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

Duncan Jones’ sci-fi chamber piece Moon proves that more really is more by putting as many Sam Rockwells as you can count on the moon and leaving him to deal with things on his own.

Rockwell plays Sam Bell, an astronaut miner caught in permanent servitude to shady corporation Lunar Industries, via cloning. When the current version of him doesn’t die as intended, he discovers there are many more like him on ice in his facility, that he is replaced by a new version every time a previous one expires, and, of course, that any hopes he has of going home are never coming true.

Rockwell and Jones had a lot of fun with this one, seeing how far they could push the clone-on-clone scenes using tricks and technology, including having Sam play ping pong against his clone. To achieve these effects, they used clever camerawork, splicing of two shots, tactical CG, and a blend of all three, such as when they managed to have Sam touch himself, hiding his arm, capturing both performances, and using a body double to do the actual touching. And it looks phenomenal, especially given the film’s relatively small budget.