History Main / MakingUseOfTheTwin

* PenelopeCruz's younger sister Mónica (who looks exactly like her) was used as her double in ''Film/PiratesOfTheCaribbean: On Stranger Tides'' to [[HideYourPregnancy hide the fact that Penelope was pregnant]].

* In ''Series/OrangeIsTheNewBlack'', Laverne Cox's twin brother plays her character before her transition from male to female.

** Amusingly enough averted in ''Film/XMen1''. Mystique impersonates Bobby "Iceman" Drake (Shawn Ashmore), and in one scene, the real Iceman walks by a door shortly before the fake Iceman comes out of it. The director states in the commentary that he didn't know he'd managed to hire somebody with an identical twin who could easily have played the double and went to the bother of doing two takes spliced together. ** They did make use of twins in ''Film/X2XMenUnited'' though, when Mystique walked past the janitor while doing some undercover work.

* ''Film/{{X-Men}}'': Amusingly enough averted in the first movie. Mystique impersonates Bobby "Iceman" Drake (ShawnAshmore), and in one scene, the real Iceman walks by a door shortly before the fake Iceman comes out of it. The director states in the commentary that he didn't know he'd managed to hire somebody with an identical twin who could easily have played the double and went to the bother of doing two takes spliced together. They did make use of twins in the sequel though, when Mystique walked past the janitor while doing some undercover work.

** Parodied in a match where the twins wrestled Maryse and Jillian Hall. Jillian rolled Maryse out of the ring and lay down in her place attempting to pull the switch. Of course Jillian and Maryse aren't twins and the ref wasn't fooled.

* The [[SidAndMartyKrofftProductions Sid and Marty Krofft]] show ''Electra-Woman and Dyna-Girl'' did an episode where the evil Spider Lady turns herself into a look-alike of Electra-Woman. Once again, Deirdre Hall was Electra-Woman, while the Spider Lady doppelganger was played by Andrea Hall.

[[caption-width-right:350:Don, your identical twin brother [Dan] is about to kill you.[[note]]On the left is Don Stanton as Lewis, a hospital security guard. Behind him is Stanton's twin brother Dan playing the T-1000 mimicking Don.[[/note]]]]

[[caption-width-right:350:Why use CGI when you can use a cheaper solution like this?[[note]]On the left is Don Stanton as Lewis, a hospital security guard. Behind him is Stanton's twin brother Dan playing the T-1000 mimicking Don.[[/note]]]]

[[caption-width-right:350:Cheaper than CGI!]]

** There is a shot where Sarah Connor appears on screen at the same time as the T-1000 is mimicking her. This shot was achieved using Linda Hamilton's twin sister Leslie Hamilton Gearren. Apparently the filmmakers were not aware until production commenced that Hamilton had a twin because the original plans were to use more complex camera tricks and film editing.

** The twins Don and Dan Stanton allow a mental hospital security guard and the T-1000 in his form to appear together.
* Don and Dan Stanton played two scientist twins in ''Film/Gremlins2TheNewBatch''.
* Don and Dan Stanton had a minor part (a cameo, basically) in ''Film/GoodMorningVietnam''.

* ''{{Terminator}} 2: Judgment Day'',

[[folder: Anime & Manga]]

* ''Manga/RanmaOneHalf'': Semi-example: when Angela Costain, the North American dub actress for Nabiki Tendo, wanted to attend flight school, her sound-alike sister Elaina Wotten-Costain took over the character for season six. Her performance was perfectly indistinguishable from her sister's -- many fans didn't notice the actress had changed

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* ''Series/{{Animorphs}}'': Jake (Shawn Ashmore) gets taken over by a Yeerk. The team needs a fake Jake while he recovers from the infestation. Ax morphs into Jake, a role played by the actor's twin Aaron. ''Far'' from the last time these two would be in the same show, though as noted above, the director of ''X-Men'' didn't realize he could've cast the twin to make the scenes of the real Iceman and Mystique-as-Iceman much easier.

** And the favor was returned on ''{{Smallville}}'', where AaronAshmore plays Jimmy Olsen, and Shawn Ashmore makes the occasional double work possible.
** These same twins were also used for the role of Jake in the ''Series/{{Animorphs}}'' TV show, listed below.
** Funnily enough, Aaron Ashmore (Jimmy Olsen) had the part of BOTH twins in a movie called ''MyBrothersKeeper'', while they used Shawn for stuntwork.
* PenelopeCruz's younger sister Mónica (who looks exactly like her) was used as her double in ''PiratesOfTheCaribbean: On Stranger Tides'' to [[HideYourPregnancy hide the fact that Penelope was pregnant]].

* ''{{Dollhouse}}'': in "The Attic", Enver Gjokaj's non-actor twin was used in a dream where Victor had to continually fight an enemy version of himself.
* ''{{Sliders}}'': For three episodes, Rembrandt's double was played by Cleavant Derricks' twin Clinton Derricks-Carroll. In the first of these, they actually looked so different that it was preposterous Rembrandt's friends could get them confused. (The show even included a cringeworthy "how'd they do that?" scene with the doubles repeatedly circling each other in awe and touching each other's faces.) In the second, makeup made them sufficiently indistinguishable that they traded roles for the final scene, with Clinton playing the Rembrandt who slides away with the group. Few viewers noticed. In the low-budget Sci-Fi Channel seasons, Cleavant played all the Rembrandts.
* ''FullHouse'': Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen spent eight years alternating in the role of Michelle, for the standard child labor law workaround. They were on screen simultaneously several times: a nightmare scene where Uncle Jesse sees two Michelles, an identical distant cousin visiting from Greece, a GoodAngelBadAngel scenario, and a dream sequence in the final episode when Michelle had amnesia and the other Michelle represented the memories that she'd forgotten.
* ''BigBrother'': Reality TV example: In the Australian Big Brother house, a pair of twins posed as one housemate and would swap in and out at Big Bro's command. This happened in a season of the American version as well

* When Jill Hennessey of ''Series/LawAndOrder'' was playing Claire Kincaid on a crossover with ''HomicideLifeOnTheStreet'', she was mostly absent from the ''L&O'' set in New York. The producers brought her identical twin sister Jacqueline -- an occasional actress -- in to play Claire in the episode "Corpus Delicti" in wide shots, reaction shots and inserts, while Jill still filmed the dialogue scenes.

** The [[SidAndMartyKrofftProductions Sid and Marty Krofft]] show ''Electra-Woman and Dyna-Girl'' did an episode where the evil Spider Lady turns herself into a look-alike of Electra-Woman. Once again, Deirdre Hall was Electra-Woman, while the Spider Lady doppelganger was played by Andrea Hall.

** The twins Don and Dan Stanton allow a mental hospital security guard and the T-1000 in his form to appear together. Those two also played two scientist twins in ''Gremlins2TheNewBatch''. They also had a minor part (a cameo, basically) in ''GoodMorningVietnam''.

* The [[SidAndMartyKrofftProductions Sid and Marty Krofft]] show ''Electra-Woman and Dyna-Girl'' did an episode where the evil Spider Lady turns herself into a look-alike of Electra-Woman. Once again, Deirdre Hall was Electra-Woman, while the Spider Lady doppelganger was played by Andrea Hall.

* ''Seventeen Again'': The entire plot is that the grandmother is [[FountainOfYouth rascalized]]... and becomes the [[IdenticalGrandson spitting image of her granddaughter]], played by Tia Mowry. The rascalized grandma, naturally, is then played by Tamera Mowry, Tia's twin sister. (And just for kicks, the granddaughter's younger brother is played by...the twins' younger brother Tahj.)

* In 1977, a year after Deirdre Hall began playing Dr Marlena Evans on ''DaysOfOurLives'', her twin sister Andrea was brought in to play Marlena's twin Samantha. Samantha was later killed off, but Andrea Hall again returned to the show to play Marlena's doppelganger Hattie from 2000-2001.

* When Jill Hennessey of ''LawAndOrder'' was playing Claire Kincaid on a crossover with ''HomicideLifeOnTheStreet'', she was mostly absent from the ''L&O'' set in New York. The producers brought her identical twin sister Jacqueline -- an occasional actress -- in to play Claire in the episode "Corpus Delicti" in wide shots, reaction shots and inserts, while Jill still filmed the dialogue scenes.

* Done in ''House of Anubis'' where Jade Ramsey's twin, Nikita, was brought into the show for a few episodes to play Patricia's identical, yet [[PolarOppositeTwins completely opposite]] twin sister, Piper.

* An episode of TheLatestBuzz involves Amanda dating a guy who looks exactly like Wilder, naturally he was played by Munro Chamber's twin.

* The Mowry twins actually subvert this in StrongMedicine. Dr. Kayla Thornton, the local ex-TeenGenius HospitalHottie (Tamera), ''does'' have a twin named Kesha (Tia), but she only appears once in the plot. [[spoiler: And Kesha turns out to be TheOphelia, contrasting with SugarAndIceGirl Kayla.]]

* ''JukenSentaiGekiranger'' had an episode where the [=MOTD=] creates an EvilTwin of [=GekiBlue=], who was played by the actor's identical twin brother. These two have a habit of showing up in each other's shows.

* Also there's the Bella Twins, Brie and Nikki. Brie debuted first and, whenever she was in trouble, she rolled under the ring to let Nikki finish the match. Now they wrestle as a tag team. The twins revealed in an interview that in the early days when only Brie was wrestling regularly, sometimes Nikki would pretend to be her and go out and wrestle the match as her.

* In episode 25 of ''GoseiSentaiDairanger'', when the Dairangers fought evil clones of themselves, Kazu's evil clone was played by Daisuke Tsuchiya, the real-life twin brother of Kazu's actor, Keisuke Tsuchiya. The roles were later inverted in ''[[MetalHeroes B-Fighter]]'', where Daisuke was the main hero (Blue Beet), while Keisuke played his evil twin (Black Beet).

* ''FullHouse'': During eight years of alternating in the role, put Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen on screen simultaneously several times: a nightmare scene where Uncle Jesse sees two Michelles, when an identical distant cousin visited from Greece, a GoodAngelBadAngel scenario, and in a dream sequence in the final episode when Michelle had amnesia, and the other Michelle represented the memories that she'd forgotten. Also made use of in the standard child labor law workaround.