We’ve already shined a light on actors who played their character’s children or ancestors. Now we’ve compiled a list of actors who have played their own twin. Some of these movies gave birth to breakthrough film technology and feature acting at its finest. Others have cheap effects and feature some of the worst performances ever committed to film — two of the movies hold the top spots for films with the most Razzie Awards. For some films, there is little to no interaction between the twins. On the other hand, most completely hinge on the characters being able to believably interact with each other. Join us as we explore the different approaches the actors and filmmakers took to achieve this illusion...

Danny Kaye - Wonder Man (1945)

In this musical, Danny Kaye plays opposite himself as the ghost of nightclub entertainer Buster Dingle who enlists his twin brother Edwin to deliver testimony against the mobster who had him murdered. The then groundbreaking effects, which allowed Kaye to interact as the twin brothers, earned the movie an Academy Award for Best Effects.

Screen legend Bette Davis was first tasked with playing twins in A Stolen Life, where she played sisters who are in love with the same man. 18 years later she would once again star opposite herself in the film Dead Ringer. Cinematographer Ernest Haller who, along with Sol Polito, developed the trick shots used in A Stolen Life, further improved upon those processes in this film. Instead of doing double exposure shots, Haller and Polito created a process that used mattes to mask over the face of Davis’ double for near seamless interactions between her two characters.

Olivia De Havilland - The Dark Mirror (1946)

Olivia De Havilland plays Ruth Collins in this film noir that begins with the murder of Ruth’s boyfriend. It seems like an open and shut case when witnesses place Ruth at the scene of the crime, but things are complicated when it’s revealed that she has a twin sister and that both have alibis. Clothing and jewelry are swapped between the twins for plot purposes, but De Havilland made Terry left-handed and the only one who smokes. There was also a 1984 made for TV remake of this classic film that starred Jane Seymour in the role of the twins.

Hayley Mills - The Parent Trap (1961)

British teen sensation Hayley Mills’ followed up her performance in Pollyanna, which earned her the last Juvenile Oscar ever awarded, with this dual role as Susan Evers and Sharon McKendrick, twins separated as infants after their parents’ divorce. The illusion of Mills acting opposite herself was achieved by over-the-shoulder shots using a body double and a process using double exposure for scenes where both characters are facing the camera. After seeing how effective the double exposure shots were, Walt Disney asked the filmmakers to include more shots using that technique. Mills would reprise her role as the twins for the three subsequent television sequels.

Jeremy Irons - Dead Ringers (1988)

Jeremy Irons' performance as Beverly and Elliot Mantle, twins who stand in for each other in their profession as gynecologists and impulsively share lovers, is the dual performance by which all other dual performances are judged. Irons gave the brothers different “energy points," weighting one brother on the balls of his feet and the other on his heels, and developed different postures and voice modulations for each as well. The film also marks one of the first uses of computer-controlled moving-matte photography, which was used to pull off some of their onscreen interactions.

Jean-Claude Van Damme has had dual roles in five of his films. He fought back-to-back with himself in the 1994 time travel film Time Cop, and played multiple characters in Replicant and The Order, which both came out in 2001. Before all of those movies, though, JCVD played twins separated at birth in two ‘90s action movies, Double Impact and Maximum Risk.

Jackie Chan - Twin Dragons (1992)

In this Hong Kong action comedy Jackie Chan plays concert pianist Ma Yau and street racer Wan Ma, twin brothers separated at birth who, through a series of mishaps, become entangled in each other's lives. The only thing worse than the English dubs for this film is the physically impossible overlapping that takes place during Chan's onscreen interactions with himself. The effects are so haphazardly thrown together that his characters sometimes literally walk through parts of each other or their surroundings.

Ben Stiller - The Cable Guy (1996)

This was the second film Ben Stiller directed, and it starred Jim Carrey in the title role. It also featured Stiller as identical twins and former child actors Sam and Stan Sweet. Throughout the film, glimpses of the high profile murder trial for Sam, who is accused of shooting and killing his twin brother, are shown sporadically. The verdict of the trial is never revealed due to Carrey’s character falling and taking out the satellite broadcasting the trial. Eric Roberts also makes a cameo as himself in the film, playing the twins in a fictional made for TV movie about the case.

Mike Myers - Austin Powers (1997-2002)

While Mike Myers always played multiple roles throughout the Austin Powers franchise, it’s not until the third film, Austin Powers in Goldmember, that the resemblance Austin Powers and Dr. Evil share is explained: they are twin brothers who were separated as toddlers during an assassination attempt that killed their mother. Why Fat Bastard also bares a resemblance to them is never explained, nor is the reason this third film was made.

Lindsay Lohan - The Parent Trap (1998)

For her first feature, Lindsay Lohan played the dual role of American Hallie Parker and British-raised Annie James, twins separated as infants who are reunited by chance at a summer camp. This was quite a tall order for the then 11-year-old, especially considering Hayley Mills was 15 and had already earned an Oscar when she starred in the original Parent Trap, but Lohan seemed to effortlessly juggle both roles and accents. She would go on to have dual roles in two more films: the 2003 remake of Freaky Friday and...

I Know Who Killed Me (2007)

While Lohan garnered critical and commercial success with her previous outings in dual roles, her turn as Aubrey Fleming and Dakota Moss — stigmatic twins with a psychic connection who were separated at birth — earned the actress Razzies for Worst Actress and Worst Couple. I Know Who Killed Me held the record for most Razzie “wins” in one year, until a later entry on this list dethroned it.

Leonardo Di Caprio - The Man in the Iron Mask (1998)

The only way to feed the fires of fan worship garnered from starring in Romeo and Juliet and Titanic was to follow those up with a film that had not one Leonardo DiCaprio, but two. As Beau Bridges did in the 1979 film The Fifth Musketeer, DiCaprio plays King Louis XIV and his identical twin Philippe in The Man in the Iron Mask. While DiCaprio has had countless Oscar-worthy performances since, and had his co-star and dual role master Jeremy Irons on set, his performance ultimately earned the actor a Razzie for Worst Screen Couple for his interactions as the twins.

Eddie Murphy - Bowfinger (1999)

Playing multiple roles in his films has become a trademark for Eddie Murphy. He’s taken on multiple characters in eight of his films, including Coming to America (1988), Vampire in Brooklyn (1995), The Nutty Professor (1996), Nutty Professor II: The Klumps (2000), The Adventures of Pluto Nash (2002), Norbit (2007), and Meet Dave (2008). Rounding out that list is this comedy with Steve Martin playing a director who shoots a movie starring action-star Kit Ramsey, who doesn’t realize he’s a part of the movie. Murphy stars as Kit, as well as his non-actor twin brother Jiff, who Martin uses as Kit's double to complete scenes.

Nicolas Cage - Adaptation (2002)

To play screenwriter Charlie Kaufman and his fictional twin brother Donald in Spike Jonze’s dizzying meta masterpiece, Nicolas Cage would often act opposite his own brother Marc Coppola, who stood in for Cage for scenes in the movie where the Kaufman brothers interact but both of their faces aren’t seen. Along with Kaufman's fake brother receiving a credit for writing the film (and an Academy Award nomination), Cage was also given completely separate credits for each character, appearing twice in the closing credits since they are listed in order of appearance.

Chris Rock - Bad Company (2002)

Director Joel Schumacher and producer Jerry Bruckheimer’s predictable and universally panned action-comedy starred Chris Rock as Kevin Pope and Jake Hayes, twins separated at birth. When Pope, an undercover CIA operative, is killed during a mission, Hayes is recruited to pose as his brother and complete his mission. The film was originally to be titled Black Sheep, but was changed to avoid confusion with the 1996 comedy that starred Rock’s SNL castmates Chris Farley and David Spade.

James Carpinello - The Punisher (2004)

In this early 2000s comic book adaptation, James Carpinello takes on the roles of twins Bobby and John Saint. When a deal set up by undercover FBI agent Frank Castle (Thomas Jane) leads to Bobby's death, his twin brother murders Castle’s family in revenge. John Travolta played the father of the twins. Coincidentally, Carpinello had made his Broadway debut years earlier in a production of Saturday Night Fever in the role of Manero, which is the role Travolta played in the movie.

Rachel Weisz - Constantine (2005)

For director Francis Lawrence's adaptation of Hellblazer, Rachel Weisz teamed back up with her Chain Reaction co-star Keanu Reeves and starred as Angela Dodson, an LAPD detective who enlists occult expert John Constantine (Reeves) to help her investigate the suicide of her twin sister, Isabel. Instead of using split screen or matte methods for the part in the film where Angela comes to the scene of her sister’s suicide, a life-size replica of Weisz was made that the actress could freely interact with.

Christian Bale - The Prestige (2006)

It’s only in the final moments of Christopher Nolan’s masterfully woven drama that it’s revealed that Christian Bale’s character Alfred Borden is in fact Alfred and Frederick Borden, two identical twins leading one life to protect the simple secret to their trick "The Transported Man." So you have to rewatch the movie to appreciate the subtle differences in Bale’s performances as each brother, which particularly differ in their interactions with their wife (Rebecca Hall) and mistress (Scarlett Johansson) — with one brother loving one and the other brother loving the other.

Paul Dano - There Will Be Blood (2007)

While Daniel Day-Lewis had a year to prepare for his Oscar-winning turn as maniacal oil tycoon Daniel Plainview in Paul Thomas Anderson’s There Will Be Blood, Paul Dano had mere days to prepare for his role as evangelical preacher Eli Sunday. Dano was initially only supposed to play the small role of Eli’s brother Paul Sunday. However, when Kel O’Neill, the original actor cast as Eli dropped out in the middle of filming, Dano took over the role and the characters were rewritten as identical twin brothers.

Freddie Highmore - The Spiderwick Chronicles (2008)

Not only were Irish actress Sarah Bolger and British actor Freddie Highmore tasked with perfecting American accents, the young leads spent most scenes in front of blue screens fighting nonexistent creatures for their roles in director Mark Waters' effects heavy adaptation of The Spiderwick Chronicles. Furthermore, Highmore had to develop unique speech patterns for his dual role as twin brothers Jared and Simon Grace.

Edward Norton - Leaves of Grass (2009)

Writer-director Tim Blake Nelson wrote his offbeat thriller with Edward Norton in mind for the roles of identical twins Bill and Brady Kincaid. Norton took a drastic pay cut to play the parts, and sought to go for a level of interplay between his two characters beyond what had been done before with actors playing opposite themselves. Norton's nuanced performances earned praise across the board, but the film received mixed reviews.

Sam Worthington - Avatar (2009)

For Sam Worthington’s dual role as Jake Sully and his deceased twin brother whom he replaces in the avatar program, he simply had to lay down and close his eyes as Jake identifies his brother’s body. However, the actor and his castmates spent much or all of their time acting in skin-tight motion capture suits with cameras mounted to their heads to portray the Na'vi-human hybrids and the Pandora natives. James Cameron’s blockbuster still holds the record as the highest grossing film to date, followed by Titanic, which was also directed by Cameron.

Armie Hammer - The Social Network (2010)

Armie Hammer’s performance as Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss is perhaps the most seamless portrayal of twins we’ve ever seen on screen. Unable to find identical twin actors suitable for the roles of the real-life identical twins, director David Fincher used traditional split-screen work and more sophisticated techniques that involved pasting a computer generated model of Hammer’s face onto actor Josh Pence’s body. Prior to filming, Hammer and Pence spent 10 months studying each other’s body movements to further sell the illusion and build a brotherly rapport.

Matt Lucas - Alice in Wonderland (2010)

In order to play the proverbial pair of Tweedledee and Tweedledum, Matt Lucas and his double, Ethan Cohn, wore oversized pear-shaped motion capture suits and walked on stilts. They would do a scene and then switch places and do the scene again. The bizarre and disturbing final product consisted of both of Lucas' facial performances composited onto fully animated bodies.

Adam Sandler - Jack and Jill (2011)

Speaking of bizarre and disturbing. Adam Sandler’s performances as Jack and his twin sister Jill “won” the comedian Razzie Awards for both Worst Actor and Worst Actress. The movie holds the record for Razzies with its clean sweep of all the categories for 10 total awards. The previous record of 8 awards was held by Lindsay Lohan's aforementioned film, I Know Who Killed Me.

Rob Riggle - Dumb and Dumber To (2014)

Though Rob Riggle didn’t have to act opposite himself to portray the scheming housekeeper Travis and his twin brother Captain Lippincott in this sequel to Dumb and Dumber, he did have to spend around 7 hours getting body make-up applied for the Captain Lippincott camouflage scenes. Riggle used tricks learned while he was a U.S. Marine to endure the hours of make-up application that required him to stand perfectly in place.

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