20 TV actors who took on multiple roles on one show

Watch one episode of Orphan Black, and you’ll see why Tatiana Maslany won an Emmy for her performance. Maslany masterfully played several different characters, sometimes even acting as one character acting as another. It was insanely impressive. 

Paul Rudd played himself and his clone in the Netflix show Living With Yourself. In addition to pulling double duty as an actor, Rudd pulled double duty by producing the show, too. 

Paul Rudd is no stranger to playing multiple characters on the same show. After his work on Living With Yourself, Rudd played an actor and his stunt double on the hit Hulu series Only Murders in the Building. 

Multiple television shows have had actors play multiple characters in the series for seemingly no reason. It’s especially common on sitcoms. Such was the case for Christa MIller in Seinfeld. The actress played the characters Paula and Ellen in the show. 

Speaking of, Nelson Franklin did a similar two-different-characters portrayal on The Office. He first played a character at a job fair and later reappeared as the IT guy whose name no one at Dunder Mifflin can remember. 

Sarah Paulson will do whatever Ryan Murphy wants her to do. In American Horror Story: Freak Show, that included playing two different characters in the same season. Paulson portrayed a set of conjoined twins, Bette and Dot Tattler. 

Outlander is known for traveling through multiple time periods, but that’s not the only way it’s touched on multiples. Tobias Menzies played multiple roles in the series, acting as two men from the same family, centuries apart. 

Lost was all sorts of madness. Of course, there was one actor who played multiple characters. O’Quinn played John Locke, as well as the Man in Black. He’s an acting expert. 

Before Terry O’Quinn played two characters on Lost, he played multiple characters on The X-Files. He played both Shadow Man and Lt. Brian Tillman in various episodes of the series. 

Justin Theroux played multiple roles on Sex and the City, but not like the other people on this list. The showrunners wanted him back to play a different character just because it was him, not for the sake of the storyline. 

Nina Dobrev played Elena Gilbert on The Vampire Diaries, and later, she added her character’s doppelgänger Katherine Pierce to the mix. In the spin-off The Originals, Dobrev played Katherine’s doppelgänger, Tatia. 

There was all sorts of stuff to keep straight in The Good Place, including who D’Arcy Carden was at any given moment. Carden played Janet, Bad Janet, Neutral Janet, and more in the series. 

For most of Family Matters, Jaleel White is known as Steve Urkel, the irritating, albeit lovable, nerd who’s still an icon in pop culture. But later in the series, he becomes Stefan Urquelle, Steve’s much smoother alter ego. 

There have been loads of impressive acting performances on Fargo, including Ewan McGregor’s portrayal of brothers. In season 3, McGregor played Emmit and Ray Stussy, two brothers who couldn’t live more opposite lives. 

Jeffrey Tambor might be the most underrated part of Arrested Development. He hilariously played the Bluth family patriarch, and he portrayed George Sr.’s twin brother. Both characters added hilarity to the show. 

Donald Glover had a vision for Atlanta. He created and starred in it, among other duties, and he played two different characters, Earn and Teddy Perkins, the latter of whom Glover was unrecognizable. 

Yael Grobglas was fantastic as Petra Solano, one of the antagonists of Jane the Virgin. But she showed that she was fully capable of doing more than just one character justice by playing Anezka Archuletta, Petra’s twin sister, too. 

Lisa Kudrow hilariously played Phoebe Buffay for 10 seasons of Friends, and she hilariously played Ursula Buffay, Phoebe’s twin sister, in multiple episodes. Kudrow was technically reprising Ursula as that character originated on Mad About You. 

As if Jenna Ortega didn’t have enough pressure on her shoulders portraying the beloved Wednesday, she also had to play Wednesday’s ancestor Goody Addams. Clearly, Ortega was more than up for the task, as she played both characters wonderfully. 

Mark Ruffalo showed his acting chops in the HBO miniseries I Know This Much Is True by playing twin brothers. To make matters more complicated, one of the characters was diagnosed with schizophrenia. Unsurprisingly, Ruffalo won an Emmy for his work.