Roles You Didn't Know Were Played By Twins

Everyone knows that Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen used their super twin powers to bring Michelle
Tanner to life on Full House.
"No way Jose."
But a twin stepping in as a body double or playing half of the role isn't just reserved
for fussy toddlers.
Identical twins have popped up in lots of films and TV shows without you ever noticing.
And while some on-screen doubles aren't quite perfect fits…
"My name is Julius, and I'm ya twin brother."
"Oh, obviously!"
...you might be surprised at some of the roles that were played by twins.
Sophia Burset in Orange is the New Black
One of the slickest twin twists in TV history is in the Netflix smash, based on Piper Kerman's
prison memoir.
Creator Jenji Kohan and her crew tried to use transgender icon Laverne Cox in her character's
pre-transition flashback scenes.
But the episode's famous director wasn't buying Sophia as "Marcus" ...
"And Jodie Foster directed this episode, so I was like, 'I'm gonna have to butch it up,'
because Jodie I don't think believed that I could, I could pull this off.
And I go to Jodie, and she looks at me and she's like, 'we're going to have to hire someone.'"
Fortunately, they didn't have to look far.
They decided to hire Cox's identical twin, a composer and singer who performs under the
name "M. Lamar," who proved to be a perfect fit.
He had no previous acting experience or training, but you wouldn't know it — his performance
and look was so seamless, most viewers probably just assumed it was Cox in the role of Marcus,
aided by Hollywood magic …
"My friends were like, 'How did they do that, was that like CGI or something?'"
Sarah Connor in Terminator 2: Judgment Day
Science fiction fans and critics raved over Linda Hamilton's badass performance in T2
"You broke my arm!"
"There are 215 bones in the human body.
That's one."
… and in a few scenes, audiences were graced with double the Hamilton, most notably when
the T-1000 mimics Sarah Connor.
Director James Cameron didn't need to break out the early-'90s CGI magic or pull an old-school
Patty Duke split-screen...
"One pair of matching bookends / Different as night and day"
Cameron simply used Hamilton's identical twin sister Leslie to get the shot.
Xander Harris in Buffy the Vampire Slayer
In the season five episode "The Replacement," Xander lovers were treated to a double dose
of sarcasm and snark.
"What if we do if this doesn't work?"
"Kill us both, Spock!"
To pull off the trick on a skimpy TV budget, the show used a very lo-fi solution: Nicholas
Brendon's identical twin brother Kelly Donovan.
Brendon, however, still performed both roles — Donovan only spoke when both Xanders had
lines in the same scene.
"Cover your eyes!"
"This?"
"It will melt your brain!"
Claire Kincaid in Law & Order
Actress Jill Hennessy was once so busy in her role as assistant district attorney on
the long-running NBC procedural she literally needed to be in two places at once.
Fortunately, she has a twin who happily filled Claire Kincaid's shoes.
In 1996, Jacqueline Hennessy worked as an uncredited stand-in for her sister in a few
scenes in one season six episode because Jill was busy filming a crossover episode of Homicide:
Life on the Street.
This wasn't Jacqueline's first time on camera.
The Hennessy sisters made their film debut as twin escorts in the 1988 David Cronenberg
film Dead Ringers.
Court Foster in The Man in the Moon
Actor Jason London, best known for his role in 1993's Dazed and Confused, made his film
debut in the 1991 coming-of-age drama The Man in the Moon.
His twin Jeremy — best known for Party of Five and Mallrats — was actually the one
who wanted to audition for the film and convinced his brother to drive him there.
Jason read for the part, too, beating his brother out … but Jeremy was still involved
with the production.
While Jason got to do all of the acting — including kissing Reese Witherspoon in her film debut
— his twin brother Jeremy was on hand for all the unglamorous stunt work … including
the infamous tractor incident.
So...that sucks for him.
The Matrix
Though the 1999 science-fiction classic used cutting edge special effects for some revolutionary
shots, the Wachowskis chose to go practical for the agent training scene.
As Neo walks through the stream of people, if you look closely, you can see that faces
keep repeating.
That's because the crowd is full of identical siblings.
The directing duo said they couldn't afford to pull off the effect digitally at the time,
so they ended up hiring as many twins or triplets as they could find in Sydney, where the film
was shot.
So if you've ever wondered why that scene felt extra creepy, there's your answer.
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Roles You Didn't Know Were Played By Twins

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