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

2006: when Dwayne Johnson was still The Rock, despite starting to make it on the acting scene; when Sarah Michelle Gellar was Buffy, despite not having played her for three years; and Richard Kelly was managing to wring some financing for his next ambitious project out of the whole Donnie Darko thing, despite it being half a decade since Jake Gyllenhaal shot the bunny.

All three came together in imperfect harmony on Southland Tales, which puts The Rock in play as Boxer Santaros, an amnesiac right-wing actor caught in a national conspiracy, Gellar opposite him as porn actress Krysta Now, and Kelly wrangling a plot that often feels too big for the film, with fluid karma fuel, neo-Marxists, drug-dealing soldier Justin Timberlake, an overbearing US administration, and a big blimp setpiece.

But that’s not all. Seann William Scott silenced the comedy roles that had made him famous by portraying Roland and Ronald Taverner, cops and apparent twins who are in fact the same person twice, produced by a space-time anomaly. The fact of Roland and Ronald being one person split down two paths made the characters easier to play (as it’s essentially the same role), but strangely enough, despite the relatively small size of the role, the totally-cast-against-type Scott was the first actor Kelly signed on to the film… though we may never know why.