Seeing double … or triple! Vanessa Hudgens, Armie Hammer, Nina Dobrev and more stars have taken on multiple roles in the same movie or TV shows over the years.
Hudgens, for her part, played baker Stacy and her royal look—alike, Duchess Margaret of Montenaro, in Netflix’s The Princess Switch in 2018. Two years later, the Disney alum returned for the sequel — and a third character for Hudgens, Fiona, was added to the mix. While the streaming service has plans for a third installment, the actress ruled out a fourth part in the movie.
“No, no, that’s just too outrageous. We’re already at max outrageous here with three characters, we’re just going to keep it at that,” Hudgens told TheWrap. “And I would 100 percent lose my mind if I tried to add another me, even though it would probably be Scottish [and] I love that accent and it would be a great excuse to master the Scottish accent. But no, that’s not happening.”
Hudgens’ Princess Switch 2 Switched Again costar Sam Palladio, meanwhile, opened up to Us Weekly about what it’s like to film a movie with the lead actress taking on several parts.
“It was tricky. Props to Vanessa, you know, like, having to learn three lead characters is pretty crazy,” Palladio explained on our “Watch With Us” podcast in November 2020. “And I heard her head was spinning some days. Also doing sort of three, trying to make them different and three differing accents. You know, this one has this inflection and this crazy character does this, so, you know, yeah, props to her. But it was a lot of fun.”
The Nashville alum added that it was “sometimes confusing” to act in a movie with the lead taking on several roles.
“You’re doing green screen stuff as well and split screens,” he said. “It was a lot of fun. But certainly, when you get to the end of a 15-hour filming day, it’s a lot.”
While Hammer played twins in 2010’s The Social Network, Dobrev took on the roles of Elena Gilbert and doppelgänger Katherine Pierce for six seasons of The CW’s Vampire Diaries.
“It’s kind of confusing. But it’s exactly what I want. It’s the biggest, most welcome challenge,” Dobrev told the Digital Spy in 2010. “Both characters are very multidimensional and layered and complicated and flawed. One is very sweet and a girl next door who has issues and tries to deal with them to the best of her abilities. And she has a lot of pressure coming from different directions but somehow manages to plow through and protects everyone and rises to the occasion when it’s difficult. She’s very strong and courageous, I think, and I admire her persistence.”
Scroll through for more actors and actresses who played more than one role in the same movie or TV show:
