9 Actors Who Played Other, Better Actors

2. Geoffrey Rush as Peter Sellers

It€™s hard enough for an actor to impersonate another actor, but even more so when required to impersonate all of that actor€™s own performances as well. Such is the case with Peter Sellers, whose entire career was built on a host of finely crafted and diverse characters, each more eccentric than the next. We've all tried our own impression of Inspector Clouseau ("Do you have a rheuum?"), but to take on his entire repertoire would be a daunting task for even the most accomplished actor. In 2004's The Life and Death of Peter Sellers, however, Geoffrey Rush tackles them all, slipping seamlessly into such guises as Doctor Strangelove and Chance, the simpleton gardener from Being There. Such is the accuracy of most of his impressions, that the seemingly endless layers of make-up and latex hardly seem necessary at all. Blake Edwards, director of the Pink Panther film series, himself commented that while watching Rush's performance, he had at times thought he was seeing the real Peter Sellers on screen. Rush was initially apprehensive about playing the part, not believing himself to have the ability to play such a complex character well enough, but felt in the right frame of mind to do it after starring as Captain Barbossa in Pirates of the Caribbean. Unfortunately, this did mean that every now and again throughout the Sellers biopic, the character bizarrely slips into a mannerism or expression that momentarily seems more befitting of the captain of the Black Pearl than anybody else. Despite the overall impressive performance, the film has met harsh criticism from those who knew Sellers, including one of his four wives, Britt Ekland. She reportedly disliked the way in which Sellers was portrayed as an essentially likeable and talented man, but in fact a monster with no saving graces at all.