20 Brilliant Sci-Fi & Fantasy Films Where Actors Play Opposite Themselves

The science fiction and fantasy genres are fertile ground for modern filmmaking, providing the narrative playground to put developing technology and innovations to good use. And while there are plenty of movies that are content to just churn out walls of digital white noise and call it a day, there are plenty more filmmakers, cinematographers, VFX teams, and producers willing to balance on the bleeding edge and give us things we've never seen before.

While using one actor for two roles is nothing new, the ways in which this is achieved are always changing, along with the narrative and thematic purposes that writers, directors, and actors have for doing it. Last year alone saw several groundbreaking new efforts in Sinners and Mickey 17, doubling up on Michael B. Jordan and Robert Pattinson to give us twice the performance in the same movie.

Not stopping there, let's take a look back across the history of cinema at some killer dual performances in some outstanding pictures, looking at what techniques were used, the reasons for choosing them, whether they worked or not, and what they brought to the film in question. Vampires, spacemen, doppelgangers, twins, and dimension-hopping mad scientists - they’re all here, and here again!

Jeff Fowler’s live-action Sonic almost hit a brick wall before it had even started running back in 2019, when images and footage of the goofy, awkward, uncanny valley character design got out. Thankfully, they got it sorted out for the 2020 release, and a minor success was born, spawning a whole small universe of films and shows for the franchise.

2024’s Sonic the Hedgehog 3 introduced Shadow the Hedgehog into the fold (appropriately voiced by Keanu Reeves), as well as Professor Gerald Robotnik, series antagonist Dr. Ivo Robotnik’s grandfather. Jim Carrey, who had made the Robotnik character his own, was therefore the natural choice for the man who spawned the man who spawned him.

Carrey played Gerald as a meaner, tougher, no-nonsense version of Ivo, with a ridiculously large white tache and facial and body prosthetics to give him a bit of heft. But, although Carrey proved he has the chops to manage such a similar dual role while still making the characters distinct, he wasn’t sure he could do it. It was a big physical commitment to play both the main antagonists, in full and elaborate costume, but also a psychological one, as the film already involved so much acting against imagined characters (spoiler: Sonic and Co. aren’t real), and now Carrey had to act against an imaginary version of himself too…