11 Amazing Times Actors Played Other Actors Playing Characters 

There’s an scene at the beginning of Thor: Ragnorok where the titular God of Thunder returns to his home realm of Asgard after his latest adventure to find his usually stoic father Odin throwing a hilariously out of character bacchanalia, complete with togas, people eating grapes, and a play that suspiciously depicts his shifty brother Loki in a pretty favorable light. It doesn’t take Thor long to figure out that Odin is actually Loki in disguise.

Watching Loki pretend to be Odin is one of the highlights of the movie. In fact, it’s such a fun scene that it’s easy to forget that you’re not actually watching Loki pretending to be Odin, you’re watching Anthony Hopkins pretending to be Tom Hiddleston pretending to be Loki pretending to be Odin. It’s a testament to both actors. In his appearances in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Tom Hiddleston has turned Loki into a unique, fully-realized character, giving Hopkins so much to work with when he steps into the role.

So in honor of Thor: Ragnorok, let’s take a good hard look at some of cinema and television’s most multilayered performances, where actors played other actors who played characters who were impersonating and/or inhabiting the body of the original actor’s character.

The Players: Nic Cage and John Travolta playing each other

Mode Of Body Swap: Facial transplant, microchip implant, 3D-printed flesh and a buttload of plastic surgery

Seriously, beyond paraphrasing one of the best/grossest quotes in the movie, there is so much to unpack in Face/Off’s body swapping technology. Like why it isn’t being used to save lives, or help burn victims or amputees or just regular everyday folks who want to switch faces.

Instead of doing any of that, they use this world-changing technology exclusively for the most utterly cuckoo-bananas undercover operation ever conceived.

And thank goodness they do, because Nic Cage is at his most outCAGEous and Travolta cranks up the TraVOLTS to dangerously shocking levels. Analyzing these performances almost seems pointless and stupid. If you have seen Face/Off, you’re probably replaying the highlights in your mind right now.

If you haven’t seen Face/Off, please stop reading this article immediately, watch Face/Off, watch an encore performance of Face/Off, and then release two white doves into the air.