10 Actors Who Played Members of the Same Family More Than Once

Family sagas on screen usually call for different actors to play parents, kids, and cousins. Every so often, though, a single performer ends up playing more than one branch of the same fictional bloodline, sometimes within one film, sometimes across decades of sequels. It’s a strange little corner of screen history, equal parts technical showcase and inside joke for longtime fans who notice the same face popping up two or three generations apart. What follows is a look at ten performers who took on this challenge, either voicing multiple relatives in a long running series or physically transforming into different members of the same family across separate productions.

1. Michael J. Fox as multiple McFly family members

Michael J. Fox is best known as Marty McFly in the Back to the Future trilogy, but he did not stop at one branch of the family tree. In the same films he also played Marty’s Old West ancestor Seamus McFly, along with Marty’s own future children, Marty McFly Jr. and Marlene McFly, in the dystopian 2015 sequences of Part II.

That means Fox effectively portrayed four separate McFly relatives across just two movies, using different wardrobes, hairstyles, and mannerisms to distinguish them. It was a clever bit of stunt casting that reinforced the trilogy’s obsession with time and lineage. Few franchises have leaned so heavily on one actor to represent an entire family line.

2. Thomas F. Wilson as multiple Tannen family members

Wilson’s Biff Tannen is one of the most memorable bullies in film history, but the actor did far more than play him once. Wilson did a grand job at portraying different members of antagonist Biff’s family members in alternate time frames of history. That included Biff’s ancestor Buford “Mad Dog” Tannen in the Old West segment of Part III and Biff’s grandson Griff Tannen in the future scenes of Part II.

Each Tannen carried a different flavor of menace, from Old West outlaw swagger to a cybernetic future thug. Wilson leaned into makeup and prosthetics for the different eras, giving each generation its own physical presence. It remains one of the more underrated multi role performances in a franchise already famous for its double casting tricks.

3. Lea Thompson as multiple McFly women

Lea Thompson played Lorraine Baines McFly across the original trilogy, but she also stepped into the role of Lorraine’s mother, Maggie McFly, during the 1885 sequences of Part III. The resemblance between mother and daughter was clearly intentional, playing on the films’ recurring theme of family traits skipping generations.

Thompson’s dual performance required subtle shifts in posture and accent to separate the two women by roughly a century. It gave the trilogy an extra layer of continuity, since audiences could see where certain McFly characteristics originated. Her work is often overshadowed by the more visually dramatic Tannen makeup jobs, but it is just as deliberate.

4. Dick Van Dyke as father and son in the Dawes family

Dick Van Dyke’s most famous Mary Poppins role is chimney sweep Bert, but he also disappeared into the elderly banker Mr. Dawes Sr. under heavy makeup in the same 1964 film. Dick Van Dyke also played bank director Mr. Dawes under heavy makeup, and would play the character’s son, Mr. Dawes Jr., 54 years later in the sequel Mary Poppins Returns, only this time the grey hair and wrinkles were all his own.

That gap of more than five decades between playing father and son is almost unheard of in film history. It turned a small cameo into one of the most touching moments in the 2018 sequel, with longtime fans immediately recognizing the callback. Few actors get the chance to literally age into a role that mirrors one they played as a much younger man.

5. Ralph Fiennes across three generations of one family

In the 1999 drama Sunshine, Ralph Fiennes took on the challenge of playing three men from the same Hungarian Jewish family across nearly a century of history. In the 1999 film “Sunshine,” Ralph Fiennes portrays three members of a Hungarian-Jewish family over the course of several generations. Fiennes later explained his reasoning to GQ, noting that the point was continuity rather than disguise.

“There was differences in facial hair and haircut I think, but I thought no…if the storytelling and filmmaking is clear enough, the audience will know,” Fiennes said. “It didn’t seem at all the sort of film where the actor completely changes. You’re meant to know it’s me, you’re meant to understand that it’s the same family. The fact that I’m playing all three was the linking element.” That approach turned what could have been a gimmick into the emotional backbone of the entire film.

6. Eddie Murphy as multiple Klump family members

Eddie Murphy has made a career out of playing several characters in a single project, and the Nutty Professor films are the clearest example involving one family. In the 1996 remake of The Nutty Professor, Eddie Murphy plays not one, not two, but seven characters in the film, including the main character Sherman Klump, his alter ego Buddy Love, and Sherman’s entire family, gaining positive reviews from critics while the makeup used to transform him into seven different characters was widely praised.

He did not stop after one movie either. He also reprised the roles for the sequel. That means Murphy played father, mother, grandmother, brother, and son across two separate films, a rare feat of makeup driven family portraiture in mainstream comedy.

7. Vanessa Hudgens as cousins in the Princess Switch franchise

Vanessa Hudgens built the Princess Switch series on a body swap premise, playing lookalike strangers Stacy and Margaret. The Princess Switch franchise sees Vanessa Hudgens play the dual roles of American baker Stacy De Novo and Lady Margaret Delacourt, Duchess of Montenaro, who discover they are identical after bumping into each other in the fictional country of Belgravia.

The franchise expanded her family tree further in the sequel. By the 2020 sequel, Switched Again, Hudgens had taken on a third role, Margaret’s evil cousin, Lady Fiona. That gave Hudgens two related royal characters, Margaret and Fiona, across a franchise that leaned entirely on her ability to distinguish near identical relatives through tone and body language rather than makeup.

8. Elizabeth Montgomery as cousins on Bewitched

Elizabeth Montgomery is remembered as suburban witch Samantha Stephens, but the actress regularly returned to the role of Samantha’s mischievous lookalike cousin Serena throughout the series’ run. Elizabeth Montgomery played Samantha and Serena across many episodes of Bewitched, using a visibly different hairstyle and attitude to signal the switch.

Because Serena appeared repeatedly over several seasons rather than in a single episode, Montgomery effectively played two members of the same magical family more than once for years. The device became a running gag among fans, who enjoyed spotting the small mannerisms that separated the cousins. It also gave the actress a chance to play against her own established image on a weekly series.

9. Carolyn Jones as twin sisters in The Addams Family

Carolyn Jones is best known as the elegant matriarch Morticia Addams, but the original 1960s series occasionally brought in her fictional twin sister, Ophelia Frump, played by Jones herself. Carolyn Jones played twin sisters Morticia Frump Addams and Ophelia Frump.

The two sisters were visual opposites, with Ophelia sporting a lighter, more traditionally cheerful look to contrast with Morticia’s gothic elegance. Jones used the pairing to poke fun at the show’s own aesthetic, since Ophelia was essentially everything the Addams household considered dull. It remains a small but memorable example of one actress covering two branches of the same eccentric family.

10. Dan Castellaneta as father and son in The Simpsons

Dan Castellaneta has voiced Homer Simpson since the show’s debut, giving life to television’s most famous cartoon patriarch for decades. Less discussed is that Castellaneta also voices Homer’s own father, Grampa Abraham Simpson, across the same long running series.

Playing both father and son in a show now running for well over three decades means Castellaneta has voiced two generations of one family more times than almost any other performer on this list. The two characters have distinct voices, with Grampa’s raspier, more rambling delivery contrasting sharply with Homer’s familiar groan. It is a quiet but remarkable feat of vocal range sustained across an entire career.

These ten cases show that playing one memorable character is rarely the ceiling for a skilled performer. Whether through prosthetics, vocal range, or simple costume changes, each of these actors found a way to inhabit an entire family rather than a single branch of it, often returning to the trick more than once across their careers.