I Had No Idea That Was The Same Actor

[emuboy]

Another one the other way around.

After Henri Szeps passed away last week I was looking up the cast of Australian sitcom 'Mother and Son' to see if any other cast members besides the late Ruth Cracknell had passed on since the series ended in 1994.

I had always thought that Arthur's ex-wife Dierdre who would appear from time to time was played by Garry McDonald's real-life wife Diane Craig, but in fact she was played by an actress named Suzanne Roylance who appeared in a number of Australian TV shows from the late 1970s to mid 1990s, but no credited roles after 1997.

 

[emuboy]

Three for American actor Bob Odenkirk from three memorable episodes of three different TV series I liked from the 2000s. Two of these I didn't realize it was him, and the other where I thought he had played the role but it was in fact a similar looking actor:

CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM: In a very early episode of CYE all the way back in 2000, Larry David makes a new friend at the country club while playing golf, a man named Gil who invites Larry and Cheryl to a dinner party which he and his wife are hosting. Of course things don't go smoothly, with Larry getting hopelessly lost on the drive there and them arriving late. Things only get worse when it turns out Gil was a former adult actor and regales the guests with amusing anecdotes from making these films (not impressing the prissy Cheryl David) and Gil's wife proves to be a total control-freak nutcase, who screeches at Larry over several faux pas he committed in the house. Larry is banished by Cheryl to the couch for the night when he recounts some of the evening's events and makes jokes about them, then the next day Jeff is in hospital for heart irregularities and asks Larry to remove his porno collection from the house in case Susie should find it while he is away. Larry does just this, but becomes distracted when he notices that Gil is in one of Jeff's adult movies, is overcome with curiosity and puts on the video to see for himself, only for Susie to return home with Jeff's parents and find Larry David in the lounge-room watching a porno. I had no idea Bob Odenkirk played the role of Gil in this episode.

HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER: One of the more memorable HIMYM episodes 'Chain of Screaming' from the late 2000s sees Marshall get a job in a corporate law firm, only to have a tyrant of a boss named Arthur Hobbs, who shouts at Marshall over a late report and making him (Marshall) cry. The Arthur Hobbs character worked so well that the next season his was resurrected and again becoming Marshall's boss when he changed jobs and took a position at the company where Marshall was now working. Like with CYE, I had no idea Bob Odenkirk played the role of Arthur in HIMYM.


COLD CASE: This one goes the other way; I had always thought that Bob Odenkirk played the role of Henry Jones in the memorable but hard-hitting and controversial 2005 episode 'Strange Fruit', in which the squad reopen an unsolved 1963 case in which a young Black man is hanged from a tree. For years I thought Odenkirk played this generally unlikeable character, but he was played by an actor similar in looks named Scott Alan Smith. I won't give away spoilers in this one, but your chances of seeing it aren't good. Cold Case has never been made available on home media or streaming services due to music copyright issues, and this episode is never screened in syndication. This is a pity because it is a well-made episode and sees the on-screen debut of actress Liana Liberato - then aged 9 - playing the role of Henry's daughter.

 

[Registered User]

FMD! I had no idea that Ian McShane was in the 1969 Battle of Britain movie, and I've probably seen it 10 times.

 

[Registered User]

I had no idea Bruce McGill was in Animal House

 

[Frank Bunn]

Michael McKean.

Spinal Tap.




Also, Better Call Saul.

 

[troybe]

Michael McKean.

Spinal Tap.

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Also, Better Call Saul.

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[Registered User]

This is off topic, but I had no idea that Star Trek's Denise Crosby is Bing's granddaughter, and I've watched a LOT of Star
Trek

 

[emuboy]

In one episode of sitcom 'Malcolm in the Middle' from the mid-2000s a group of four popular mean girls play a prank on Reece that so upsets him that it sends him into a catatonic state. Outraged that the school is doing nothing to punish them, Lois plans and carries out a series of revenge pranks on all four of them.

For one of the girls Diane, this involves Lois cutting the heads off all the dolls in the girl's extensive collection, then stuffing them in Diane's locker in high school causing her to have a nervous breakdown and needing to be sedated and taken to hospital in an ambulance.

I had no idea that the role of mean girl doll enthusiast Diane was played by a young and then completely unknown future Best Actress winner Emma Stone.

 

[PowerfulPies2023]

The Butterfly Effect cell mate with Ashton Kutchner played by Kevin Durand, also stars in the Captive.

Looks like that campaigner Ellon Musk.

 

[emuboy]

One forgotten spin-off from American Idol was 'American Juniors' in 2003, which was a singing competition for kids who were middle-school aged. Obviously given the young ages of the participants the show was far more gentle in the way things were handled, with no harsh criticisms and eliminations seen in reality singing shows for adults, and in format the show was closer to the Australian TV show 'Young Talent Time' from years earlier than an American reality singing show of the early 2000s.

Among the kids on the show, a 13-year-old girl named Lucy was a stand-out, as her voice was more like that of an adult singer with lots of years of experience and training behind her than an inexperienced middle school girl. Lucy also stood out physically as she was taller than most of the other participants, both boys and girls who were on the show with her.

Lucy from American Juniors must have experienced her growth spurt at a young age, as she is in fact a young and then unknown American actress Lucy Hale, who stands at a petite 5'2 as an adult. It's very hard to believe looking back at these early clips of her in 2003.

 

[Rod Stroker]

Was also the time he was a small time crook with Dr Cox
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probably already been posted ITT, but one of his first ever roles was as an in-mate in Trading Places

 

[Rod Stroker]

One that took me a while having seen both movies a few times:

The Warden from Escape from Alcatraz


is Longshanks from Braveheart

 

[peetoo]

One of the actors in ‘this England’ playing Lee Cain bojos director of communications is a ringer for the guy in ‘an idiot abroad’ Karl Pilkington

 

[emuboy]

I recently saw the trailer for an upcoming crime comedy 'Over Your Dead Body' in which a husband takes his much younger Australian trophy wife - a nagging, selfish and overly-critical harpy played by Samara Weaving - to their lake house for the long weekend with the intention of murdering her, but I could not believe that the husband was played by Jason Segal.

We haven't seen much of Jason Segal - in his younger years a double for former West Coast and St Kilda player Michael Gardiner - since the end of How I Met Your Mother in 2014. I'm not sure if he was made up to look older as well as gaining weight to play the role in the upcoming movie but given his appearance here you would think 24 years had gone by since the finale of HIMYM rather than 12 years.

 

[Registered User]

I had no idea that Jake Gyllenhall had a few roles when he was a kid. City Slickers was his first movie when he was 10; he played Billy Crystal's son

 

[Roobs321]

I had no idea that Jake Gyllenhall had a few roles when he was a kid. City Slickers was his first movie. He played Billy Crystal son. He was 10

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he was also widower Robin Williams’ son in Homicide Life on the Street

his dad Stephen directed that episode

 

[Roobs321]

TIL Carla Jean’s Ma from Odessa with the cancer (NCFOM) was played by character actress Beth Grant, maybe most recognised as the Fear-Love Sparkle Motion teach from Donnie Darko. Strange I’ve never noticed, definitely there in the voice and face, and she happens to be roughly the same age then irl as her more clearly aged granny-makeover character (based on the tombstone).

 

[Cold Ghost]

I'm currently binging Brooklyn 99 and during season 6 I saw this character with a familiar voice

The same voice as this character

But (after a dive in to imdb) it was even crazier that she had a bit part in Pulp Fiction...

(on the left )

 

[Cold Ghost]

A current Aldi ad has this old guy

aka

 

[Registered User]

Fame is on SBS Movies right now. I had no idea that the young redhead in it was Paul McCrane.
I mostly know him as one of the baddies in Robocop. I knew he was in ER for a long time, but I never watched it