Hey, It's That Guy! - Television Tropes & Idioms

alt title(s): Hey Its That Guy

Hi! I'm Troy McClure. You Might Remember Me From such films as The Boatjacking of Supership 79 and Hydro, the Man With the Hydraulic Arms.

— Troy McClure, The Simpsons

In the surprisingly awesome non-Batman Nolan movie, The Prestige, David Bowie invents a teleportation machine for Wolverine because he thinks Batman killed his wife.

— Cezary Jan Strusiewicz , Cracked

When you see someone you've seen elsewhere in a different role appear on another program, this thought may go through your head:

"Hey! It's That Guy! He played [someone else] in [another show]."

Alternately, you might think, "Well, I guess there are Only So Many Equity Members." Same thing. If it's from the same show you're watching, you have You Look Familiar.

This trope becomes more intense with certain narrow categories of actors. For instance, if a middle-aged character actor gets a good rep—there is nothing like personal connections in a crowded, cut-throat business like the Hollywood acting pool—he can appear in numerous movies and TV shows each year. Ronny Cox is a good example among actors always available as white male authority figures, Lou Gossett as black male establishment types of any social class, Mako in any middle-aged male role requiring an Asian (er... while he lived, anyway), and Tim Curry as any evil bloke who dies in the end.

Another excellent category for this trope is dwarfs: there are only so many good, trained adult actors just over three feet tall and even fewer with the connections to constantly get speaking parts. Most long time movie and television will recognize a half-dozen familiar faces on small bodies: Billy Barty, who played these roles from the 1930s to the 1990s (180 entries just in the IMDB, beginning at age five!), Billy Curtis (High Plains Drifter), Warwick Davis (Willow, the Leprechaun and Harry Potter films, and Prince Caspian), and the great Michael Dunn (Ship of Fools and The Wild, Wild, West.)

If you're watching Law And Order or other Clueless Mystery, it might result in Narrowed It Down To The Guy I Recognize.

Voice actors in animated shows, Western and Eastern, as well as live action voice dubs for foreign-language shows, have the similar syndrome Hey Its That Voice.

American stunt performers, particularly ones that belong to minority groups, tend to keep popping up in a variety of different TV shows and movies. James Lew, Al Leong and Jeff Imada are just three examples that spring quickly to mind. They often play Evil Minions but may sometimes be upgraded to The Dragon or even the Big Bad.

If you can't quite remember which show the actor was in, it can result in much time spent on IMDB

, trying to narrow down where else the viewer has seen that actor. If you get stuck, try You Know That Guy — someone might help you.

Compare Actor Allusion, You Look Familiar, You Might Remember Me From, Hey Its That Voice. Inverse of Retroactive Recognition. Parent trope of WTH Casting Agency. When you just can't shake off the image of the older roles, it's Role Association.

Hey It's That Guy!, now in convenient book form

Sub-categories:

Other Examples:

Theatre

The original London production of Angels In America featured Lucius Malfoy and James Bond as gay lovers. Enough said.
- And how about the miniseries? Michael Corleone is a corrupt lawyer struggling with AIDS, whose protegee/son figure Dan Dreiberg discovers that he's gay—much to the dismay of his mother Miranda Priestly and his wife Nancy Botwin—and has started an affair with Lenny Meyer, who has left his dying lover ''Andy'' Botwin whose only friend in such a time of need is Felix Lieter. Also, Professor Trelawney is an Angel. So Yeah.
In the concert version of Sweeney Todd, Barney Stinson is taken in by Mrs. Lovett and the titular barber, whose wife—played by the Witch from Into The Woods—tried to poison herself and now wanders the streets as a crazed beggar. The film adaptation gets even worse in terms of role association.
- Film adaptation? The cast of Harry Potter gets killed off by Jack Sparrow.

Video Games

Happens a lot with Raphael Sbarge for This Troper, both in the video game industry and outside. Example? Carth Onasi is a snarky, badass clone with a taste for blowing things up.
- He's also a Space Marine who fights Geth and gets psychic nosebleeds.
- The most jarring example, however, was when it turned out the good ol' Republic pilot was also an Alien Abduction survivor suffering Survivors Guilt in a cheesy X-Files ripoff.

Web Original

Dr Horribles Sing Along Blog is about Barney Stinson attempting to take over the world ("OF COURSE!") with Howard Wolowitz as his ~~sidekick~~ "evil moisture-buddy" and win the heart of Codex as Malcolm Reynolds tries to thwart him. (Oh, and Buffy has a tiny cameo.)
Former Wesley Wil Wheaton is Fox, leader of the Axis of Anarchy in The Guild