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1	There are three main reasons why a show or film might end up having multiple actors play the same role. All these methods dovetail neatly with the LiteraryAgentHypothesis, the conceit that to the characters, nothing has changed, because the actors are merely playing roles in stories that "actually happened."
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3	# The original actor might have left, due to injury, contract dispute, illness, or even death. The most common way to handle this is to [[DroppedABridgeOnHim dispose of the old character]] [[PutOnABus in some way]], and add [[SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute a replacement]]. However, if the producers choose to not write out the original character, they will need to do an actor swap. Three ways to do this are:
4	** FakeShemp: Hide it by minimizing the audience's view of the substitute.
5	** TheNthDoctor: Explain it on-screen, using AppliedPhlebotinum or MagicPlasticSurgery.
6	** TheOtherDarrin: Just do it with no InUniverse explanation.
7	# In some cases, an actor may be replaced in the middle of production. Obviously, it would be too confusing to have the same character be played by two different people in the same film/episode. That is, unless [[Film/Plan9FromOuterSpace your name is Ed Wood]]. Therefore, this can only be handled by:
8	** TheOtherMarty: Reshoot everything with the replacement.
9	# Alternately, the character might need to be aged, or made younger, beyond the capacity of cosmetics to do convincingly. Again, an actor swap is needed. Two common examples are:
10	** TimeShiftedActor: When the show has hefty time compression, squeezing decades into hours.
11	** SoapOperaRapidAgingSyndrome: The show is in real time, but the character ages unnaturally fast.
12	# The fourth reason of three is double casting, where multiple actors share a role in a stage play, each taking it on different nights. In the West, this is mostly only done with children, due to the acting time limits for kid actors, but in Japan and Korea, it's quite common across all roles.

Context Main / ActorSwap