There are times when one person is played by a set of twins, and there are times when a set of twins are played by twins (or triplets, etc.). What's rarer is when a pair of twins are played by the same person.
Of course, there are more actors without twins than there are pairs of twins who are both actors. Finding a pair that are identical enough and are both suitable for the part may be very hard and much more effort than just the one.
Reasons for casting this way include when on Long-Runners the twin reveal is a plot device thought up for an already developed character later on, and the actor hasn't got a twin. Other times, the production really wanted to hire a certain actor because of their marketability or skill massively outweighing pairs of twins that auditioned. Necessarily they are Always Identical Twins. The role in the story may take the form of the Backup Twin.
However, though it may seem as though you could save money by hiring one actor to play two parts, it may cost more. If the twins ever interact then you're going to need to hire at least one other person to be a stand-in (and spend a lot of time finding someone who looks like the twin actor) as well as spend twice as long filming these scenes. You're also going to be paying the actor for two roles, not one. Still, the availability of twin-less actors plus their appeal may start saving the production money and bring in more viewers, so earning the money back more. As well as that, some specialist acting agencies for twins ramp up the hiring cost because of the scarcity of genuine twin roles and/or actors.
A form of Acting for Two and usually achieved via Double Vision. The opposite of Making Use of the Twin. Not to be confused with Actor Plays Their Own Relative, which is when an actor plays someone they are related to in the real-world. Of course, if an actor is playing themselves and their twin, it would fall into both tropes.
There can also be In-Universe examples, for when there is a Show Within a Show. If a character pretends to have a twin that's the Fake Twin Gambit.
Note that only examples of twin/related characters should be listed: clones, doppelgängers, and other identical counterparts are more typically played by the same actor and not part of this trope. Voice Actors who voice both of a pair of twins go on Acting for Two.
Examples:
- In a 1990s commercial for Diet Pepsi, Ray Charles introduces his twin brother Irv Charles, also played by Ray. In addition, the Raeletts (a trio of backup singers) have a set of twins, the Irvettes.
- Mari Natsuki voices both Yubaba and her twin Zeniba in Spirited Away. This is carried over to the foreign dubs, with the late Suzanne Pleshette voicing both roles in the English release.
- In Adaptation., Nicolas Cage plays both Charlie Kaufman (a fictionalized version of the film's screenwriter) and Donald Kaufman, his fictional twin brother.
- In Avatar, there's a plot point of a scientist dying before his expedition to Pandora and his twin brother being chosen to go in his place (as the titular avatar's configuration is a good enough match for a twin brother). Both are played by Sam Worthington.
- Beerfest plays this for comedy. After Landfill dies, his previously unmentioned identical twin, played by the same actor, arrives and fills his empty slot. He's essentially the exact the same person and even requests that the others call him Landfill, so that there is ultimately no narrative reason for Landfill to have died in the first place.
- Bette Davis in A Stolen Life and Dead Ringer.
- Bette Midler and Lily Tomlin each play a pair of identical twins in Big Business.
- In The Black Room Boris Karloff plays a good twin and the evil twin who kills him and takes over his life.
- In Bowfinger, Eddie Murphy plays Kit Ramsay and his nerdy twin brother Jiff.
- In The Cable Guy, Ben Stiller plays former TV child star Sam Sweet who is on trial for the murder of his twin brother Stan Sweet, also played by Stiller. Though the trial doesn't play into the main plot at all, they tie together into a joke at the end of the film when Ernie falls onto a satellite dish, disrupting the transmission all over town just as the verdict of the trial is being announced.
- Chris Rock plays a pair of identical twins in Bad Company (2002).
- An example spanning two films, but Chow Yun-fat plays the twins, Mark and Ken, in the A Better Tomorrow series. The first film ends with Mark getting machine-gunned to death, but thanks to Chow's popularity the sequel brings him back as Ken in a Remember the New Guy? moment.
- In the Christopher Nolan film The Prestige, Christian Bale plays Alfred Borden and his identical twin brother, who is heavily disguised and passed off as Borden's assistant Fallon whenever they appear together. The two brothers swap roles of Borden and Fallon, and when one of them loses a finger to injury, they work together to amputate the same finger from the previously-uninjured twin to maintain their role-swapping options.
- In Constantine (2005), Angela Dodgson is a twin whose sister kills herself at the beginning of the film. Both are played by Rachel Weisz.
- Dead Ringers: Jeremy Irons plays twin brothers Elliot and Beverly Mantle, two wealthy private practice gynecologists. Their interaction was mostly achieved via split screen.
- In Doctor in Distress (1963), Mylène Demongeot plays both Sonja and Helga Stromberg.
- Double Impact and Maximum Risk both feature Jean-Claude Van Damme playing two twin brothers.
- Edward Norton plays a pair of twins in Leaves Of Grass.
- Frankie Howerd plays both Richard the Lionheart and his separated-at-birth twin brother Lurkalot in Up the Chastity Belt.
- Freddie Highmore plays twins Jared and Simon in The Spiderwick Chronicles. Reportedly a number of viewers didn't know the characters were meant to be twins and thought Simon was played by another actor.
- Glass Onion: Andi Brand, played by Janelle Monáe, has an identical twin played by the same actor.
- In The Green Butchers, Nikolaj Lie Kaas plays both the cynical stoner Bjarne and his mentally-challenged brother Egil.
- The horror-mystery, HEX uses this as a plot point. Lady Chan (portrayed by Tanny Tien), who died halfway into the film after being poisoned and abused by her Gold Digger husband and False Friend handmaiden (who turns out to be in cahoots with the husband), after Lady Chan's massive inheritance, somehow returns from the dead as a Vengeful Ghost, cursing the perpetrators responsible for her death with the husband being Driven to Suicide and her false friend Driven to Madness. Except it turns out the "ghost" isn't one at all, it's Lady Chan's twin sister (portrayed by the same actress) pulling a "Scooby-Doo" Hoax - like posing as an apparition of Lady Chan wearing the same clothes she died in, digging up Lady Chan's corpse and placing it in her bedroom to scare the husband, and all that.
- In Inseparable, Benedict Cumberbatch plays Joe and Charlie.
- Jack & Diane: Juno Temple played both Diane and Karen, her twin.
- In Jack and Jill, Adam Sandler plays both the main character and the character's twin sister.
- King Eagle, a Shaw Brothers kung-fu film, has actress Li Ching playing a Cain and Abel set of twins. The sisters even fights each other a few times.
- In Legend, Tom Hardy portrays both Ronald and Reginald Kray, the infamous twin London Gangsters.
- Lindsay Lohan had another outing as twins separated at birth in I Know Who Killed Me, in which she played the bright-eyed and studious Aubrey, who turns up missing; meanwhile, her long-lost twin Dakota—a stripper who was abducted, tortured, and mutilated—suddenly surfaces and is mistaken for the former twin.
- Sean Young plays twins Ellen and Dorothy in A Kiss Before Dying.
- The Loved One has Jonathan Winters as the Reverend Wilbur Glenworthy, owner of Whispering Glades cemetery and mortuary, and his brother Henry Glenworthy, owner of Happier Hunting Grounds pet cemetery.
- Nikolaj Coster-Waldau plays identical twins Lucas and Jeffrey Desange in Mama. In the film, the latter dies in the opening act while the former fights child custody to be the legal guardian of the latter's now orphaned daughters.
- Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again reveals that Bill has an identical (albeit a bit wider) twin brother, also played by Stellan Skarsgård. They pull a Twin Switch at an award ceremony so that Bill can make it to the hotel’s grand opening.
- The Man in the Iron Mask goes with the theory that the titular man was King Louis XIV's secret twin, with both being played by Leonardo DiCaprio. This has been true of every film version of the story, including 1962's The Iron Mask, with Jean-François Poron in both roles.
- In the 1988 Richard Pryor comedy Moving, Randy Quaid plays Frank Crawford, a crazy, Vietnam veteran neighbor and his twin brother Cornell, who's the same way.
- Multiplicity: Features an increasing number of clones all played by Michael Keaton. The film was a technological step forward for techniques allowing an actor to appear as multiple characters and interact in the same shot. Part of why Keaton famously turned down Batman Forever was the novel acting challenge this film provided.
- The film My Brother's Keeper features Aaron Ashmore playing twin brothers. The irony? He has a twin who is also an actor (Shawn Ashmore) but was used for stunt work.
- The Lifetime film My Husband's Secret Twin involves a woman whose husband is kidnapped by his identical twin. The twins are played by the same actor, except the "evil" twin has a British accent and the husband has an American accent.
- Night Hunter (2019): Brendan Fletcher plays both Simon Stulls and his twin brother.
- In Now You See Me 2, Woody Harrelson not only continues playing Merritt McKinney from the first film, but also plays Merritt's twin brother Chase, who had been mentioned once in in Merritt's interrogation by the FBI in the first film as having been Merritt's former manager who stole all his money from him using Merritt's own hypnosis magic against him. In addition, the twin is secretly working for Arthur Tressler, the Big Bad.
- Done in both versions of The Parent Trap (the 1961 original starring Hayley Mills and the 1998 remake starring Lindsay Lohan). The lead plays both separated at birth twins, as they were split as part of their parents' divorce proceedings and kept secret from each other. They swap places to get to know their other parent after meeting at camp before planning to get them back together. For the original, Walt Disney wanted to get actual twins in the role...until he saw what the Double Vision effects looked like.
- Shock Treatment has Cliff de Young play Brad Majors and Farley Flavors, who are revealed to be separated by adoption twin brothers.
- Sin City: Jaime King plays Goldie and her Backup Twin Wendy. She returns in both roles for Sin City: A Dame to Kill For.
- Sinners (2025): Michael B. Jordan plays the twin brothers Smoke and Stack, partners in crime who share a deep bond. As they share many scenes together, the film makes heavy use of body doubles.
- In The Snowman (2017), Chloë Sevigny plays twin sisters Ane Pedersen and Sylvia Ottersen.
- The Social Network has Armie Hammer play the Winklevoss twins. The production team pioneered the now-common VFX technique of the Digital Head Swap, allowing greater flexibility for the twins to physically interact with the environment and each other.
- In There Will Be Blood, Paul Dano plays both Eli Sunday, the two-faced young preacher who squares off against Daniel Plainview, and Paul Sunday, Eli's brother who leads Plainview to the oil on his family's land in exchange for a finder's fee. Dano was originally cast in the much smaller part of Paul, but when the actor who played Eli suddenly left the production, he took the starring role of Eli on short notice. This is played for a gag when Daniel does a Double Take on meeting Eli for the first time after having already dealt with Paul.
- Mexican Film "Los Tres Huastecos" where Pedro Infante plays triplet brothers with different jobs and personalities. One of them is a bandit, the other is a general that is looking for him, and finally a priest that has to deal with all the mess his brothers cause. Also each one of them reflects the feelings of their brothers (by example, if the priest is praying, the other two has the impulse to pray, and if the bandit turns violent, the militar brother ends breaking a glass in fury).
- Through Black Spruce: Actress Tanaya Beatty plays both twins Annie and Suzanna Bird.
- Twin Dragons: starring Jackie Chan as John and Boomer. Identical twins Separated at Birth before reuniting 26 years later.
- Twisted Pair: Neil Breen plays both the Good Twin Cade and the Evil Twin Cale, who gained extraordinary abilities after aliens converted them into "artificial intelligence entities". Continued in the sequel Cale: The Tortured Crossing.
- Used in-universe as part of the plot of the comedy Two Much. Antonio Banderas plays a struggling artist who finds himself forcibly engaged to a wealthy woman (Melanie Griffith), but is way more interested in her sister Liz (Daryl Hannah). In order to date them both, he masquerades as his own twin brother, and even manages to perform a weird scene in which he's talking to himself so that people will see both twins at the same time.note
- In What Happened to Monday, Noomi Rapace plays a set of identical septuplets, each named after a day of the week.
- In Wonder Man Danny Kaye plays Edwin Dingle and his twin Buzzy Bellew.
- The half-forgotten parody Zorro, the Gay Blade was advertised to highlight this trope.
TV Announcer: George Hamilton! George Hamilton! And a cast of peasants in... Zorro, the Gay Blade!
- In The Acolyte, Amandla Stenberg plays identical twin sisters Osha and Mae.
- Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. features Patton Oswalt in the recurring roles of the identical Koenig quadruplets: Eric, Billy, Sam, & Thurston. In the final season of the show, Oswalt plays their Identical Grandfather Ernest.
- Soap Opera All My Children:
- David Canary played both Adam and Stuart Chandler.
- During Julianne Moore's run as Frannie Hughes, she discovers a twin sister/cousin (Sabrina, also played by Moore) while attending Oxford.
- Ruby Wax plays twin sisters Moffi and Toffi in the Andor episode "I Have Friends Everywhere".
- Are You Afraid of the Dark?: Tatyana Ali of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air plays a girl whose twin sister (also played by Ali) died trying to get rid of a demon spirit known as the eponymous Quicksilver in the episode "The Tale of the Quicksilver".
- Arrested Development:
- George Bluth Sr. and Oscar Bluth are both played by Jeffrey Tambor.
- It also has an exaggerated and quite literal example with the Richter quintuplets (all Andy Richter): Andy, the showoff; Chareth, the flirt; Donny, the sensitive one; Rocky, Andy's stunt double; and Emmett, who asked that his face not be shown on camera (even though it looks like his brothers'). This is also an Actor Allusion to Richter's role as the father on the short-lived Quintuplets.
- The Barrier: In the story's present day, Julia is the only survivor of a pair of identical twins. Her sister Sara is shown as an adult in several flashbacks, in which she's played by Julia's actress. The more common version of the trope is used in a photo depicting both sisters.
- In Baskets, Zach Galifianakis plays twins Chip and Dale Baskets. In contrast, their twin brothers by adoption Cody and Logan are played by actual twins Garry and Jason Clemmons respectively.
- Bewitched. Elizabeth Montgomery played both Samantha Stephens and her mischievous nearly identical brunette cousin Serena; however, because the characters were so different, many fans were unaware that Elizabeth played both parts. To keep the charade going, she adopted a pseudonym when credited for Serena as Pandora Spocks.
- Celina Jade plays Shado and her Canon Foreigner Backup Twin Mei in Arrow.
- Blake's 7: In the episode "Death-Watch", Steven Pacey plays Deeta Tarrant, twin brother of his regular role of Del Tarrant.
- Brooklyn Nine-Nine: One episode reveals that Norm Scully has a bespectacled identical twin brother named Earl Scully. Both were played by Joel McKinnon Miller.
- Parodied In-Universe in a "behind the scenes" episode of Childrens Hospital, where it's shown that one actor once played the part of a a character and his identical twin brother. The joke is that the actor already had an identical twin brother, and the producers had decided that using then-state-of-the-art CGI technology would be cheaper than hiring another actor.
- Chucky:
- Devon Sawa plays both Jake's abusive father, Luke, and Luke's twin brother and Jake's uncle, Logan.
- Lachlan Watson plays both Glen and Glenda.
- Citadel (2023): Roland Møller plays both Slije twins, Anders and Davik.
- The Columbo episode "Double Shock" featured Martin Landau portraying Dexter and Norman Paris, identical twins who use their looks to murder their rich uncle and cover their tracks.
- The El Chapulín Colorado episode "Cuando los gemelos no son buenos cuates" features a pair of twin dancers, both played by Carlos Villagrán. Hilarity Ensues due to their opposite personalities and the fact neither El Chapulín or a theatre assistant (Ramón Valdez) knew there were two of them, getting increasingly confused in the process. And it turns out the girlfriend of one of the dancers also has a twin sister that is also played by the same person (Florinda Meza).
- Dark Angel: Most or all of the X5 supersoldiers were created as pairs of identical twins, and in the two cases where we've seen both twins of a set onscreen, they were played by the same actor: Jensen Ackles played both Ben/X5-493 and Alec/X5-494, Jessica Alba played both Max/X5-452 and Sam/X5-453. Technically, they're clones, but they were created at the same time and aged normally from infancy to adulthood, so they're effectively the same as natural twins and the series refers to them as "twins" more often than "clones". Screenshots of Zack/X5-599, Tinga/X5-656, Brin/X5-734 and Krit/X5-471 are also used in the real-world book The Eyes Only Dossier for the files on their twins Lane/X5-600, Jewel/X5-657, Keema/X5-735 and Devon/X5-472.
- Dexter: Resurrection: David Dastmalchian plays both the Gemini Killer identical twin brothers.
- Eastbound & Down: Jason Sudeikis plays Kenny's best buddy and teammate Shane, and after Shane's passing, he reappears as Shane's surviving twin brother Cole.
- Elementary: In "The Leviathan", Sherlock spends the night with a pair of identical twins, Olivia and Gwen Lynch, who do not appear on screen together and are played by a single actress, Tonya Glanz.
- Family Matters: Jaleel White, playing his signature role of Steve Urkel and (on occasion starting with the second season) his southern belle-wannabe cousin Myrtle Urkel. This was a case of Urkel also playing a female character.
- Fargo Season 3: Played with for the Stussy brothers. Ewan McGregor plays both brothers, but Emmit is two years older than Ray. Ray is a balding, shifty, and bitter parole officer barely making ends meet, while Emmit is a handsome, enormously successful, "parking lot king of Minnesota". The resemblance the brothers have to one another becomes a plot point in episodes 4 and 5, when Ray impersonates Emmit by shaving his mustache and donning a convincing wig in order to get into Emmit's safety deposit box. Then one episode later, he and Nikki ruin Emmit's marriage by sending him a sex tape of themselves that's meant to be blackmail, but inadvertently is first discovered by Emmit's wife.
- There are several examples in Le cœur a ses raisons, with Anne Dorval playing both Ashley and Criquette Rockwell, James Hyndman playing both Peter and Pétèr Malboro, and Marc Labrèche playing both Brett and Brad Montgomery, as well as their secret triplet sister Brenda and their grandfather Clifford.
- In The Following, Sam Underwood plays both Mark and Luke Gray, a pair of Serial Killer twins.
- In the Game Show Fort Boyard, twin sisters Blanche and Rouge are played by the same performer, Delphine Wespiser (Miss France 2012).
- Phoebe on Friends and her twin sister Ursula are both played by Lisa Kudrow. It should be noted that Ursula was originally the ditzy waitress from Mad About You. In order to 'explain' why Lisa Kudrow was on two shows, they had a two-part crossover revealing that Ursula was Phoebe's sister.
- In Gentleman Jack, Anthony Flanagan plays pig farmer Sam Sowden. After Sam is killed by his son, Sam's twin brother comes to town, also played by Flanagan.
- Ghost Whisperer had an episode where the ghost of one twin haunted her sister. Both were played by Jessica Collins.
- Himmelsdalen: Josefin Asplund played both Helena and Siri, who are identical twins.
- Happened a couple of times on Home and Away. In the early days, Sharyn Hodgson had to double up as Carly Morris' twin sister Samantha whenever she appeared. Several years later, it turned out Kirsty Sutherland had an Identical Twin, Laura Degroot, who had been swapped at birth with another girl who was brought up as Kirsty's twin sister Jade; Christie Hayes played both Kirsty and Laura.
- Homicide: Life on the Street: In "The Wedding" Melissa Leo plays both Kay Howard and her twin sister Carrie, the latter under the pseudonym "Margaret May." While Carrie attends Meldrick Lewis's wedding, Kay spends most of the episode on a case with Gee.
- In House of the Dragon (the Game of Thrones prequel), Jefferson Hall plays both twin brothers Jason and Tyland Lannister. Interestingly also averted on the same show with Arryk and Erryk Cargyll, who are played by real identical twins Luke and Elliott Tittensor. This may be because Jason and Tyland, being the Lord of Casterly Rock and a member of the King's council, respectively, are rarely in the same place compared to the Cargylls, who are both Kingsguard knights.
- On iCarly, Jennette McCurdy plays both Sam and Melanie Puckett, identical twins who are polar opposites, in the episode "iTwins". She reprises both roles in the Sam & Cat episode "#Twinfection." Subverted In-Universe for the former, as Freddie believes Melanie is Sam in disguise.
- I Dream of Jeannie. Barbara Eden plays not only Jeannie, but Jeannie's evil twin sister (whose name is also Jeannie), and their mother (whose name is also Jeannie as well).
- I Know What You Did Last Summer (2021): Madison Iseman played both of the identical twin sisters Lennon and Allison.
- Joe Pickett (2022): In the second season, Alex Breaux plays both of the identical twin villains, the murderous "sovereign citizen" Grimmengruber brothers.
- Jonathan Creek: June Whitfield plays twinsnote Heidi and Laurel in "The Curse of the Bronze Lamp".
- A running gag in Last Week Tonight with John Oliver is John's conspiracy theory that there is only one Olsen "twin".
- Even the Main/Telenovela genre has several examples, but the most famous was "Lazos de Amor" where Lucero Hogaza played triplets that were separated due to a car accident, living different lives to the point that each one has a different personality (a capricious and sexy villainess, a humble working class woman and a blind sister obsessed to reunite all three). This leads to one of the most discussed endings in the history of telenovelas.
- On both Les Revenants and its American remake The Returned, the actress who plays Camille (Yara Pilartz and India Ennenga, respectively) also plays her twin Lena in scenes set before Camille's death.
- Liv and Maddie Rooney of Liv and Maddie are both played by Dove Cameron. They do interact a lot, so there are stand-ins as well as shots being combined to show both of their faces. The title sequence notably has Liv taking a selfie of the pair, obviously both in shot. Somehow, though (probably because Liv is likely wearing heels while Maddie isn't), Liv is taller. (In "Helgaween-A-Rooney," she plays triplets.)
- In The Lying Game, Alexandra Chando plays Separated at Birth twins Emma Becker and Sutton Mercer.
- In Lucifer, Tom Ellis plays both Lucifer and his twin brother Michael.
- Maniac Mansion (1990): John Hemphill plays Harry Orca, the maternal uncle of the Edison family who has been turned into a fly, as well as Harry's occasionally appearing twin brother Lenny.
- Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman: Martin Mull plays Garth Gimble, who dies after being impaled on a Christmas tree, and his twin brother Barth, host of Fernwood Tonight.
- My Three Sons: A four-episode arc to open the series' final season, in the fall of 1971, saw patriarch Steven Douglas' cousin from Scotland, Fergus McBain Douglas, arrive in Los Angeles in search of a wife. Although Fred MacMurray plays both his signature role and that of Fergus, it is voice actor Alan Caillou who dubs in Fergus' Scottish voice.
- NCIS: In the episode "The Good Samaritan", Heidi Dippold plays both Laura Seeger and her twin sister Linda.
- Night Court: William Utay plays Phil, a homeless bum who befriends Dan. After Phil's death Utay plays his Evil Twin Will.
- Northern Exposure: In "Jules et Joel", Rob Morrow plays both Joel and Joel's twin brother, Jules, though it was all a dream, and Joel doesn't actually have a twin brother.
- Once Upon a Time (2011) uses this with The Reveal early in the series that Charming (real name David) was actually a twin separated at birth - with David being raised by their shepherd parents while the other brother was adopted and raised as a prince by the evil king. After the prince's death, David is used to impersonate him. Josh Dallas plays both brothers, though they're never onscreen together and James (the deceased one) only appears in a couple of flashbacks. They finally share the screen in Season 5, as the cast goes to the Underworld for the second half of the season.
- On Orphan Black, two of the numerous clones played by Tatiana Maslany turn out to be Separated at Birth twins: Sarah and Helena.
- Our Flag Means Death: Nigel Badminton and his twin Chauncey are both played by Rory Kinnear.
- Patty Duke played identical twin cousins Patty and Cathy Lane on The Patty Duke Show. Years later, she would guest star on Liv and Maddie in 2015 (her final television role) as the title twins' grandmother Janice and her identical twin sister Hillary, in an allusion to her old series.
- In addition, William Schallert also played Patty and Cathy's identical twin fathers, Martin and Kenneth (respectively), in three episodes of The Patty Duke Show.
- Patty reprised her signature role(s) in a TV-movie reunion as well as a series of commercials for the Social Security Administration.
- In Popular a number of twins show up, and many are played by the same person, such as Emory Dick's younger sisters (who are the Alpha Bitches at their school) played by Alessandra Torresani.
- In Power Rangers: Dino Thunder, while looking at Tommy's Power Rangers database, Red Dino Thunder Ranger Conner mentions that his twin brother had attended the Wind Ninja Academy. James Napier Robertson (Conner) had previously played one of the academy's new students seen in the finale of Power Rangers Ninja Storm.
- In Ninja Storm proper, while it's not revealed at the time they interact with each other, turns out that Sensei Kanoi Watanabe and Big Bad Lothor (formerly Kiya Watanabe) were twin brothers, both of them played by Grant McFarland. Likewise, their younger selves in the Time Travel episode where Cam finds out are played by Daniel Sing.
- Pretty Little Liars:
- The season six finale reveals that Alison's mother Jessica (murdered several episodes back) has a twin sister in CeCe's mother Mary. Andrea Parker plays both roles.
- The series finale reveals that A.D. is Spencer's twin sister Alex Drake, also played by Troian Bellisario.
- Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin has Mallory Bechtel plays twins Karen and Kelly Beasley.
- In Quantico, Nimah and Raina Amin are both played by Yasmine Al Massri.
- Radio Enfer:
- In addition to playing Rodolphe Giroux, Pierre Claveau also once played his brother, Raymond, during the Season 3 finale.
- Sylvie Potvin, who played Mrs. Champoux (the school's cafeteria cook), also played the latter's sister for one episode from Season 4.
- Alejandro Moran played Maria's uncle, Rodriguo, during a Season 5 episode. In that same episode, he also appeared for one scene as her father, Ramon.
- Two of the main characters in Polish series, Ranczo, mayor Paweł Kozioł and his twin brother, priest Piotr Kozioł are both played by Cezary Żak.
- Ringer: Sarah Michelle Gellar plays a pair of twins, one of which dies in the first episode (except she doesn't) and the other pretends to be her.
- In Riverdale: Barclay Hope plays both Clifford and Claudius Blossom.
- Sabrina the Teenage Witch reveals in Season 3 that all the Spellmans have an Evil Twin. Naturally, when Sabrina and Aunt Zelda's twins appear, Melissa Joan Hart and Beth Broderick double up to play them (named Katrina and Jezebelda respectively). Aunt Hilda (Caroline Rhea)'s twin was only mentioned and didn't appear.
- In-universe in Scrubs where the Janitor pretends to have a twin brother. He fools no one.
- In one episode of the Israeli sitcom Shemesh, the eponymous main character dates a woman, played by singer and actress Michal Tzafir (who has three siblings but no twin sister), who claims her identical twin sister is a kleptomaniac to explain why some shop owners angrily kick her out of their shops. At first he's delighted at the prospect of a Twin Threesome Fantasy coming true, but later she invites her sister to meet him at the restaurant he owns, and when she does they keep stepping out to call the other and just barely missing each other repeatedly (both are wearing the same outfit, except one of them has a scarf). He thinks it's a Conveniently Unverifiable Cover Story meant to cover for her kleptomania and breaks it off, citing trust issues. The next day, both twins come to his restaurant, and when he tries to go back on his decision, his ex refuses, citing trust issues.
- Star Trek: Picard: In the first season, Isa Briones plays identical twin sisters Dahj and Soji and several other Soong-type organic androids. In the second season, she plays a 21st-century character who is implied to be a Soong ancestor or other relative.
- Strangers From Hell: Park Jong-hwan plays both Byeon Deuk-jong and Byeon Deuk-soo.
- In the Supergirl series, Supergirl's mother Alura Zor-El and her Evil Twin Astra are played by Laura Benanti.
- Teenage Bounty Hunters: Virginia Williams plays Debbie and her twin Dana.
- Toast of London: Harry Peacock plays both Ray Purchase and his albino twin brother Bill.
- Twin, despite the title, is a relatively downplayed example - Kristofer Hivju plays twin brothers Erik and Adam Moen, but the premise of the series is Erik pretending to be Adam after his death, so the two characters rarely share screen time, save for in flashbacks, after the first episode.
- Xena: Warrior Princess: Identical characters pop up all the time here.
- Joxer is one of a set of identical triplets, all played by Ted Raimi. Each of the other two (Jett and Jace) appears separately in a different episode.
- Gabrielle's daughter Hope, when she grows up (unusually fast, but Justified because the father is an evil god), is identical to her mother, and is also played by Reneé O'Connor. Hope impersonates Gabrielle on a number of occasions, and Gabrielle returns the "favor" at least once. The "three naked Gabrielles" of the episode "The Quill Is Mightier..." do not fit this trope, as they were played by body doubles, and O'Connor's face appears only in a couple of close-ups.
- Lawless, O'Connor and Raimi also play descendants of their characters in the Clip Show episode "The Xena Scrolls".
- Yonderland: Martha Howe-Douglas plays both the protagonist Debbie and the antagonist of the second season, Imperatrix, who turns out to be her Evil Twin.
- In Watson, Peter Mark Kendall plays a set of polar opposite twin brothers, workaholic infectious diseases expert Stephens and laidback functional medicine specialist Adam Croft, who are working for the eponymous doctor at the Holmes Clinic.
- Wynonna Earp: Rachael Ancheril previously played Mattie Perley. Here, she's Gretta Perley, twin sister of Mattie as well.
- In the Detectives United series, both Agent Brown and his Evil Twin Mortimer are voiced by Chris McCann.
- Half-Identical Twins Palom and Porom in Final Fantasy IV are both voiced by Rie Kugimiya in the original Japanese version.
- In the Super Mario Bros. series, the titular twin brothers, Mario and Luigi, are both voiced by Charles Martinet and later Kevin Afghani.
- Twin sisters Beth and Hannah in Until Dawn are both portrayed (including motion capture and voice acting) by actress Ella Lentini.
- Yakuza: Like a Dragon: Twin sisters Nanoha and Saeko Mukouda are both played by Sumire Uesaka (and accordingly by Elizabeth Maxwell in the English dub).
- IDGet explored this in a 2007 strip regarding odd casting choices in movies, including Lindsay Lohan as twins in The Parent Trap, which Lindsay justifies by saying, "What? It's not as if twins exist in real life."
- German actress Sandra Jessica Forster often films comedy sketches
of herself playing triplets arguing with each other (although in some sketches she's gone up to as many as five).
- Mr Peterson has a scene with twin sisters - Tomboy Maggie and Girly Girl Zoe. Both are played by Agnieszka Bialek.
- Both of the Teds from Hilltop Hospital were voiced by Paul Shane.
- Penn Zero: Part-Time Hero: Captain Super Captain and his villainous twin brother Professor Evil Professor were both voiced by Adam West.

