpan writer/actor-turned-director Richard Ayoade chose to adapt it for the big screen in 2013, featuring Jesse Eisenberg as a downtrodden office employee driven to the edge of a breakdown by a doppelgänger, who casually usurps his life.

Eisenberg stars as Simon James, an awkward office grunt whose life is slow and vacant, lacking meaning beyond the routine work he performs. But, while his existence is tedious and unrewarding, it really begins to unfold at pace after James Simon, his charismatic, confident look-alike takes a job at his office and sweeps Hannah (Mia Wasikowska) - the woman Simon has had his eye on for a while - off her feet.

The dual role not only highlights the inadequacies of modern life, but allows Eisenberg to play both to and against type, revolving around himself in traditionally creative shots while the narrative brings Simon and James into a near-fatal tailspin that forces Simon to become his own man.