10 Movie Co-Stars Who Shared Iconic Roles

Mark Ruffalo, the third/fourth/fifth actor (depending on how you count) to play the Hulk once said of the role, "I look at it as my generation's Hamlet." Ruffalo does not mean that when Bruce Banner gets angry he transforms into a giant green Shakespearean tragic hero, he means that the role gets passed around many great actors of the time, much like Hamlet, and many other Shakespearean roles, used to be.

With countless remakes, reboots, and re-castings in movies these days, the same roles, like Hulk and Hamlet, often get played by many different performers. No actor has a monopoly on a single role anymore. Even iconic performances, such as Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal Lecter or Heath Ledger as the Joker, have found themselves recast.

Sometimes, the actor to take over the role has performed opposite the first actor before in another film. Before seeing the two actors in the same role in two different projects, you can see them in the same project in different roles.

This list won't include actors who played the same role in the same movie, such as Kate Winslet and Gloria Stuart in Titanic.

Here are ten co-stars who shared roles in other projects.

The Bruce Willis-led action sequel RED 2 features a star studded cast, including Anthony Hopkins, John Malkovich, Mary-Louise Parker, and two Oscar winning actresses: Catherine Zeta-Jones and Helen Mirren.

Zeta-Jones and Mirren share more than an appearance in RED 2 and a golden statue. Both actresses have played the legendary Russian Empress Catherine the Great in a biopic.

Zeta-Jones took on the role in a 1995 TV movie called Catherine the Great, which focused on the leader's love life in her younger years. Mirren appeared in a different Catherine the Great, a 2019 miniseries which focused on the title character's golden years.

Appropriately, Zeta-Jones also plays a Russian in RED 2, portraying a secret agent.