Basic Trope: A character's secret identity is played by another actor.
- Straight: Bob plays the role of Alistair, one of the protagonists. Later, it's revealed that Alistair is a mysterious Emperor Evulz, whom they all were fighting against, but up until this point, Evulz is played by Charlie.
- Exaggerated: Alistair has several identities, and all of them are played by different actors.
- Downplayed: Bob plays both characters. Charlie is a voice-actor who just dubs over Bob's lines whenever he's disguised as Evulz.
- Justified: Alistair is a shapeshifter and he uses a different appearance when he is Emperor Evulz.
- Inverted: Alice plays both Betty and Charlotte, even though they are different people.
- Subverted: The Evulz played by Charlie was actually a body-double hired by Alistair/Evulz to fool his companions into thinking he and Evulz were two different people...
- Double Subverted: ... however, after the reveal, some of his ex-companions point out that he's been absent whenever they encountered the so-called double. Alistair is forced to admit that he made the body-double story up so that, if he was defeated and captured, they would think that the (non-existent) body-double was behind Evulz's more evil acts. In reality, Alistair and the Evulz they encountered in the past are (despite being played by two different actors) one and the same.
- Parodied: In the unmasking scene, when Evulz reaches for his mask, he is played by Charlie, a muscular, tall actor. The scene cuts a shot of the other characters gasping in surprise. The scene then cuts back to the unmasked Evulz, now played by Alistair's actor Bob, who is short and ridiculously obese. One of the onlookers shouts "I knew it!"
- Zig Zagged: In his more prominent scenes, Evulz is played by Charlie. In scenes where Evulz is present, but in the background, he is played by Alistair's actor, Bob; this is because, in his less-prominent scenes, the character isn't given enough focus for the audience to figure out his real identity. Plus, it's cheaper than paying Charlie to keep coming in for every scene where Evulz is present.
- Averted: Bob plays Alistair even when he is in disguise.
- Enforced:
- The studio believes that the audience will guess the real identity of Evulz unless they hire another actor to play him.
- The plot twist that Alistair was actually Evulz wasn't thought up until after the two characters had already been cast as two different actors.
- Lampshaded: "Wait, you're Emperor Evulz? But isn't he, like, a few inches taller than you?"
- Invoked: ???
- Exploited: ???
- Defied: Bob uses his acting skills to make himself unrecognizable when he plays Evulz.
- Discussed: ???
- Conversed: "I'm telling you, in the finale, it'll turn out that Alistair is Emperor Evulz. Yeah, I know that it's not the same actor, but haven't any of you ever seen Psycho?"
- Deconstructed:
- Meta: Because of the reveal, Bob is assumed by the audience to have played Evulz the whole time; Charlie never gets the recognition he deserves for the part.
- In-Universe: Even after the reveal, nobody believes that Alistair is Emperor Evulz; everybody just assumes that it has to be a trick because of the two characters' differences in appearance and voice.
- Reconstructed:
- Meta: Charlie was actually a friend of the show's creator who got roped into the part and not a professional actor; as such, the fact that he typically doesn't get recognition for having played Emperor Evulz doesn't bother him much, if at all.
- In-Universe: Some genre-savvy characters decide not to rule Alistair out on this alone; they keep an eye on him, do some investigation, and - although it's hard for them to swallow given the aforementioned physical and vocal differences - confirm via their findings that Alistair and Evulz are, in fact, the same person.
- Played For Laughs: After The Reveal, Alistair's ex-companions snark that he looked a lot better with the disguise on.
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