Real-Life Relative

Starring father and son as father and son.

"When I started out, I was so focused on trying to do what seemed impossible, which was to get to be a movie director. And then I thought, well, if I could ever be successful at it, how I wish I could help my father achieve his dreams or my brother."

— Francis Ford Coppola

When two or more characters in a show are played by actors who have some form of real-life relationship, be it familial or romantic, off-screen. The relationship is likely to be replicated on-screen: the actual family resemblance between real-life blood relatives can go a long way toward convincing the audience that their characters are family, and love scenes may well be more convincing if the participants are married in real life (though this isn't guaranteed). Another use of this trope is flashback scenes, having the regular actor's child or sibling play a younger version of them, ensuring a level of resemblance.

Can lead to some very interesting scenarios, including Actor Allusions, or may lead to more Reality Subtext issues than the production was actually looking for. (In films, this element can often be played up by the promotional machine.) For a more Squick version, there is Cast Incest, in which characters who are blood-related are played by actors who are in a romantic relationship. The even squickier inversion is Incestuous Casting, in which characters who are romantically connected are played by actors who are blood-related. It is also not unheard of for a couple to be on opposite sides of an on-screen divide, making for some interesting Dating Catwoman scenes. Band of Relatives shows it's common for musicians.

Compare I Want You to Meet an Old Friend of Mine, Couple Bomb, Actor Allusion, Historical Character's Fictional Relative (where a fictional character is related in-universe to a real person) and Romance on the Set (where actors start a real-life relationship after being cast as characters with an on-screen relationship). A Real Life Sibling Team, a Creator Couple, or someone in the Family Business will do this frequently.

For Professional Wrestling examples, see Wrestling Family.

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Examples:

Advertising

• In this commercial, Charlie Sheen is put through a series of steps in order to write a check. By the time they are done, he has aged into his father Martin Sheen.
• To celebrate their 60th anniversary, Sega introduced a new mascot: Sega Shiro, the son of Segata Sanshiro. Sega Shiro is portrayed by Maito Fujioka, the eldest son of Segata Sanshiro's actor Hiroshi Fujioka.

Anime & Manga

• In the English dub of AKB0048, the sisters Kanata and Sonata Shinonome are played by real-life sisters Juliet and Genevieve Simmons.
• Jill Harris broke news of her engagement to Dallas Reid in April 2019. Fans of Black Clover likely got a kick out of this, given their roles as Noelle and Asta.
• In the Latin American Spanish dub of Blood+, the antagonistic twins Saya and Diva are voiced by real-life sisters Xóchitl and Gabriela Ugarte, and their brother Víctor Ugarte plays Solomon Goldsmith, one of Diva's Chevaliers.
• In the English dub of the Cardfight!! Vanguard G anime, Chrono Shindou and Tokoha Anjou are voiced by Sam Duke and Emma Duke who are brother and sister.
• Though they were not in a relationship when working on the series, Steve Blum and Mary Elizabeth McGlynn began dating in 2016, effectively mirroring their roles in Cowboy Bebop as Spike and Julia. Blum later announced their engagement in March 2018, referring to McGlynn as his fiancée during a post-series finale Q&A session for Star Wars Rebels.
• The Mexican Spanish dub of the Cyborg 009 series has Jet/002 and Albert/004, who in-story are Bash Brothers and part of a family-like True Companions group, played by the real-life brothers Luis Alfonso and Ricardo Mendoza.
• Voice actors Amanda Winn-Lee and Jason C. Lee are married, which makes their roles as the Bonnie & Clyde-esque protagonists of Dead Leaves amusing and Shigeru Aoba (Jason)'s tanging scene at the hands of Rei (Amanda) in The End of Evangelion hilarious.
• In the English dub of Di Gi Charat Theater - Leave it to Piyoko-pyo! by Synch-Point, Dejiko and Rik are played by the married couple of Jessica Gee-George and Grant George.
• When Brazil would broadcast unaired episodes of the original Dragon Ball, the whole thing was redubbed. This amusingly led to Goku being Úrsula Bezerra as a child and her brother Wendel as an adult. (Wendel, who also voiced Goku in Dragon Ball Z around roughly the same time, auditioned for the child version too, but was passed over.)
• Wendel Bezerra also voiced the final form of Father in Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, who in his original form was his brother Ulisses.
• Travis Willingham (Roy Mustang in Fullmetal Alchemist) and Laura Bailey (Lust) are married, which renders the violent confrontation between Mustang and Lust in Episode 19 of Brotherhood Hilarious in Hindsight. While they weren't married yet at the time, they were in a relationship, and they find this just as funny as the rest of us do.
• Grand Blue's Iori Kitahara is voiced by Yūma Uchida. Nanaka Kotegawa, Iori's surrogate Cool Big Sis, is voiced by Yūma's older sister Maaya Uchida.
  • They also voiced Akatsuki and Suzuran in Kakuriyo: Bed and Breakfast for Spirits, who are brother and sister. Humorously, Yūma's character (Akatsuki) is the the older sibling of the pair.
• In the Latin American Spanish dub of Gunsmith Cats, the real-life couple Herman López and Norma Iturbe provide the voices for Roy Coleman and Becky Farrah, respectively.
• The English dub of Hensuki provides another retroactive example, as Clifford Chapin and Kristen McGuire (the voices of Keiki Kiryū and Mao Nanjō respectively) would announce their engagement in June 2021. Rather sweet (and hilarious), considering Mao hides her affection for Keiki and instead chooses to lend him a hand when he has to deal with the weirdness caused by his Unwanted Harem.
• In High School D×D, Issei Hyodo is an unabashed Harem Seeker and Cute Bruiser Koneko Toujou is one of the many members of his Battle Harem. (And, as revealed in the EX novel, they're married in the future.) In June of 2019, their voice actors Yūki Kaji and Ayana Taketatsu announced on their Twitter accounts that they tied the knot, leading to an influx of fan art depicting Issei and Koneko in wedding attire. Even Miyama-Zero, the illustrator for the light novels, congratulated the couple in the same manner.
• Hunter × Hunter features Megumi Han (as the protagonist Gon) and her real-life mother Keiko Han (as Gon's aunt Mito).
• Kageki Shoujo!! does this in both the Japanese and English language versions of the anime with the Sawada Twins, Chika and Chiaki. In Japanese, they're voiced by twin sisters Risae and Satsumi Matsuda, while in English, they're voiced by Monica Rial and her younger sister Natalie.
• In the English dub of Kaguya-sama: Love Is War, ex-couple Ko Ogino and Kyoko Otomo are voiced by real-life husband and wife Matt Shipman and Brittany Lauda.
  • Super HxEros, another Funimation dub from that same year (2020), would see the couple paired up as Retto Enjō and Kirara Hoshino, Childhood Friends with some friction between them who are (initially) unable to be honest about their true feelings for one another.
• Yuji Ueda and Omi Minami, who are married in Real Life, were cast in Martian Successor Nadesico as Akito Tenkawa and Ruri Hoshino. Despite hints of a Precocious Crush on Ruri's side, they're not a couple seeing as Ruri is a Little Miss Snarker and Akito's pretty much in his late teens; instead, he treats her more like a little sister especially in the episode about her Dark and Troubled Past.
  • This gets a bit more awkward in Doki Doki School Hours (Sensei no Ojikan) where they play teacher and student.
• Japanese voice actors Kenichi Suzumura and Maaya Sakamoto are married, which makes their playing Shinn Asuka and Lunamaria Hawke in Mobile Suit Gundam Seed Destiny all the more interesting retroactively, considering the two characters end up in a relationship. They're also the voices of Haruhi and Hikaru from Ouran High School Host Club, along with Shiki and Mikiya in The Garden of Sinners.
• Also relating to Mobile Suit Gundam Seed Destiny, Brent Miller and Nicole Bouma, the English voices of Sting Oakley and Meyrin Hawke are married in real life. They would both return for the dub of Mobile Suit Gundam 00, where they would voice Andrei Smirnov and Nena Trinity.
• Disney's English dub of My Neighbor Totoro has Dakota Fanning and Elle Fanning play the Kusakabe sisters.
• The English dub of the original Oh My Goddess! OVA series cast Scott Simpson as Keiichi and Juliet Cesario as Belldandy. They were dating in real life at the time the show was being recorded, and that arguably helped with their vocal chemistry.
• One Piece:
  • From the Funimation dub, Greg Ayres, who voiced Sentomaru and Cabaji, is the younger brother of Chris Ayres, the voice of Johnny and Mr. 11.
  • Ryunosuke Yamaguchi (Ryunosuke) is the son of Usopp's voice actor Kappei Yamaguchi.
  • From the Latin Spanish Netflix dub, Alejandro Orozco and his brother Luis Fernando voice Usopp and Hatchan, respectively, while their father José Luis Orozco voices Silvers Rayleigh and Toto. Likewise, Ricardo Mendoza voiced Pearl from the Krieg pirates, while his brother, the late Luis Alfonso Mendoza, voiced Higuma.
  • In the German dub, Sanji and Pudding, whose whole plotline is about being forcibly married, are voiced by real-life married couple Hubertus and Stefanie von Lerchenfeld. We also have Chopper's first and second voice actors, Florian and Martin Halm, who are brothers.
• Episode 7 of Pokémon Generations features married couple Lex Lang and Sandy Fox as Team Magma Leader Maxie and Team Magma Admin Courtney. That the latter exhibits Undying Loyalty toward the former and doesn't quite have her head on straight can come across as both cute and comically disturbing.
• Pokémon: The Series:
  • In the Brazilian Portuguese dub, May and Max were voiced by siblings Tatiane and Thiago Keplmair.
  • In the Hebrew dub, Ash was voiced by Yonatan Magon in Seasons 1-3, and by his younger brother Daniel since Season 4.
  • In the Czech dub, Radek Škvor was the voice of Ash until XY, whereupon his older brother Jan took over the role.
• Powerpuff Girls Z featured Matt Hill as the voice of Poochi for the first 37½ episodes. His nephew Simon took over the rest of the series.
• Saint Seiya has a lot of cases in the Brazilian dub: Athena was Letícia Quinto in the original; her daughter Bruna in Legend of the Sanctuary; and stepsister Luciana Baroli in Lost Canvas — where the mother of both, Rosa Maria Baroli, voiced the future Athena; Legend of the Sanctuary has Hiram Baroli voicing child Seiya, while his uncle Hermes (brother of Luciana, stepbrother of Letícia) is the grown-up one; and Kiki was Fátima Noya in the original show and her son Gabriel in Omega.
• The Latin American Spanish dub of Saint Seiya Omega has two cases:
  • Gerardo Alonso and Jahel Morga, the voice actors for Wolf Haruto and Aquila Yuna, are husband-and-wife.
  • The real-life brothers Luis Fernando and Alejandro Orozco play Max Brilliant Methone and Soul Killer Cyllene, respectively.
• Chris and Greg Ayres. Speed Grapher, Full Metal Panic!, Initial D, Dragon Ball Z Kai, Sengoku Basara...
  • Clearly done intentionally in Dragon Ball Super, where Chris plays Freeza and Greg plays his Alternate Universe counterpart Frost.
• When Spirited Away was released for the Brazilian region version of Netflix, the movie was redubbed with an almost completely new cast, but the original voice of Haku, Felipe Drummond, became the director for the new dub, and Haku was recast to Felipe's younger brother Eduardo.
• In the English dub of Wicked City, Gregory Snegoff and Alexandra Kenworthy, who are son and mother, play Taki and Mackie who are lovers.
  • Also in the original 1989 Streamline dub of My Neighbor Totoro, Snegoff voiced Tatsuo Kusakabe, while his (now late) wife Lisa Michelson voiced his daughter Satsuki.
• This was done on purpose in Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V with Yuto and Yugo, who are played by twin brothers Manpei Takagi and Shinpei Takagi respectively. The two are Identical Strangers, so they're supposed to sound very similar. It's especially apparent when they're both yelling, as it's very difficult to discern which voice is whose.
• Occasionally happens in other Funimation dubs. Jessica Dismuke played Yukina in YuYu Hakusho, while her brother Aaron played Shura, although the two never had a scene together. Meanwhile, their cousin Justin Cook played Yusuke, who, in a brief scene that showed him as a kid, was voiced by Aaron. Linda Young (Genkai) and John Burgmeier (Kurama) are also mother and son.
• In any cases an anime features a certain Honoka Inoue, you can be assured that she will have a mother voiced by her own mother, none other than Kikuko Inoue.
• Reign of the Seven Spellblades: Dallas Reid and Jill Harris, the English voice actors for respectively Carlos Whitrow and Katie Aalto, are married in real life. They have no scenes together.

Audio Plays

• Big Finish Doctor Who
  • In "An Earthly Child", Paul McGann's real-life son Jake guest-stars as the Doctor's great-grandson Alex Campbell.
  • Wendy Padbury's daughter Charlie Hayes plays Jen, Zoe's interrogator in multiple Companion Chronicles audios.
• Marlène Jobert writes children's books and there are audio adaptations of them. Jobert and her daughter Eva Green voiced some of them together.

Comic Books

• In-universe example: In Muppet Classics: King Arthur, Kermit the Frog plays Arthur, and his nephew Robin plays Arthur's nephew Mordred.

Films — Animation

• The Cars franchise stars renowned former NASCAR driver Richard Petty as the voice of Strip "The King" Weathers, an anthropomorphic version of Petty's aerodynamic 1970 Plymouth Superbird. In the first movie, Strip's wife is voiced by Richard's late wife Lynda, a station wagon that brought the Petty family to the races in the 1970s. In Cars 3, following Strip's retirement from racing, he has become crew chief to his nephew Cal, who is voiced by Richard Petty's son Kyle Petty.
• The Death of Superman and its sequel have Lois Lane voiced by Rebecca Romijn, the wife of Superman's voice actor, Jerry O'Connell.
• In the Icelandic dub of Hercules young Hercules was voiced by Ólafur Egilsson while his father, Egill Ólafsson, voiced Hades.
• In the first three Hotel Transylvania films, Adam Sandler voices Dracula. His wife Jackie voices Dracula's late wife Martha in a flashback. Their daughters, Sadie and Sunny, are also part of the cast. Sadie voiced a younger Mavis in the first film and played young werewolf Winnie throughout the films. Sunny voiced baby Dennis in the second movie and a baby werewolf with the same name in the third.
  • Selena Gomez's younger sister Victoria took on the role of younger Mavis in the fourth film.
• The Hindi dub of The Incredibles had father and son duo Shah Rukh Khan and Aryan Khan dubbing Bob Parr/Mr. Incredible and Dash Parr. 15 years later, they would dub Mufasa and adult Simba in the remake of The Lion King (2019).
  • The Brazilian dub of the first movie had aunt and nephew Márcia and Bernardo Coutinho as Helen Parr/Elastigirl and Dash Parr. Bernardo also debuted opposite father Marcelo Coutinho in The Hunchback of Notre Dame II, which even had them singing together as Zephyr and Quasimodo.
• In the first Lady and the Tramp film, Lee Millar, who voices Jim Dear, is the son of Verna Felton, who voices Aunt Sarah.
• Hesham Noor and Amani Shawqi are cousins in real life and they both dubbed adults Simba and Nala in the Egyptian Arabic dubs of The Lion King.
• In the Latin American dub of The Lorax (2012), the Once-ler is voiced by Arturo Mercado, while in the flashbacks, the young Once-ler is voiced by his son Arturo Mercado Jr..
• In Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa the younger versions of Alex and Gloria are voiced by the real-life children of Ben Stiller and Jada Pinkett respectively.
• The Italian dub of Puss in Boots: The Last Wish has a father-son duo: Diego Suarez voices Puss, while his son Riccardo voices Perrito.
• The Latin American dub of Ratatouille has Remy and Django voiced by real-life son and father Sergio and Héctor Bonilla respectively.
• The Brazilian dub of The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run had Spongebob himself, Wendel Bezerra, putting his son Enzo to voice the kid version of the character. Wendel’s daughter, Melissa, also voiced a younger version of Sandy in the same movie.
• The European Spanish dub of The Super Mario Bros. Movie features Mario and Luigi being voiced by real brothers, Guillmero and Rafa Romero, respectively.
• The German dub of Tom and Jerry: The Movie has Robyn Starling and her father voiced by real-life daughter and father Susanne and Joachim Kaps.
• For Turning Red this applied quite a bit in the Latin American Spanish dub:
  • Estefania Piedra voices Mei, while her cousin Jose Luis Piedra voices Tae Young.
  • Liliana Barba voices Aunt Lily, while her son Oliver Diaz voices Tyler.
  • Cristina Hernández and Ricardo Tejedo, both a real-life couple, voice Tyler's parents.

Films — Live-Action

Families with multiple examples

• Judd Apatow often casts his wife and daughters Maude and Iris in his films, such as Knocked Up, Funny People and This Is 40. His justification for using his own kids is that he doesn't like child actors and would rather not have to work with them.
• Kate Beckinsale's daughter Lily Mo Sheen has portrayed a child version of her (Kate) in the Underworld: Evolution and Everybody's Fine.
  • Lily also had a small part in Click.
• Monica Bellucci and Vincent Cassel were married and have appeared as a couple in L Appartement, Dobermann and Irréversible. Bellucci also has a cameo unconnected to Cassel's character in Sheitan.
• All of the (many) movies that have starred real-life husband and wife Richard Benjamin and Paula Prentiss.
• Humphrey Bogart and wife Lauren Bacall starred in three movies as a couple after their Romance on the Set in To Have And Have Not: The Big Sleep, Dark Passage and Key Largo.
  • He also played along with Mary Phillips, his second wife, in Broadway's Like That as husband and wife.
• Kenneth Branagh and Emma Thompson, then husband and wife, played Benedick and Beatrice in Branagh's Much Ado About Nothing (1993).
  • They also played Roman and Margaret in Dead Again and Henry V and Katherine in Henry V. And a couple of other things.
• Lloyd Bridges and son Jeff Bridges in Blown Away.
  • And brothers Jeff and Beau Bridges in The Fabulous Baker Boys
• Tim Burton often casts his real-life girlfriends (first Lisa Marie and then Helena Bonham Carter) with the latter getting the more meatier parts than the former as Bonham Carter was already a well-respected Academy Award-nominated actress before she and Burton hooked up.
• Jake Busey and father Gary Busey star together in Straight Time.
  • Jake Busey is also in The Predator—as the son of his father's character in Predator 2, Peter Keyes.
• Francis Ford Coppola is known for doing this in general. He hired his father Carmine to do the score for The Godfather. He cast his sister Talia Shire to play Connie Corleone in the movies. And in the third movie, his daughter Sofia Coppola was cast as Mary Corleone after Winona Ryder became unavailable. He's also cast his nephew Nicolas Cage in Rumble Fish, The Cotton Club and Peggy Sue Got Married. He has yet to work with his nephew Jason Schwartzman (Shire's son).
  • Speaking of The Cotton Club, estranged tap dancing brothers Sandman and Clay Williams were portrayed by real-life brothers Gregory and Maurice Hines.
• Real-life husband and wife Hume Cronyn and Jessica Tandy starred as husband and wife in several movies: Joe and Alma Finley in Cocoon and Cocoon 2: The Return, Frank and Faye Riley in batteriesnotincluded, and the Roeders in The Seventh Cross.
• Then-couple Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman in Eyes Wide Shut. Apparently, director Stanley Kubrick wanted a real couple for the scenes together. (He had thought about a different famous actor couple before; Alec Baldwin and Kim Basinger.) We all know how that ended up.
  • Tom and Nicole also starred in Days of Thunder and Far and Away as a couple.
• Some examples from movies starring Macaulay Culkin which feature his siblings:
  • Home Alone: Kieran Culkin plays Kevin's cousin Fuller.
  • The Good Son: Quinn and Rory Culkin appear as Henry's siblings Connie and Richard, whom Henry murders before the events of the film.
  • Richie Rich: Rory plays the younger Richie.
• Siblings John and Joan Cusack frequently appear together. In Say Anything... and Martian Child they played siblings. In High Fidelity, they play siblings yet again, and their real-life mother appears as the mother of their characters.
  • Since you have Susie, Joan, Ann, John, and Bill Cusack, just to name the acting members of the family, all of whom enjoy working together, it is a safe bet that if a Cusack has a substantial role in a film, one or more of the others has a minor role somewhere in the film. It's more the norm than the exception with this family.
• French comedy superstar Louis de Funès shared the screen with his son, Olivier de Funès, in six movies, either as father and son in-story (Les Grandes Vacances, Hibernatus), uncle and nephew (L'Homme orchestre), or unrelated (Fantômas Unleashed, The Big Restaurant, Sur un arbre perché).
• Clint Eastwood and family:
  • Sudden Impact, the fourth film of the Dirty Harry franchise, has Sondra Locke, who was in a domestic relationship with Clint Eastwood at the time, as the Rape and Revenge-driven serial killer antagonist, who eventually ends up sleeping with Harry.
  • Clint and daughter Alison Eastwood star together in Tightrope.
  • Clint and son Scott Eastwood can be seen together in Gran Torino and Trouble with the Curve.
  • Clint and daughter Francesca Eastwood in True Crime.
  • Clint and Kyle Eastwood in Honkytonk Man, as well as small roles in Bronco Billy, The Outlaw Josey Wales and The Bridges of Madison County.
• When actress and first-time director Vera Farmiga needed someone to play the younger version of her own character in the film Higher Ground, she tapped her then sixteen-year-old sister Taissa for the role, launching her acting career in the process. The film also had Vera's son Fynn Hawkey as Baby Abigail and Vera's & Taissa's sister in law Molly Hawkey as Molly. Taissa would later play Vera's daughter in At Middleton, and both appear in The Conjuring Universe (Vera as Lorraine Warren and Taissa as Sister Irene).
• Henry Fonda and his daughter Jane played father and daughter in On Golden Pond.
  • Peter Fonda's daughter Bridget Fonda appears as one of the hippie children in Easy Rider.
• Then-couple Jeff Goldblum and Geena Davis costarred in The Fly (1986), Transylvania 6-5000 and Earth Girls Are Easy.
• James Gunn frequently casts younger brother Sean Gunn, all the way back to Gunn's writing debut in Tromeo and Juliet. There is also a cameo of their parents in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, while Gunn's wife Jennifer Holland plays Emilia Harcourt in The Suicide Squad and Peacemaker, Ms. Espenschied in Brightburn (produced by James, written by his brother Brian and his cousin Mark), and Administrator Kwol in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3.
• Big Bullet stars real-life brothers Jordan Chan and Rucco Chan as onscreen brothers. The former plays a cop and the latter plays the former's informant.
• Dwayne Johnson's stuntman, Tanoai Reed, is his cousin.
• Real-life mother and daughter Diane Ladd and Laura Dern have played mother and daughter in at least six movies (cf Those Two Actors: Rambling Rose, White Lightning, Wild at Heart, Citizen Ruth, Daddy And Them and Inland Empire.)
• D-Day stars Mikhail Porechenkov and his real-life daughter, Varvara as his onscreen daughter.
• No one knew that porn stars Amber Lynn and Buck Adams were brother and sister until they were cast in the same film and were scheduled to have sex with each other. They put a stop to that pretty damned quick by revealing their relationship to one another.
• In Bridesmaids, Melissa McCarthy's husband Ben Falcone has a small role as a man her character (Megan) hits on and later hooks up with.
  • They also share scenes in Tammy, with Falcone as Tammy's Jerkass boss.
  • In The Boss, Ben Falcone plays Michelle Darnell's attorney.
    • In addition to Ben Falcone, Melissa McCarthy's eldest daughter plays Michelle Darnell as a child and her youngest daughter plays a background extra.
• Thunder Force has Melissa McCarthy's older daughter Vivienne appears as the younger version of her mom.
• Any Marx Brothers movie is, of course, an example, as Chico, Harpo, Groucho, and Zeppo were brothers in real life. In the movie Horse Feathers, Zeppo actually plays Groucho's son.
• Paul Newman and his wife Joanne Woodward appeared in ten films together. He also acted opposite his son Scott in The Towering Inferno.
• Chuck Norris starred in several films directed by his brother Aaron.
• The 1946 British war film, The Captive Heart, featured Michael Redgrave as a prisoner of war who has to fake his identity. His real-life wife, Rachel Kempson, played the widow of the dead soldier whose identity he steals.
  • Redgrave also acted with his daughter, Vanessa Redgrave, in Behind The Mask (1958) (her screen debut) and in the musical Oh! What a Lovely War (1969), with Vanessa playing his daughter in the former.
• Kurt Russell and family:
  • Real-life couple Kurt Russell and Goldie Hawn appear together as a couple in Overboard.
  • Russell's first wife, Season Hubley, makes an appearance in Escape from New York, and his son (with Goldie Hawn), Wyatt has cameos in both Escape from L.A. and Soldier.
  • Father and son Bing and Kurt Russell play father and son in Elvis (1979). Oddly enough, Kurt's first wife Season Hubley plays Priscilla Presley in this one.
• Adam Sandler often has his wife and daughters make cameos in his films, but they take center stage in You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah. The film stars his daughter Sunny Sandler as Stacy Friedman, with Adam playing her character's father Danny and her real life sister Sadie Sandler playing Stacy's sister Ronnie. Adam's wife Jackie also appears in the film as Gabi Katz.
• Martin Sheen and his sons Emilio Estevez and Charlie Sheen often appear in films together, though not always as relatives.
  • In Young Guns, Emilio's character is even more or less responsible for the death of Charlie's.
  • A very memorable scene from Hot Shots! Part Deux featured Charlie's character writing a journal as a nod to his role in Platoon, which then fades into Martin Sheen parodying a monologue from Apocalypse Now. The two then stand up and give each other the thumbs up as their boats pass, both saying "I loved you in Wall Street" (another film they both starred in, where they played father and son).
  • Then there was the film Men At Work, written by and starring Charlie Sheen and Emilio Estevez. They're not related in the film, however.
  • Estevez and Sheen also share screen time together in Loaded Weapon 1.
  • Another movie Martin and Emilio star together as father and son is The Way (2010).
  • Emilio and Martin also appeared in Charlie's sitcom Two and a Half Men.
  • Martin's brother Joe Estevez plays a minor role in The California Kid as the protagonist's murdered brother.
• Gary Sinise's son, Mac, played younger versions of Gary's characters in both Mission to Mars (2000) and Impostor (2001).
• Will Smith and his son, Jaden Smith, played father and son in The Pursuit of Happyness and After Earth.
  • He and his daughter, Willow Smith, played father and daughter in the 2007 film I Am Legend. Apparently, Smith is a fair dad and wanted to give both his kids a movie.
  • His two kids made cameo appearances in Men in Black II as two kids being neutralized in a climatic flying car chase scene.
• Jerry Stiller and his son Ben Stiller:
  • Zoolander is written by, directed by, and stars Ben Stiller. No wonder, then, that his father would be playing Derek Zoolander's agent, and his mother Anne Meara also featured in a cameo as a protestor. And his then-wife Christine Taylor as Derek's love interest Matilda.
  • The two play opponents of each other in DodgeBall: A True Underdog Story.
  • Also both star together in Heavyweights and The Heartbreak Kid (2007).
  • Jerry, Ben and sister Amy all had small roles in Highway to Hell, but their characters weren't related.
• During their marriage, Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton appeared in several films together; the most famous is Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?. Not that there's any irony in that.
• John Wayne and his son Patrick were in several movies together including The Searchers, McLintock! and Big Jake.
• The Willis family:
  • In Striptease, mother and daughter Erin Grant and Angela Grant are played by real-life mother and daughter Demi Moore and Rumer Willis (her dad is Bruce Willis).
  • In the movie Mortal Thoughts, Bruce Willis played a vicious wife-beater who constantly sexually harassed his wife's best friend, played by his then-wife Demi Moore. Made all the more complicated when the two filmed a violent attempted rape scene.
  • Bruce and Demi also voice a criminal couple in Beavis And Butthead Do America. Bruce's character starts the plot by hiring assassins to kill Demi's character.
  • Bruce Willis and Rumer Willis can be seen together in Hostage.
  • In Bandits, Willis dines with a kidnapped bank manager's family. Said manager's daughters are Willis' oldest (Rumer) and youngest (Tallulah), with the former delivering an amazing belch.
  • Bruce's three daughters appeared in The Whole Nine Yards as the kids who run between Jimmy and Oz when they are standing next to the flower cart.
• Luke Wilson and Owen Wilson, brothers in real life, were together in The Royal Tenenbaums, but not as brothers (Luke played Ritchie Tenenbaum, while Owen played Eli, a friend of the Tenenbaum kids). They were also in Disney's Around the World in 80 Days (2004) — as the Wright Brothers.
  • Luke also appears with his other brother, Andrew, in Idiocracy. Andrew is Beef Supreme, one of the "corrections personnel" trying to kill Joe (Luke) in "Rehabilitation".

Individual films

• In the German movie 7 Zwerge, an adaption of Snow White, the Evil Queen and Snow White are played by Nina Hagen and Cosma Shiva Hagen respectively, who are mother and daughter. (The biological kind, not the "step-" kind.)
• Aliens:
  • A scene which was cut and later reinstated for the DVD release shows Newt's parents and brother, Timmy. Timmy was played by Carrie Henn's brother Christopher, who had read the part to help Carrie out and was ultimately cast in the small role.
  • In another deleted scene, Ripley is shown a photograph of her late daughter, who had grown old and died while Ripley was in hypersleep in a spaceship that fell adrift. The resemblance is uncanny because the photo is of Sigourney Weaver's real mother.
• Already Tomorrow In Hong Kong: Jamie Chung and Bryan Greenberg are married, playing characters in relationships with other people who have a mutual attraction.
• In The Alternate, starring Eric Roberts and Bryan Genesse, both Roberts' wife Erica and Genesse's wife Brooke appear.
• In the film version of Arn: The Knight Templar Gustaf Skarsgård appears as King Knut. Gustav's younger brothers Bill and Valter appear in the second film playing Knut's sons Erik and Jon. Their father, Stellan Skarsgård also appears in the films as Jarl Birger Brosa, but his character is not related to the characters his sons play.
• Barbarella: Jane Fonda (the star) and Roger Vadim (the director) were married during production.
• In the film Barney's Version, Dustin Hoffman's son Jake plays his grandson.
• In the comedy Blades of Glory, Will Arnett and Amy Poehler (then married in real life) play a pairs team of brother and sister. Towards the end of the movie, their real-life relationship is replicated, with disturbing results.
• Eric Roberts and his sister Julia (in her film debut) played siblings in the long-forgotten Western Blood Red.
• Brimstone: Guy Pearce and Carice Van Houten are a married couple in real life. Which makes their characters' situation of Domestic Abuse and Parental Incest somewhat awkward.
• Burning Ambition stars siblings from Hong Kong's esteemed Wai family (all their members prominent stuntpeople), Austin Wai and Kara Wai as onscreen siblings. Ironically they don't share any scenes together due to Kara's character dying rather early in the film.
• In Cannonball, Coy Buckman is played by David Carradine while one of his opponents, Jim Crandell, is played by David's brother Robert Carradine.
• In Carrie (1976), Priscilla Pointer plays her daughter Amy Irving (Sue Snell)'s character's mother, something which Brian De Palma seems to have done in Sisters (1973), too, with Jennifer Salt's mother playing her mother.
• In Chaplin, the biopic of Charlie Chaplin, Geraldine Chaplin plays her own grandmother.
• In the 1938 film of A Christmas Carol, Bob Cratchit, Mrs. Cratchit, and Belinda Cratchit were played by Gene, Kathleen, and June Lockhart.
• Christine: Morgan Spector, Rebecca Hall's husband, plays the doctor that Christine sees.
• The Chronicles of Narnia. Grown-up Lucy Pevensie at the end of the movie was actually played by Georgie Henley's older sister, Rachael Henley.
• Clara: Patrick J. Adams plays Isaac, while Troian Bellisario portrays Clara. Their characters become a couple, while they're married.
• In the "Weird Al" Yankovic mockumentary The Compleat Al, Al's parents play fictionalized versions of themselves.
• Coyote Ugly: The pictures of Violet's late mother are actually pictures of Piper Perabo's real mother as there was no need to cast an actress for the character.
• Creation: Charles Darwin's wife Emma is played by Paul Bettany's actual wife Jennifer Connolly.
• Criminal Activities: Matthew is played by Chris Haley, the son of director and co-star Jackie Earle Haley.
• In Cry Blood, Apache, Jody McCrea plays the protagonist Pitclain as a young man, and his father Joel McCrea plays him as an older man: an Advertised Extra part that allowed them to include Joel's name on the poster.
• In Daddy's Little Girls, the main character's three daughters are played by sisters China, Lauryn and Sierra McClain, and their names in the movie are China, Lauryn, and Sierra.
• In the film version of Danny, the Champion of the World, Jeremy Irons played Danny's father and his son Samuel Irons played Danny. Additionally, Jeremy Irons' father-in-law (Samuel's grandfather) Cyril Cusack played Doc Spencer.
  • The photograph of Danny's late mother was also, in fact, a photograph of Samuel Irons' actual mother (Jeremy Irons' wife, and Cyril Cusack's daughter, actress Sinéad Cusack).
• Dark August stars married couple J.J. Barry and Carole Shelyne as Sal and his girlfriend Jackie.
• Matthew Macfayden and Keeley Hawes, who play Daniel and Jane in the original 2007 version of Death at a Funeral, are married in real life.
• In Derailed (2002), Jean-Claude Van Damme's son Kristopher van Varenberg appears as his character Jacques Kristoff's son Ethan.
• In the movie A Dogs Breakfast, Patrick and his sister Marilyn are played by siblings David and Kate Hewlett.
• Donnie Darko, where the sister of the eponymous character (played by Jake Gyllenhaal) is played by Maggie Gyllenhaal, Jake's sister. Jake also wound up co-starring with his eventual brother-in-law Peter Sarsgaard in Jarhead.
• Both Malcolm McDowell and his nephew Alexander Siddig appear in Neil Marshall's 2009 film Doomsday, though sadly they do not share any scenes. Their characters are also unrelated, the former being a warlord in post-apocalyptic walled-off Scotland, and the latter the British prime minister of the remainder of the country who doesn't leave London.
• In the movie Eegah!, writer/director Arch Hall Sr. cast his son Arch Hall Jr. as the boyfriend of his character's daughter. There were probably some awkward moments on that set.
• In Eve's Bayou, Jurnee Smollett (Eve)'s real-life brother Jake plays Eve's younger brother Poe.
• In the film The Falcons Brother, The Falcon, Gay Lawrence, played by George Sanders, is helped by his brother, Tom, played by his real-life brother, Tom Conway. There is a striking resemblance.
• Cynthia Caylor, who plays Portia Leech in A Fish Called Wanda is actually Cynthia Cleese, the daughter of John Cleese, who plays Portia's father Archie.
• Janet Leigh and her daughter Jamie Lee Curtis in The Fog (1980).
  • Leigh also had a cameo appearance in Halloween H20: Twenty Years Later, which starred Curtis.
• In Freaks, the romance between the male and female circus dwarfs is muted — they were actually brother and sister in Real Life.
• In From Beyond the Grave, the peculiar father and daughter pair of Jim and Emily Underwood are played by Donald Pleasence and his daughter Angela.
• Gigli was centered on this. As a vehicle for Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez's relationship, it died along with public interest over their coupling, along with Kevin Smith's Jersey Girl which starred Affleck and had Lopez in a smaller role.
• In The Godfather, Michael Corleone's young son Anthony is played by Anthony Gounaris. In The Godfather Part II, he is played by Anthony Gounaris's older brother James.
• The real parents of The Goonies were cast as their parents for the final reunion, save for Mikey and Brand's parents being played by established actors.
• The Great Buck Howard stars Colin Hanks; his more famous dad Tom shows up briefly as his character's father.
• In Grizzly Mountain, Dan Haggerty stars in the show - as do his two children Dylan Haggerty and Megan Haggerty. Dylan is one of the protagonists, while Megan is the other sister. They have no apparent relationship to Dan Haggerty's character. All three siblings also share names with their actor counterparts.
• In The Guys, Sigourney Weaver's daughter is played by her real-life daughter Charlotte Simpson.
• Happy Death Day has a big role for Rachel Matthews, niece of director Christopher Landon.
• Harry Potter:
  • The first two movies have director Chris Columbus's daughter Eleanor as Susan Bones. Additionally, one of the moving portraits features a girl with flowers, who is played by another of Columbus' daughters.
  • In the first film, Tom Felton's grandfather, Nigel Anstey, appears as a background teacher. He's seen most prominently during the Quidditch match, where he's the bearded man seated next to Lee Jordan.
  • In the sixth movie, the 11-year-old Tom Riddle is played by Ralph Fiennes' nephew, Hero Fiennes-Tiffin.
  • In Deathly Hallows - Part One, Mad-Eye Moody is joined by Bill Weasley, who is played by Brendan Gleeson's son Domhnall. This may have been intentional, as when Bill gets attacked by Fenrir Greyback in the book version of Half-Blood Prince, his facial injuries were described as giving him "a distinct resemblance to Mad-Eye Moody."
  • In the epilogue of the eighth movie, Draco Malfoy's future wife Astoria Greengrass is played by Jade Olivia, Tom Felton's girlfriend.
  • Anna Friel apparently really wanted to play Remus Lupin's fiancee Nymphadora Tonks so that she could act alongside David Thewlis, her romantic partner at the time. The role went to Natalia Tena.
  • In the Polish dub of the movies, the actors voicing Filch and Draco Malfoy (from The Chamber of Secrets; the first movie had a different VA) are father and son.
• Hellboy II: The Golden Army: Blake Perlman (daughter of Ron Perlman) can be seen as the reporter in the gray sweater interviewing Hellboy outside the auction house.
• In The Hobbit film trilogy, James Nesbitt plays Bofur, and his daughters play Bard's daughters.
• In Disney's Hocus Pocus, "the Master" and his wife are played by (uncredited) real-life siblings Garry and Penny Marshall.
• In The Hoodlum, brothers Vincent and Johnny Lubeck are played by real life brothers Lawrence and Edward Tierney.
• Howards End cast aunt and niece Vanessa Redgrave and Jemma Redgrave as mother and daughter Ruth and Evie Wilcox.
• Jennifer Lawrence's nephews play Katniss and Peeta's children at the end of The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2.
• The 1949 film In The Good Old Summertime ends with a Time Skip to Van Johnson and Judy Garland's characters Garland's characters married and with a daughter of their own. The little one was played by Garland's daughter Liza Minelli, then two-and-a-half, in her movie debut.
• In Invaders From Mars (1986) the two leads the Kid Hero and his school nurse were played by Hunter Carson and his mother Karen Black.
• In the 2003 film, It Runs in the Family, Kirk Douglas, his son, Michael and Michael's son, Cameron played three generations of a family. Michael's mother is played by his real-life mother, Kirk's former wife, Diana Dill.
  • Kirk also appeared with his son Eric Douglas in movies like A Gunfight.
• In Kamen Rider: Beyond Generations, the young Takeshi Hongo/Rider 1 is played by Maito Fujioka, the real-life son of Hongo's original actor, Hiroshi Fujioka.
• In Kickboxing Academy, characters played by a real-life brother and sister (Christopher Khayman Lee and Chyler Leigh, despite the spelling) kiss. Awkwardness not avoided for viewers who know about this. This would not be the siblings' only onscreen kiss, leading to some speculations about those two...
• In Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, Robert Downey Jr..'s son Indio plays RDJ's character as a young child.
• Christopher Lambert and Diane Lane played love interests in the thriller Knight Moves while they were married in real life.
• In The Krays, a 1980s biopic of the famed London Gangster twins, they were played by real-life brothers (though not twins) Gary and Martin Kemp.
• Wah and Qiu Yuen trained under the same master at the China Drama Academy. They've appeared in quite a few martial arts films as a couple, most notably Kung Fu Hustle.
• Lara Croft: Tomb Raider: Richard Croft was played by Jon Voight, Angelina Jolie's father. The scenes where they appeared were filmed separately, as Jon and Angelina were still estranged at the time.
• Life Partners: Leighton Meester (Sasha) is married to Adam Brody (Tim). In fact it was around the time the film came out that they got married.
• Charlie Chaplin, director of and lead character in Limelight, cast his son Sydney Chaplin to play his rival Neville. It was Sydney Chaplin's film debut. Chaplin also often cast his wives in the main roles of his movies as The Tramp.
• Listen to Your Heart: Mitch, a minor character, is portrayed by Luke Moran, brother of Kent Moran (who plays the male lead Danny).
• The Little Hours: Dave Franco is married to Alison Brie, who plays Alessandra, a woman who's into his character Massetto.
• There is also Walter Hill's western The Long Riders, which starred James and Stacy Keach as Jesse and Frank James; David, Keith and Robert Carradine as Cole, Jim and Bob Younger; Dennis and Randy Quaid as Ed and Clell Miller; and Christopher and Nicholas Guest as Charley and Robert Ford.
• Near the end of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, there's a scene with Sam, Rosie, and their two children. The children seen are Sean Astin's (Sam) daughter and Sarah McLeod's (Rosie) baby daughter.
• In Love Again, Priyanka Chopra's real-life husband Nick Jonas pops up briefly as a man her character Mira Ray has a terrible date with.
• Lucky Luke (2009): Jean Dujardin and Alexandra Lamy married the year of release of this film (they divorced in 2014). And young Eleanor was played by Chloé Jouannet, Alexandra Lamy's daughter from her previous marriage to actor Thomas Jouannet.
• Machete: Danny Trejo played the main character Machete. His son Gilbert played Jorge, the kid who is always drawing.
  • Machete was also directed by Robert Rodriguez, who is Danny Trejo's second cousin.
• In Maleficent, two-year-old Aurora was played by Angelina Jolie's daughter Vivienne, as the other toddler actresses were too frightened by Jolie's costume to approach her. Meanwhile, Vivienne still recognized her mother and was naturally calm around her, the exact reaction that the scene called for. Since this was the moment that began Maleficient's Heel–Face Turn, it was crucial that the little girl be as natural as possible.
• In A Man Called Otto, the younger version of Tom Hanks is played by his son Truman. (the Brazilian dub did the same, as Marco Ribeiro's son Renan voices the young Otto)
• In Manos: The Hands of Fate, the actress who played the daughter, Debbie, Jackie Neyman, was actually the real-life daughter of the actor who played The Master, Tom Neyman. Well, that just puts a whole new spin on the ending, now doesn't it? Manos was an extremely low-budget movie made by a community theatre group, so pretty much everyone in it is at least a friend, if not actually a relative, of everyone else.
• For The Many Saints of Newark, a prequel film to The Sopranos, James Gandolfini's son Michael plays young Tony Soprano.
• Marvel Cinematic Universe:
  • The young Peter Parker in Iron Man 2 is not played by Tom Holland, but rather Max Favreau, director Jon Favreau's son.
  • Thor: The Dark World: Chris Hemsworth's wife Elsa Pataky was Natalie Portman's stand-in and played Jane in the post-credits scene.
  • Thor: Ragnarok:
    • Chris Hemsworth's brother Luke plays a stage actor playing Thor at Asgard, which doubles as a Development Gag since their brother Liam was originally considered for the role before his older brother was cast.
    • One of the girls asking Thor for a selfie in New York City is portrayed by Chris Hemsworth's second cousin, Taylor Hemsworth.
    • Two of the women who nurse Thor back to health after the fight against Hulk are played by Taika Waititi's and Chris Hemsworth's wives, Chelsea Winstanley and Elsa Pataky.
    • There's a scene where Heimdall saves an Asgardian family of four (father, mother, son, and daughter) from Berserkers in an Asgard forest. The son and daughter of the family are portrayed by real-life brother and sister.
  • In Black Panther (2018), previous king T'Chaka is played by John Kani. A younger version of him in a 1992 flashback where he's still in his prime as the Black Panther is played by his son Atandwa Kani.
  • That same year, Ant-Man and the Wasp had Laurence Fishburne's son Langston playing the younger version of his character, Bill Foster, in a flashback.
  • Avengers: Endgame has small roles for Joe Russo's daughters, with Ava as Hawkeye's daughter Lila Barton, and Lia as a fan of the Hulk.
  • Thor: Love and Thunder had Chris Hemsworth's daughter India Rose playing Love, as well as Luke repeating his role as the stage actor performing Thor at New Asgard, Chris's two sons Sasha and Tristan among the Asgardian kids who Gorr abducts, and Elsa Pataky making another cameo as the "wolf woman" who Thor romances in a flashback.
• Matilda has Danny DeVito and his wife Rhea Pearlman play Harry and Zinnia Wormwood. DeVito is also the narrator and the director.
• The Matrix movies have Laurence Fishburne playing Morpheus, while his wife Gina Torres plays Dozer's widow Cas—two characters who, oddly enough, never actually share a scene. In a notable What Could Have Been example, Will Smith was actually The Wachowskis' first choice for the lead role of Neo, but he had to turn down the role because of his commitment to Wild Wild West; if he'd accepted it, he would have wound up sharing the screen with his wife, Jada Pinkett-Smith, who was cast as Niobe in the sequels.
• In the Mexican Spanish dub of The Maze Runner, Newt and Teresa are respectively voiced by real-life siblings Arturo and Carla Castañeda.
• M.F.A.: Francesca Eastwood (main character Noelle) and Clifton Collins Jr. (Detective Kennedy) were married at the time of the film being made, or shortly after (possibly a Romance on the Set occurred), although they later divorced.
• In The Mighty Ducks movies, Elden Henson and Garette Ratliff Henson are brothers who play fellow Ducks, Fulton and Guy.
• In the film Miracle, USA hockey player Buzz Schneider was played by his son Billy. Proof.
• In Mirror, Mirror, the reflection of wicked queen Julia Roberts is played by her sister, Lisa Roberts Gillan.
• Samantha Morton and her daughter Esme in Mister Lonely.
• My Big Fat Greek Wedding has the best friend of the groom played by Ian Gomez, the real life husband of the bride Nia Vardalos. Gomez also appeared in a few more of Nardalos' movies.
• Father and daughter Ryan O'Neal and Tatum O'Neal played two grifters (who are implied to be father and daughter) in Paper Moon.
• All the original Planet of the Apes sequels feature Natalie Trundy, wife of producer Arthur P. Jacobs (a mutant in Beneath, a veterinarian in Escape, and Caesar's wife in the last two movies). Both the first and second movie also feature Linda Harrison, wife of Fox then-president Dick Zanuck, as the Nubile Savage Nova.
• Wings is not the only place where Amy Yasbeck and John Ritter have been on screen together. They also appear in both Problem Child movies, though Yasbeck inexplicably plays two different characters.
  • They were also on an episode of The Cosby Show as an expecting couple whose baby is being delivered by Dr. Huxtable. Though, strangely enough, this was years and years before they were even dating.
• Old Dogs, John Travolta, late Kelly Preston and their daughter Ella Bleu Travolta working together as Charlie Redd, Vicki Geer and Emily Geer. Late Preston and Ella played as mother and daughter but John not played as late Preston's husband and Ella's father.
• The Purge: Anarchy: Husband and wife Shane and Liz are played by Zach Gilford and Kiele Sanchez, who are married in real life.
• Real-life married couple Emily Blunt and John Krasinski play a married couple Evelyn and Lee Abbott in A Quiet Place. He (as the director) had approached another actress to play her but she liked the script so much that she asked him to cast her instead.
• Reefer Madness: The Musical: Christian Campbell as Jimmy appears onscreen with his sister Neve Campbell as the waitress in the local diner, though their characters are (apparently) not related.
• The Retreat (2021): Rossif Sutherland (Gavin) and Celina Sinden (Layna) are, like their characters, a married couple.
• Ricki and the Flash features Meryl Streep and her daughter Mamie Gummer as an estranged parent and child (they are very much not, and the director had to add tension to their relationship by ordering them to stay apart during filming).
• Siblings Spencer and Abigail Breslin played siblings in Raising Helen.
• Rocky:
  • Rocky Jr. was recast for each film from Rocky II to Rocky Balboa. Sylvester Stallone's son Sage played him in 1990's Rocky V. Also, for his birth in Rocky II, he was played by Stallone's other son Seargeoh.
  • And Sly's brother Frank Stallone appeared in the first three films plus Rocky Balboa, while their father Frank Stallone Sr. had a bit part in the first film.
  • Speaking of Frank Stallone, he contributed to the soundtrack to Stayin Alive (which Sly directed), performed the theme song to Rambo: First Blood Part II and had a cameo in the remake of Get Carter.
• In Run Lola Run, the blind woman who gives Manny a phone card is his mother in real life.
• Freddie Prinze Jr. and Sarah Michelle Gellar were married during the production of the two Scooby-Doo films.
• In A Score to Settle, Young Frankie is played by Nicolas Cage's nephew Bailey Coppola. Nicolas Cage plays the older Frankie. The resemblance is uncanny.
• In Scrooged Bill Murray's brother John plays his brother James. Another brother, Brian Doyle-Murray plays his character's father in the Christmas Past segment.
• In The Shawshank Redemption, the old photo of Red, at the time of his incarceration, which is shown briefly when Red is up for parole, is not an old photo of Morgan Freeman, but rather a photo of Freeman's son Alfonso. Alfonso Freeman also appeared in a parody called "The SharkTank Redemption" as "Fred Redding". He also appeared opposite his dad in Se7en, Nurse Betty and The Bucket List.
• In Sideways, the pictures of Miles and his father are actual pictures of Paul Giamatti with his late father, Major League Baseball Commissioner Bart Giamatti.
• Six Gun Savior: Lorraine Ziff (Zaretha) is the real life mother of Matthew Ziff (Kyle 'Hawk' Hawkins).
• In Social Suicide, a modern retelling of Romeo and Juliet, Olivia Hussey played the mother of Julia (i.e. the modern Juliet), who's played by her daughter India Eisley. The two also had roles as unrelated characters in the earlier film Headspace.
• Near the end of Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over, when Juni calls in more allies that have assisted the spies in previous films to defeat the Toymaker's robots, Dinky Winks and his son, Dinky Jr., are among them. Dinky Winks Sr. and Little Dink are played by, respectively, real-life father-and-son Bill and James Paxton.
• In Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, William Shatner's daughter Melanie has a non-speaking role as the Captain's Yeoman.
• Star Wars:
  • Denis Lawson, who played the Mauve Shirt pilot (and very successful Ascended Extra in the EU) Wedge Antilles in the Star Wars OT, is the uncle of Ewan McGregor, who played the young Obi-Wan in the prequel trilogy. Apparently, Denis told his nephew not to take this gig.
    • Lawson was also offered the chance to play a walk-on role in Revenge of the Sith as Captain Antilles — the pilot who Vader strangles in A New Hope. Alas, he didn't take it.
    • Lawson was again offered a small roll in 2015's The Force Awakens, and he said no once more. Meanwhile, nephew Ewan accepted a voice cameo.
  • Carrie Fisher's daughter Billie Lourd plays Lieutenant Connix alongside her mother reprising the role of Princess Leia, in both The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi. In The Rise of Skywalker, after Fisher's death, Lourd provided the body double for Leia and Fisher's face was digital superimposed.
• In the second Portuguese dub of St. Elmo's Fire, Wendy Beamish is voiced by Luciana Baroli; while Wendy's parents are voiced by Luciana's parents (Rosa Maria and Gilberto Baroli).
  • In the Portuguese dub of The Iron Lady, Rosa Maria and Gilberto dubbed over Margaret Thatcher and her husband, while Luciana voiced a younger Thatcher.
• In Straight Outta Compton, Ice Cube is played by his real-life son O'Shea Jackson Jr., who is not only an actor and musician in his own right, but is a spitting image of his father.
• In Sunset, Henry, one of the cowboys who loan Wyatt Earp and Tom Mix their horses, was played by James Garner's brother Jack.
• In Superior Ultraman 8 Brothers, Rena Yanase is portrayed as the daughter of Shin Hayata. Rena's actress Takami Yoshimoto is the real-life daughter of Hayata's actor Susumu Kurobe.
• In the Soviet film Teens in the Universe, the leader of the Human Aliens and his son Agapit are played by the Real Life father-and-son Igor and Vadim Ledogorov.
• While filming Terminator 2: Judgment Day, James Cameron took advantage of the fact that Linda Hamilton has an identical twin sister in order to save on his special effects budget. In three scenes that required two "Sarah Connors" to be on screen at the same time (the playground scene where Sarah is trying to warn everyone about the oncoming nuclear war, the CPU reprogramming scene, and the scene where the T-1000 takes Sarah's form), Cameron uses Hamilton's sister, Leslie Hamilton Gearren, as a double rather than using CGI to achieve the same effect. In addition, the toddler in the nightmare sequence is Hamilton's actual son.
  • The usage of a twin was also done with Don and Dan Stanton for the scene where the T-1000 takes on the form of one of the asylum's security guards and murders the real guard.
• John Mills and his daughter Haley Mills both starred in the movie Tiger Bay, he plays a police detective and she the lone witness to a murder he is investigating. The two made other movies together as well.
  • In The Family Way, they play a father- and daughter-in-law.
• The film version of Judy Blume's Tiger Eyes has Russell Means and his son Tantanka playing father and son.

• Up in the Air: The two children in the picture J. K. Simmons holds up are his real-life son and daughter.
• In the lucha movie La Venganza de la Momia (The Vengeance of the Mummy), El Santo adopts a young boy after the monster of the title kills the boy's grandfather. The boy is played by one of Santo's sons.
• In the Veronica Mars concluding movie, the drunken creep hitting on Veronica at the trendy nightclub (whom she dismisses with a Precision F-Strike) is Kristen Bell's husband Dax Shepard.
• The View Askewniverse:
  • In the first scene of Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back where we see the title characters as babies, Silent Bob is played by Kevin Smith's daughter Harley Quinn Smith. Smith's wife also appears as one of the villainous jewel thieves, who noticeably takes no part in the gang's big scene as she's getting the van ready. Smith says on the DVD Commentary, "A better husband probably would have given her more to do." He does make an Actor Allusion out of it though. She comments to the others, "The fat one is creeping me out."
  • She also appears as a receptionist in Jersey Girl and is finally given a more important role in Clerks II as Dante's fiancé.
  • Smith's daughter also appears in Clerks II as the little girl who waves at Dante from her dining room window before the donkey show.
  • In addition, Harley plays an extra in Jersey Girl.
  • Harley Quinn Smith plays Jay's daughter Milly (Millennium) Falkan in Jay and Silent Bob Reboot.
    Milly (seeing Kevin Smith): I hate this guy. He forces his kid to be in everything he makes.
  • Jay and Silent Bob Reboot also features Jason Mewes's daughter, Logan Lee Mewes, as Ben Affleck's character's daughter, and Kevin Smith's wife, Jennifer Schwalbach Smith, as a "Mooby's" fast food manager who has sex with Silent Bob in a restroom.
  • Kevin Smith's real-life mother plays the "Milkmaid" in Clerks; she reprises the role in Clerks II.
• Walk the Line: Waylon Jennings is portrayed by his son Shooter.
• Wendry: Twins Gabe and Gavin Naquin are James and Douglas Darling, two twin brothers.
• Real-life siblings Matthew and Rebecca Pidgeon play Dickie and Catherine Winslow, respectively, in The Winslow Boy.

Live-Action TV

• 24:
  • Xander Berkeley and Sarah Clarke (George Mason and Nina Myers) married between Seasons 1 and 2. This meant that Xander got to interrogate his own missus in the second run. In addition, as an inside joke, a fake passport for Nina in Day 3 has the name "Sarah Berkeley".
  • In a What Could Have Been example, Donald Sutherland was to play the father of his son Kiefer's character, Jack Bauer, but was unavailable at the time of filming and was replaced by James Cromwell.
• Ian Lithgow, the son of John Lithgow, played one of Dick's students in 3rd Rock from the Sun.
• 30 Rock has Bertram Geiss (Tony Torn) playing a son of Don Geiss (Rip Torn). Tony is Rip's son. Also, actor John Lutz who plays Lutz on the show is married to actress Sue Galloway who plays Sue LaRoche-Van der Hout, though they aren't married on-screen and rarely interact directly with each other.
• Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos, both regulars on All My Children, were married in 1996... and then their characters got married. Given the nature of many soap storylines, this happened often.
• Dorian Missick has twice made guest appearances in TV shows which feature his wife Simone Missick in lead roles. He guest stars in the first season finale of All Rise as DJ Tailwind. Before that, he had a recurring role in the second season of Luke Cage as Dontrell "Cockroach" Hamilton, a criminal put away by Misty Knight (Simone) and Rafael Scarfe who got his conviction appealed after it turned out to have been obtained as a result of Scarfe planting evidence. Now he's a dice game runner and gun buyer in Harlem who proves to be a thorn in Misty's side. The flashback scene where Cockroach hurls colorful insults at Misty as she recalls Scarfe planting the gun was supposedly difficult for them to film without either of the Missicks corpsing.
• In The Amazing Race's 13th season, Phil's father waited for the racers at the pit stop in New Zealand, which happened to be at his ranch.
• Season-spanning American Horror Story character Dr Arthur Arden (a.k.a. Hans Gruper), who originated in Asylum, is played by James Cromwell in all his scenes set in the 1960s, and by Cromwell's son John in all flashbacks set in the 1930s (including a cameo of the character in Freak Show). Reportedly this came about as a result of Cromwell learning that his character would be featured in flashbacks and immediately recommending his son be cast, since "He looks just like me at that age."
• Arrested Development:
  • Amy Poehler played then real-life husband Will Arnett's character Gob's wife for a time.
  • Arrested was fond of this trope. In a later episode (appropriately titled "Family Ties"), Michael (Jason Bateman) hires Nellie, played by Bateman's real-life sister Justine, to work at the Bluth Company. He thinks she is his long-lost sister; she's actually a prostitute. This makes the scene where Nellie tries to seduce Michael so very weird, as Michael himself lampshades while Leaning on the Fourth Wall:
    Michael: Marry me! ... That's so wrong... on so many levels.
  • In Season 4, it turns out that Tony Wonder and Sally Sitwell, played by married couple Ben Stiller and Christine Taylor, are a couple. They both appeared in the show earlier, but as unrelated characters.
• Arrowverse:
  • Arrow had a case with replacements: Dinah was Fernanda Baronne, until her sister Flávia Saddy had to take over.
  • The Flash:
    • Robbie Amell (Ronnie Raymond) and Stephen Amell (Oliver Queen) are cousins. In the Season 1 penultimate episode, Barry calls them both as his reinforcements for the fight against Eobard Thawne, and though they don't interact they do stand side by side.
    • In the Latin Spanish dub, Mario Castañeda voices every iteration of Harrison Wells (and Eobard Thawne when he's in that form), while his son Arturo voices Barry throughout the first two and a half seasons.
  • Supergirl:
    • Melissa Benoist's real-life ex-husband, Blake Jenner, played Adam Foster, Kara's Third-Option Love Interest (they were married at the time).
    • In the Brazilian dub from the second season on, Kara and Alex are voiced, respectively, by Mariana Torres and Adriana Torres, who are sisters in real life.
    • In the Filipino dub, James and Alex's voice actors are married in real life.
    • Jesse Rath's older sister Meaghan Rath plays a gender flipped version of his character from another dimension in two Season 5 episodes. As they have a strong family resemblance, it really works.
  • Legends of Tomorrow:
    • Ray Palmer's love interest and eventual wife Nora Darhk is played by Brandon Routh's wife, Courtney Ford.
    • Amaya Jiwe's ancestor, who shows up in a couple of scenes in Season 3, is played by Joy Richardson, Maisie Richardson-Sellers' mother.
    • In the Season 3 finale, Jefferson brings up a photo of his daughter, Martina. She is actually portrayed by Aurora Kerima Drameh, the real-life daughter of Franz Drameh (Jefferson's actor).
  • In the Elseworlds crossover, the minor villain Nora Fries is played by Cassandra Jean Amell, Stephen Amell's wife.
• The A-Team had an episode entitled "Bounty" in which Murdock fell in love with a vet named Kelly. Kelly was played by Wendy Fulton, who is still to this day married to Dwight Schultz and has been since 1983.
• Babylon 5:
  • Husband and wife Bruce Boxleitner and Melissa Gilbert played husband and wife. As well, a photo from their real wedding is used in the show as one from the characters' wedding. On the show, they don't work out.
    • Oddly, Melissa Gilbert was The Other Darrin in this example. An episode the previous season had featured a different actress as Boxleitner's wife, but she was unavailable for the second appearance.
    • Word of God is that Melissa Gilbert took the role for less money than she usually gets, as a favor to her husband.
• The Barrier: The actresses playing mother and daughter Emilia and Julia for most of the series are Ángela Molina and Olivia Molina, who are mother and daughter in real life, as well.
• Battlestar Galactica (2003):
  • The series has four minor characters played by real-life relatives of the main cast. Bodie Olmos ('Hotdog') is the son of Edward James Olmos (Admiral Adama), Lymari Nadal (Giana) is Olmos's wife, Susan Hogan, the wife of Michael Hogan (Saul Tigh) plays the lead judge in Baltar's trial, and Kerry Norton, Jamie Bamber's (Apollo) wife plays a medic.
  • In a behind the scenes example, the show's iconic cover of Bob Dylan's "All Along the Watchtower" (and several other tracks) are performed by Brendan McCreary, the brother of the show's composer, Bear McCreary.
  • In the episode Greetings from Earth in the original series, most of the children are played by children of the series creator Glen A. Larson or star Lorne Greene.
• Bayan Ko has Real Life father-and-son actors Pen and Ping Medina playing the corrupt Rubio political dynasty in-series, with Pen playing the governor father and Ping playing the congressman son.
• Being Human (US):
  • Jesse Rath, the actor that plays Sally's brother in the sixth episode of Season 3, is Meaghan Rath's brother in real life, though it's worth noting he's played by a completely different actor in the pilot episode.
  • The little boy and girl that portrayed Josh and Nora's children Aidan and Sally are Sam Huntington's children Charlie and Audrey.
• In The Big Bang Theory, Sheldon's mother is played by Laurie Metcalf. In the series Young Sheldon, which takes place during Sheldon's childhood, a younger version of the same character is played by Metcalf's daughter Zoe Perry.
• Another extreme example: a two-parter of The Bill features three generations of the Woodward acting dynasty. Edward (an old crook), his son Tim (as his love child) and Tim's son Sam (as the first character's grandchild, not via the second).
• Pauline Quirke and Linda Robson, who played sisters Sharon and Tracey in Birds of a Feather, have been friends since primary school, enabling the opening credits to use genuine photos of them growing up together.
• On A Bit of Fry and Laurie, one episode ends with a sketch of Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie invading a woman's house and demanding to see her husband; the woman brings down a baby, who she says is the only man in the house. The baby was played by Laurie's real-life son, and in the part of the sketch in which they start screaming at the baby, Fry is quite obviously trying not to laugh at the sight of Laurie half-heartedly yelling at his kid. (The resemblance is also uncanny.)
• Zack and Cyndi from The Bite are played by real life husband and wife Steven Pasquale and Phillipa Soo. This adds a bit of irony since Pasquale's character cheated on his wife with Soo's.
• Zooey Deschanel guest-starred as Temperance Brennan's cousin in an episode of Bones, which stars her sister Emily as Temperance. The writers took the golden opportunity to lampshade the hell out of this during said episode.
  Everyone, upon seeing the two in the same room: You two could be sisters!
• Bosch: Titus Welliver plays Harry Bosch as an adult. For flashbacks to his childhood, Harry is portrayed by Titus's son Quinn Welliver.
• Boy Meets World:
  • As in St. Elsewhere, William Daniels and Bonnie Bartlett played a couple on the show, where Mr. Feeny (Daniels) fell for the college's dean (Bartlett). In fact, Daniels and Bartlett have played a romantic couple on no less than four occasions: Killer on Board (1977), Touched By an Angel, Boy Meets World, and St. Elsewhere. Apparently, they are a living aversion to the Couple Bomb both in real life and onscreen (they've been married since 1951).
  • Topanga's parents were played by the husband-and-wife Michael McKean and Annette O'Toole for one episode. Also, Ben Savage's brother Fred Savage appears in one episode as a creepy lecherous college teacher.
  • The daughter show, Girl Meets World, is no slouch at this trope either. One of the speaking background characters that appears in lots of episodes, Sarah, is played by Sarah Carpenter, elder sister of main cast member Sabrina Carpenter.
• Robert Reed's real-life daughter appeared in one episode of The Brady Bunch. So did the daughters of Florence Henderson and series creator Sherwood Schwartz.
• The Brittas Empire:
  • A rare creator variant comes in the form of Andrew Norriss, whose son Jonathon played Carole's son Ben from "Mr. Brittas Changes Trains" to "The Last Day".
  • Harriet Thorpe, who plays Carole, had her son, Jack Thorpe Baker, show up in "The Stuff of Dreams", playing one of Brittas' twin sons in his Imagine Spot at the end of the episode.
• Shortly before they got married in real life, Brooklyn Nine-Nine star Joe Lo Truglio shared a scene with his fiancée Beth Dover, in which she amusingly enough played a craft store clerk helping his character Charles pick out the design for his wedding invitations.
  • The titular puzzle master, Melvin Stermley in The Puzzle Master is played by Melissa Fumero's husband David Fumero.
  • Andy Samberg's wife Joanna Newsom makes a cameo appearance in the Grand Finale, The Last Day where their characters end up insulting each other.
• The 90s series Brotherly Love was pretty much contrived for brothers Joey, Matthew and Andrew Lawrence to play themselves.
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer:
  • The show took advantage of the fact that Nicholas Brendon (who played Xander Harris) has an identical twin, in an episode where there are two Xanders. Kelly Donovan (said identical twin) later stood in for Nicholas Brendon during the episode "Intervention", which coincidentally had Xander referring back to the events of the previous episode because Brendon had pneumonia at the time.
  • Adam Busch (Warren) and Amber Benson (Tara), respectively, were dating, and Joss Whedon actually told Adam, "You're gonna kill your girlfriend," to which the reply was "Warren gets a girlfriend?" "No, I mean your real girlfriend." Eight years later, by the way, they're still together.
  • Alyson Hannigan crossed over to guest star on Angel alongside her now-husband Alexis Denisof. They met while both were on Buffy, so it's part-Romance on the Set, part-this.
  • David Boreanaz's wife Jaime Bergman appeared in one episode of Angel season 5.
  • Dollhouse similarly took advantage of Enver Gjokaj (Victor) having an identical twin brother. He stood in as the second Victor in a dream sequence.
    • Dollhouse had another example of real-life relatives: the series finale has Eliza Dushku's younger brother Nate as Clive Ambrose's latest body. Her real-life boyfriend, Rick Fox, also cameoed.
    • Nate was also the gunman in one of Angel's flashbacks in Eliza's final appearance on that show.
• Castle:
  • Esposito and Castle (Jon Huertas and Nathan Fillion respectively) have been teasing Ryan (Seamus Dever) about his girlfriend, who up to this point has been The Ghost. At the end of "The Mistress Always Spanks Twice" she shows up, played by Dever's wife, Juliana Dever. The characters later marry.
  • Most recently, Stana Katic's husband Kris Brljac was an extra on Season 5's "Death Gone Crazy".
• On The Closer, Brenda's niece Charlie was played in several episodes by Kyra Sedgewick's real-life daughter, Sosie Bacon.
• Cobra Kai:
  • In "Nature vs. Nurture", the first of John Kreese's backstory flashbacks opens in a 1960s diner. We're given the impression that Kreese was a high school jock, especially as the man holds the same "no mercy" mentality as adult Kreese, bullies a busboy, gets offered a chance to serve in Vietnam, and most importantly is played by Martin Kove's son Jesse. Then the manager yells at the busboy, "KREESE! Those tables are not gonna bus themselves! Get back to work!"
  • In "The Good, The Bad, and the Badass," Ralph Macchio's son Daniel (who is named after Daniel LaRusso) can be seen in the town-hall meeting. He's the spectacled man sitting behind Johnny Lawrence while Miguel and Sam are giving their speech to save the All Valley Tournament.
  • In seasons 4 and 5, Daniel's cousin Vanessa is played by Ralph Macchio's daughter Julia.
• The Heartwarming Orphans from The Colbert Report Christmas Special were Stephen Colbert's own children Madeleine, Peter, and John Colbert. Madeleine also appeared aged eight in the Getty Oil segment on The Daily Show, producing some adorable outtakes.
  Stephen: How big was your profit margin last year?
  Madeleine: I don't know what that means, Daddy.
  • Stephen's brother Ed is a copyright lawyer and appeared on the show during the Shepard Fairey "Hope" poster fair use debate.
• Peter Barlow, the repeatedly Other Darrined son of William Roache's character Ken Barlow in Coronation Street, was briefly played by Roache's son Linus in the 1970s. Linus Roache returned to the Street in 2010, now playing a completely different son, long-lost Lawrence Cunningham. Lawrence's son is played by Linus's brother, James. And James Roache also appeared in the docudrama The Road To Coronation Street, as a young William Roache!
• Criminal Minds has several examples:
  • The victim the team is working to save in "3rd Life" is played by Gia Mantegna, Joe Mantegna's (Agent Rossi's) daughter in Real Life. She later returns in Season 12 as Cat Adams' partner-in-crime.
  • The two oldest Galen children from the episode "Damaged" are played by real-life twin brother and sister Nicholle Tom and David Tom.
  • JJ's sons Henry & Michael are played by Mekhai Andersen and Phoenix Sky Andersen respectively, AJ Cook's sons and the actual result of the pregnancies that put JJ into maternity leave in the first place.
• Crossing Jordan: Kathryn Hahn's husband Ethan Sandler plays ADA Jeffrey Brandau, her character Lily Lebowski's love interest.
• CSI: Marg Helgenberger's then-husband, Alan Rosenberg, appeared in "Weeping Willows" and "Leaving Las Vegas."
• CSI: NY: Gary Sinise's eldest daughter, Sophie, played an eyewitness in episode 6.12, "Criminal Justice."
• In Dad's Army, Pike's girlfriend Ivy was played by Ian Lavender's real-life wife. Arthur Lowe's wife, Joan Cooper, also took over the role of Dolly Godfrey towards the end of the series.
  • Lowe and Cooper were well known for this trope and often performed in repertory theatre together. Towards the end of Lowe's life, he would often agree to take roles only if his wife could act alongside him, and they were appearing in a play together when Lowe died backstage.
• Jon Stewart's son, Nathan, has appeared on The Daily Show at least twice. The funniest moment being when he played a cheap YouTube version of his father. Jon's inability to hold his laughter when the camera cut back was priceless.
• Peter Davison and his daughter Georgia Moffett.
  • In an episode of The Last Detective where Moffett guest-starred alongside her dad, the production team wanted her character to flirt with her dad's character of DC Davies. One or both of them 86ed that idea pronto.
  • They also played a father and daughter on Fear Stress And Anger.
  • And for the hat-trick is Doctor Who: Peter Davison played the Fifth Doctor from 1981-1984. Five regenerations later in the Doctor's life, Moffett starred in "The Doctor's Daughter" as the daughter-by-cloning machine of David Tennant's Tenth Doctor. And just to drive it further, Tennant and Moffett began dating shortly after this and married in 2011, with three more daughters and a son.^{Meaning, drumroll, please...} that The Doctor's Daughter, who also played The Doctor's Daughter, is now "The Doctor's Wife" and has had "The Doctor's Daughter" who is also "The Doctor's Granddaughter". Sadly, her first child with Tennant was named Olivia rather than Susan.
    • Before being cast as Jenny, Moffett was considered for the role of Rose Tyler, before that role was instead given to Billie Piper.
    • And Fifth finally meets Jenny in a Big Finish Doctor Who audio drama inevitably titled "Relative Time". (They'd already used "Relative Dimensions" for an Eighth and Alex audio.)
• In Destinos, Fernando's youngest grandchild Maricarmen is played by the real-life daughter of series lead Liliana Abud, who plays Raquel.
• On Detectorists, Becky is played by Rachael Stirling and her mother, Veronica, is played by her mother Dame Diana Rigg.
• Michael C. Hall and Jennifer Carpenter play brother and sister in Dexter, but were married in real life. They have since divorced.
• Diagnosis: Murder starred Dick Van Dyke as crime-solving doctor Mark Sloan, and co-starred his own son Barry Van Dyke as Mark's son, police detective Steve Sloan. Other members of the Van Dyke family appeared at various times during the show's run, including Dick's brother Jerry and daughter Stacy in one episode each as Dr. Mark's brother and daughter respectively. Barry's four children all appeared in multiple episodes, although not as Sloan family members: Carey as six different characters in as many episodes; Shane as four, the last of whom became a regular supporting role in the show's concluding months; Wes as three; and Taryn in three episodes. All four appeared together in two separate episodes, which therefore share the highest rating of 6.0 on the Van Dyke Scale...
• The Dick Van Dyke Show also had a few episodes with Jerry Van Dyke as Stacey Petrie, Rob's sleepwalking brother.
• Doctor Who has other examples, mind you:
  • An Eighth Doctor Doctor Who audio titled "An Earthly Child" features Paul McGann's real-life son as the Doctor's great-grandson (i.e. Susan's son).
  • In Eleventh Doctor Matt Smith's first episode, the production staff, looking for an actress to play a young version of new companion Amy Pond, asked Karen Gillan (the adult Amy) if she had any relatives. Karen mentioned a young cousin of hers, Caitlin Blackwood, and the production team decided to audition her. The two had never met before shooting started. Blackwood appeared again at Amy's wedding at the end of the series, presumably as one of Amy's cousins, even further driving this trope home.
  • David Troughton, son to Second Doctor Patrick Troughton, made appearances in "The Enemy of the World" and "The War Games" in 1969. He returned as different characters in the 1972 Third Doctor adventure "The Curse of Peladon" and the 2008 Tenth Doctor adventure "Midnight"...not to mention various 21st century audio Doctor Who dramas.
  • Jack Watling (Professor Travers in the Great Intelligence stories "The Abominable Snowmen" and "The Web of Fear") was the father of Deborah Watling (the Doctor's companion Victoria).
  • In the original production of the stage play "Doctor Who and the Daleks: Seven Keys to Doomsday", the companion character is Jenny, played (oddly enough) by Wendy Padbury (Zoe Heriot). In the Big Finish version she's played by Padbury's daughter, Charlie Hayes; the two went on to play opposite each other in several "Companion Chronicles" audios.
  • In the Series 6 episode "The Impossible Astronaut", William Morgan Sheppard plays the character of Canton Everett Delaware as he appears in 2011, and his son Mark Sheppard plays a younger Canton in 1969. The story goes that they were going to use makeup to make Mark look like an old man before he mentioned his father who'd be a perfect older version of himself. In this instance, the preparation for the scenes was reversed from their normal pattern, with William studying Mark's acting to make sure his own scenes would match Mark's.
    • Incidentally this also happened in an NCIS episode, "Broken Bird", with Mark Sheppard playing a young version of his father's character in Ducky's flashbacks.
  • The little girl in "Castrovalva" is played by Souska John, the niece of Caroline John (Liz Shaw).
  • Mark Gatiss said he wrote "The Crimson Horror" specifically for the mother-daughter duo of Dame Diana Rigg and Rachael Stirling. Gatiss' real-life hubby, Ian Hallard, tends to pop up in this and his other productions, as well.
    Doc Oho: Mark Gatiss has gone on record to say that he doesn't find work for his husband Ian Hallard and that he gets the roles on his merits as an actor. That's all well and good (because he is a genuinely good actor) but it is a remarkable coincidence that he has just happened to be the best actor for the roles in Gatiss' audio and TV Who and his Sherlock scripts too.
  • After the death of Roger Delgado, who played the Master, his widow Kismet Delgado was cast as the voice of the spider leader the Great One in the final story of the Letts-Dicks-Pertwee era, "Planet of the Spiders". According to interviews, this was a deliberate decision by the team to help her with her cash-flow problems after her husband's death. It was also oddly appropriate, as, under the plans made before Delgado's death, he would have played the Master in a different final story, in which the character would have been killed off in a possibly-redemptive way.
  • Two of the haemovores in "The Curse of Fenric" were Sylvester McCoy's sons Sam and Joe Kent-Smith.
• In the episode of Drunk History that recounts the founding of the Kelloggs cereal empire, the brothers John and Will Kellogg are played by the brothers Owen and Luke Wilson.
• In Dr Wonders Workshop, Paula's family is played by the real-life family of her actress, at least judging by the last names in the credits.
• In Due South Fraser's (Paul Gross' character) mother was played by Martha Burns ...who is Paul Gross' wife. They also starred together in the series Slings & Arrows, as former lovers.
• Bobby Troup and Julie London, husband and wife Emergency! supporting stars. Making things interesting, series creator/producer Jack Webb was London's ex-husband. Also, Randolph Mantooth's brother appeared as a guest actor and a firefighter in the background a few times.
• On Empire, the actors that play Andre and Anika, Trai Byers and Grace Gealey, got married in real life during the second season. On the show they have very little on-screen interaction (Anika starts out as Andre's father's much younger fiancee).
• In the last season of Eureka, Allison Blake's brother is played by the actress's real-life husband.
• Everybody Loves Raymond:
  • Madylin Sweeten and her younger twin brothers, Sawyer and Sullivan, play Ally Barone and her younger twin brothers, Geoffery and Michael, respectively.
  • A Lodge brother of Frank Barone was played by Ray Romano's father.
  • The Barones' neighbor, Bill Parker, is played by Patricia Heaton (Debra Barone)'s real-life husband;
  • Monica Horan (Amy Barone) is married to the show's producer Philip Rosenthal.
• In the pilot of The Fall Guy, stuntman Colt Seavers, played by Lee Majors, has to double Majors' then-wife Farrah Fawcett. This makes the scene in which Majors dons that poofy blond wig even more hilarious.
• In Family Ties, Tracy Pollan played the girlfriend of Michael J. Fox's character Alex Keaton. In Bright Lights Big City, Pollan played the cousin of Fox's character. The two of them married later that year, and are still married to this day. Pollan has also made a guest appearance on Spin City, as the high school flame of Fox's character.
  • Before Pollan, Fox had dated Nancy McKeon. The two of them played love interests on two made-for-TV movies, High School U.S.A. and Poison Ivy.
• An episode of Fantasy Island called "What's the Matter With Kids?" features Steve Allen and Jayne Meadows as husband and wife Child Psychologists.
• Fantasy Island (2021):
  • Roselyn Sánchez's husband Eric Winter guest stars in one episode.
  • Dave and Odette Annable play two characters who are like them a married couple.
• Farscape:
  • In the trilogy Look at the Princess, the simulations of John Crichton's son and daughter are played by Ben Browder's children.
  • Additionally, Ben Browder's wife, Francesca Buller, has played multiple alien characters, notably War Minister Ahkna.
  • Browder's children show up again in Stargate SG-1 as a pair of random kids running past SG1 in a village.
• John Cleese and Connie Booth were married when they wrote and played in the first series of Fawlty Towers, in 1975. They were divorced by the time of the second series in 1979, but this doesn't appear to have hindered the quality of the show in any way.
• James Roday Rodriguez and Maggie Lawson, were dating in real life when they starred in the Fear Itself episode "In Sickness and in Health" as a couple about to get married. The two are also castmates in Psych, and their characters officially entered a relationship in Season 5.
  • The episode "Bollywood Homicide" had a client of the week and his brother as the central part of the episode's plot. The brothers are played by real-life cousins Sendhil Ramamurthy and Jay Chandrasekhar.
• On the 1980s British TV series A Fine Romance, main characters Mike and Laura were played by real-life spouses Michael Williams and Judi Dench.
• On FlashForward (2009), John Cho's wife Kerri had a small guest role as a waitress.
• Flowers (2016): Sophia Di Martino (Amy) and Will Sharpe (Shun) in reality are partners, with two children.
• Forever Knight:
  • Geraint Wyn Davies' real-life son guest-starred in one Season 3 episode.
  • Another episode had the then-boyfriend of Catherine Disher, aka Natalie, as a guest star.
• During the "Halloween" episode of Frasier, Frasier spends most of the evening flirting with a woman dressed as Eve. The woman was played by Kelsey Grammer's then-wife Camille.
• Friends:
  • Matthew Perry's father played Joshua's (Tate Donovan's character) father in one episode.
    • Tate Donovan was also dating Jennifer Aniston at the time.
  • When Julia Roberts guest starred, her real-life sister played her assistant.
    • Roberts guest starred in the first place because she was dating Matthew Perry at the time.
  • In one episode Ross's old friend from high school comes to visit. Turns out he is the president (and only current member) of the Anti-Rachel club. He was played by Jennifer Aniston's then-real-life husband Brad Pitt.
• Before the final seasons were sent elsewhere, Game of Thrones had Sansa and Arya Stark dubbed in Brazilian Portuguese by Luisa and Helena Palomanes.
  • In House of the Dragon, Erryk and Arryk Cargyll are identical twin brothers, and so are their actors Elliott and Luke Tittensor.
  • Ron Donachie plays Ser Rodrik Cassel. His real-life son, Daniel Portman, plays Podrick Payne.
• In the first season of Get a Life, Chris Elliott's character's father was played by his real-life father Bob Elliott.
• On Gilmore Girls, the chemistry between Rory and Jess was made a little more obvious due to the fact that Milo Ventimiglia was already Alexis Bledel's real-life boyfriend when he was cast as Jess. In an odd coincidence, they broke up roughly around the same time the episode where Rory and Jess see each other for the final time aired.
• Gimme a Break!: During the last three seasons, Matthew Lawrence joined his older brother, Joey Lawrence, as Joey's (the character) little brother, Matt.
• Ginny and Georgia: One of Joe's employees is Padma. His actor (Raymond Ablack) and hers (Rebecca Ablack) are siblings.
• In one episode of The Golden Girls, Bea Arthur's own adopted son plays a firefighter.
• Alton Brown frequently has members of his family make appearances on Good Eats. While most of his on-air family is portrayed by actors or members of the production crew, his late grandmother, mother, and daughter Zoey did make appearances as themselves. On a recent episode, Zoey Brown appeared as Alton's granddaughter which is humorous because she was effectively playing her own daughter (Zoey being Alton's only child).
• Gossip Girl:
  • Stars Penn Badgley (Dan) and Blake Lively (Serena) dated in real life as well as in the show.
  • Someone might say that the one-episode Vanessa/Chuck hookup and kiss might be imputable to the two actors playing the characters, Jessica Szohr and Ed Westwick, dating, but given the fact that the writers of the show seem to be on crack most of the time, that's highly debatable. Also, the set brought Sebastian Stan (Carter Baizen) and series regular Leighton Meester (Blair Waldorf) together.
• Grey's Anatomy's Derek Shepherd's mother is played by Tyne Daly; ironically, Daly is tied by parental roots to two actors from Private Practice, one fictional (she played Amy Brenneman (Violet)'s mother in Judging Amy) and one real (Tim Daly (Pete) is Tyne's baby brother).
• On the last couple of seasons of Growing Pains, Chelsea Noble played the romantic interest of Kirk Cameron's character. They ended up getting married in the show, and then later married in Real Life.
  • And then even later, Noble played Cameron's love interest in the short-lived WB series Kirk.
  • They've since appeared together in the Left Behind (2000) movies. (Although Cameron plays the main character and Noble plays... the anti-Christ's girlfriend.) They're both now evangelical Christians.
  • Cameron won't even kiss anyone other than Noble now. She's supposedly in Fireproof (uncredited) in Cameron's kiss scenes with his movie wife (played otherwise by Erin Bethea).
• On Grownish, twins Jazlyn and Skylar are played by sisters Chloe and Halle Bailey. Interestingly enough, despite looking extremely similar, in real life they are not twins as Chloe is two years older than Halle.
• Guilt: Daisy Head and her father Anthony Head play a stepdaughter and stepfather in the series.
• Hand of God: A minor character named Kugler is played by Ron Perlman's daughter Blake Perlman.
• Hannah Montana:
  • Billy Ray Cyrus and his daughter Miley played Hannah Montana's dad and the title character, respectively.
    • And his other daughter Noah was an extra.
  • Miley's real-life godmother, country music icon Dolly Parton, also appeared in a few episodes as the sister of Robby Ray.
  • Mateo Arias made a cameo appearance as Rico's brother. Rico is played by Moises Arias.
• On Hannibal Jack Crawford's wife Bella is played by Gina Torres, who is also married to Laurence Fishburne in real life. This makes the secret Bella was keeping from Jack (she has cancer) all the more painful when you know they're actually married and playing a married couple going through that.
  • Both Torres and Fishburne also appeared on CSI, but Gina appeared in season four, long before Fishburne became the series' star.
• Phil Silvers played the father of Jenny Piccolo (actress Cathy Silvers) on Happy Days.
• Haven:
  • Lucas Bryant plays main cast member Nathan Wuornos and his wife Kirsty Hinchcliffe joined the cast as Rebecca Rafferty in Season 4.
  • John Dunsworth plays main cast member Dave Teagues and his daughter Molly plays Vickie.
• Hawaii Five-0: James Caan is the father of Scott Caan, who plays Danny Williams. He guests stars as retired NYC police officer Tony Archer in the season two episode "Lekio".
• The short-lived '60s sitcom He And She starred real-life husband and wife Richard Benjamin and Paula Prentiss.
• Heroes:
  • The actors playing Ted Sprague and Sandra Bennet are married in real life. In one episode, Ted threatens to kill Sandra. In the episode commentary, the actor playing Ted observes, "Yeah, our kids aren't gonna be allowed to watch this one."
  • The fact that Hayden Panettiere and Milo Ventimiglia were dating is going to make for some awkward television considering that Milo's character is her character's uncle.
• In the Dutch sitcom Het Zonnetje in Huis, father Piet Bovenkerk and son Eric Bovenkerk are played by real-life father and son John Kraaykamp and John Kraaykamp Jr.
• One Highlander episode had an appearance of Adrian Paul's then-wife Melani as an escaped female con hired to seduce Duncan. (She played the character until the plastic surgery, then Alexandra Vandernoot took over).
• On Home Improvement, the actress who plays Jill's sister Carrie is married to Richard Karn, who plays Al.
• House:
  • Co-stars Jesse Spencer and Jennifer Morrison were dating at the same time as their characters, Dr. Chase and Dr. Cameron, started their romantic relationship.
  • Inversely, a few months after Chase and Cameron made their relationship official in the third season's finale, Jesse Spencer and Jennifer Morrison decided to call off their engagement.
  • The teenage boy whom House yells at to wash his hands after going to the bathroom in the episode "Kids" is Hugh Laurie's son in real life.
• House of Cards (US):
  • Two of the main supporting actors are real-life husband and wife couple Michel Gill and Jayne Atkinson. However, their respective characters, President Garrett Walker and Secretary of State Catherine Durant, are not related.
  • In Season 3, Paul Sparks plays author Thomas Yates. His wife Annie Parisse plays a mother that Claire Underwood meets on the Iowa campaign trail.
  • In one episode of Season 3, Doug Stamper's niece and nephew are played by Michael Kelly's son and daughter.
• How I Met Your Mother has several recurring characters played by relatives of the main cast. Sandy Rivers, Robin's co-anchor, is played by Alyson Hannigan's husband Alexis Denisof. Scooter, Lily's high school boyfriend and co-worker, is played by Neil Patrick Harris's husband David Burtka. Blauman, a GNB employee, is played by Cobie Smulders' fiancee (and the father of her child) Taran Killam. Josh Radnor also ended up dating Lindsay Price, who played one of his girls of the week.
• On iCarly Gibby (Noah Munck)'s brother Guppy is played by his little brother Ethan.
• A few episodes of I Dream of Jeannie featured Barbara Eden's husband Michael Ansara as the Blue Djinn.
• Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, who starred in several classic comedy films in addition to producing and starring in I Love Lucy. Unfortunately, they had Real Life marital trouble during the course of the series and divorced after the final episode had aired.
  • Their children, Lucie Arnaz and Desi Arnaz Jr., starred in Lucille Ball's later shows.
• Ali Marsh plays a recurring role as a psychiatrist on In Plain Sight, which stars her husband Frederick Weller. Bonus points because their characters went on a date once, but she wasn't interested.
• It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia:
  • Charlie Day's character has an unrequited crush on a waitress played by his real-life wife, Mary Elizabeth Ellis.
  • Rob McElhenney (Mac) is married to Kaitlin Olson (Sweet Dee); they met when she auditioned for her part.
  • In another episode with a Shout-Out to One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, the person who was playing the role of "Chief" was actually Will Sampson's son.
  • In the episode "Mac Bangs Dennis' Mom" Danny DeVito's daughter Lucy plays the waitress Frank lusts after in the restaurant (as his date talks about how wonderful it is to have children), as well as the young woman who compliments "DB" in "The Gang Finds a Dumpster Baby".
  • Glenn Howerton's wife plays the woman whom Dennis manipulates and torments in "The DENNIS System".
• On one TV version of The Jack Benny Program (Season 4, Episode 8, original airdate Feb. 7, 1954), "Jack Dreams He's Married To Mary", Jack's wife plays his wife, and his daughter, Joan, plays his daughter.
• Jam and Jerusalem: Jennifer Saunders's daughters Freya and Beattie play Jennifer Saunders's character's daughters, Freya and Beattie.
• Jeremiah: In the episode Moon in Gemini, cast regular Ingrid Kavelaars' character Erin has a twin sister named Lauren, played by... her real-life twin sister Monique Kavelaars.
• The French TV series Kaamelott seems to have been cast largely from creator (and lead actor) Alexandre Astier's family. Note they're all professional actors anyway, so it hardly hurts the show. Some of them were brought back ten years after the end of the series for The Movie, Kaamelott: Premier Volet. Alexandre Astier plays King Arthur and:
  • His father Lionnel plays Arthur's father-in-law, Léodagan;
  • His mother plays Arthur's mother-in-law, Séli;
  • His stepmother plays Arthur's mother, Ygerne;
  • His half-brother plays Arthur's brother-in-law, Yvain;
  • His children play Karadoc and Mevanwi's children;
  • His wife has a small cameo as the Lady of Flames;
  • His son plays young Arthur.
• The Kennedys: Tom Wilkinson and Diana Hardcastle, who play Jack and Rose Kennedy, are married in real life.
• The King of Queens:
  • A pretty interesting example: In a flashback to the childhood of Jerry Stiller's character Arthur Spooner, Arthur's father is played by Jerry's son Ben Stiller.
  • Jerry Stiller's wife, Anna Meara, plays Spence's mother, who is also Arthur's recurring love interest. Their real-life daughter Amy also plays several different characters on the show.
  • Also Doug's cousin Danny is played by Kevin James' brother in Real Life, Gary Valentine.
• Kojak featured Telly Savalas and his brother George as Det. Stavros.
• In Kulderzipken, King Jozef and his sister Saint-Lutgardis are played by real-life sibling Jan and Reinhilde Decleir.
• L.A. Law:
  • Father and son René Auberjonois and Rémy-Luc Auberjonois played father and son in an episode.
  • Husband-wife actors Michael Tucker and Jill Eikenberry were both regulars on the show and also appeared together in several late '80s/early '90s TV movies that they produced.
• The character of Compo Simmonite died on Last of the Summer Wine following the death of the actor Bill Owen. Several episodes later and after the funeral, Compo's long-lost son moves into town and is played by Bill Owen's real-life son Tom Owen.
• Law & Order:
  • Benjamin Bratt and Julia Roberts were dating when they starred in a memorable episode of the original series. Mostly notable for the fact that Roberts' character attempted to seduce Rey Curtis (Bratt), who is married, leading to a venomous and hateful series of betrayals.
  • Another Law & Order example (sort of) derives from when Jill Hennessy was on the show as Claire Kincaid. Jill was filming some scenes from a crossover with Homicide: Life on the Street and the filming coincided with the filming of Law & Order, so Jill's identical twin sister Jacqueline came in and filled in for Jill during some courtroom scenes.
  • The short-lived Law & Order: Special Victims Unit character Ken Briscoe, the nephew of the original series' Lennie Briscoe, was played by Jerry Orbach's son Chris.
  • Speaking of Homicide, Det. Frank Pembleton and his wife Mary were played by real-life married couple Andre Braugher and Ami Brabson.
• In the Season 3 premiere of Leverage, Nate helps a young inmate escape from jail. The inmate is played by Edwin Hodge, brother of Aldis Hodge, who plays Hardison.
• In Life With Mikey, Michael J. Fox is the title character. His sister, Kelli Fox, has a minor role.
• Little House on the Prairie sports a peculiar variation. Melissa Gilbert, playing Laura Ingalls, is of a different family than her real-life brother, Jonathan Gilbert, playing Willie Oleson. In reality, they were both adopted by the same family but are not blood-related. It gets even better because Melissa Gilbert's in-show brother, Matthew Laborteaux, is the real-life brother of Patrick Labyorteaux (Matthew dropped the "y" from his surname), playing Matthew's friend on the show, Andrew Garvey, who are also both adopted! To top that, the role of Carrie Ingalls was played by twins Lindsay and Sidney Greenbush. While it's not rare for twins to play the same role, especially as a baby, there was an episode where both of them played side by side, when Carrie's character created an imaginary friend, played by her actual sister! Even more, the twins have a brother who also appeared as a guest star on tBranson.
• A couple of episodes of Living Single featured the mothers of Khadijah (Queen Latifah) and Regine (Kim Fields), played by their real mothers Rita Owens and Chip Fields.
• On Lost, Benjamin Linus is played by Michael Emerson. His wife Carrie plays Ben's mother Emily. Thankfully, Squick is avoided because Emily dies in childbirth and thus only appears during baby Ben's birth and as a hallucination on the island to young Ben.
• Lucifer:
  • Chloe Decker's father, John, is portrayed by Chris Payne Gilbert, who is married to Lesley-Ann Brandt (Maze) in real life.
  • Tom Ellis' daughter cameos as a mourner in Dan's funeral, sitting behind Lucifer.
• Real-life couple Michael and Susan Hogan played the parents of Dana Fairbanks in The L Word, and the parents of Myka in Warehouse 13
• On Magnum, P.I., Zachary Knighton's wife, Betsy Phillips, recurs as his character's love interest in seasons two and three.
• Maid: Margaret Qualley and Andie MacDowell play daughter and mother on the show, just like they are in real life. Alex's troubled relationship with her mother Paula is a major plot arc. Qualley also specifically asked that MacDowell play her mom so they could work together.
• The first season The Man from U.N.C.L.E. episodes "The Quadripartite Affair" and "The Giuoco Piano Affair" were two of the relatively few episodes that gave Illya Kuryakin (played by David McCallum) the Girl of the Week. She was played in both episodes by Jill Ireland, who was at the time of filming married to McCallum.
• Bud Bundy's little brother made several appearances on Married... with Children.
• The title character of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel is played by Rachel Brosnahan. Her husband Jason Ralph appears in a recurring role in the final two seasons as Mike Carr, an executive on The Gordon Ford Show.
• The husband-wife version of this trope is even older then He & She: the very first sitcom on American TV, Mary Kay And Johnny (1947–50), featured real-life married couple Mary Kay and John Stearns in the title roles. Their son Christopher, born in 1948, was written into the show shortly after his birth.
• M*A*S*H:
  • Star Alan Alda's father Robert Alda starred as a visiting/rival surgeon in two episodes. In the second one, Alan Alda's half-brother also guest-starred as a medic.
  • The photograph on Col. Potter's desk, supposedly of Potter's wife Mildred, was actually a picture of Harry Morgan's real-life wife, Eileen Detchon.
• On Master of None, Dev's (Aziz Ansari) parents are played by his real-life parents, Shoukath and Fatima Ansari. His father actually took acting lessons. Aziz's cousin Harris appears in season 2 as Dev's cousin.
• The Mentalist:
  • Simon Baker's wife appeared in an episode of her husband's hit show as the widow of that episode's victim. His daughter, Stella Baker, had a cameo as an angry inmate in a season seven episode.
  • Tim Kang's wife plays one of the women in the bar during Cho's Instant Seduction scene in "Crimson Casanova" (she's the one who walks off in disgust when he suggests a threeway), a Reality Subtext which makes the scene even more hilarious.
• Merlin featured Emilia Fox as a semi-regular and her uncle James Fox as a guest star, though the two of them never interacted — in fact, by the time James turned up, Emilia's character had long since been killed off.
• On Midnight Caller, the father of Devon's child is played by Wendy Kilbourne's husband James Read.
• Most of the random characters on The Mighty Boosh are friends and family of Noel Fielding and Julian Barratt. The biggest example is definitely Noel's younger brother Mike, who plays Naboo and is also part of the main cast, but there are several other notable ones:
  • Noel's then-partner Delia Gaitskell (credited by her stage name, Dee Plume) plays "Neon" of the Electro Girls in Series 1, and "Anthrax" of the Goth Girls in Series 2.
  • Noel and Dee's nephew played the shaman Kirk, who ended up having a minor recurring role as the most extremely powerful and debauched shaman on the council, who just happens to manifest as a nine-year-old boy.
• The 1980s revival of Mission: Impossible featured a 2-part episode where Barney Collier from the original series was rescued by the current IMF team, which included his son Grant. Grant was played by Phil Morris, the real-life son of Greg Morris (Barney).
• Monk: A lot of Tony Shalhoub's real relatives appeared on the show at different points.
  • Tony's wife Brooke Adams has appeared as four different characters on the show:
    • In "Mr. Monk and the Airplane", Brooke plays Leigh Harrison, a flight attendant who is driven crazy by Monk's antics. She is later interviewed by James Novak in "Mr. Monk's 100th Case", where it is shown that she has developed a fear of flying and also was driven to drinking, which was also implied by her final appearance in the former episode.
    • In "Mr. Monk and the Kid", Brooke plays Abigail Carlyle, whom Monk and Natalie interview after her son, violinist Daniel Carlyle, is discovered to have been kidnapped and the kidnappers amputated one of his fingers to send back to them as a message.
    • In "Mr. Monk Visits a Farm", Brooke plays Sheriff Butterfield, a county sheriff. All of a sudden, the scene where Monk is roped into going square dancing very terribly with her (while looking visibly uncomfortable for the entire scene) becomes a thousand times funnier, especially since he brings up Trudy during the scene. In her first crossing paths with the leads (while Monk and Randy are looking at Randy's uncle's old pickup truck), she even winks at Monk, though it's hard to see if this is her quickly breaking character.
    • In "Mr. Monk and the Badge" as Edith Capriani, a Crazy Cat Lady that Monk gets fed up with for pulling him away from other cases.
  • Tony's brother Michael has played three characters throughout the series' run:
    • In "Mr. Monk and the Missing Granny", he plays Ron Abrash, a former radical who Monk and Captain Stottlemeyer question as a person of interest in a kidnapping. Which makes the part where Monk says, "I've been smoking THE TRUTH, man!" that much funnier when you consider just exactly who Tony is speaking to.
    • In "Mr. Monk Bumps His Head", Michael plays Ned, the beekeeper whose farm Roger Zisk crashes his car into when trying to cover up bee stings that he'd received the night before when dumping his pregnant girlfriend's body.
    • In "Mr. Monk Is the Best Man", Michael is the minister who presides over Leland and T.K.'s wedding ceremony.
  • Tony's sister Susan Shalhoub Larkin appears as Linda Kloster's housekeeper in "Mr. Monk and the Genius" (the one who drops the tray and discovers the body).
• On My Name Is Earl, Randy is played by Ethan Suplee. Willie the One-Eyed Mailman is played by Ethan's real-life dad, Bill Suplee.
• Mystery Science Theater 3000:
  • The end of the show's Laserblast episode had Trace Beaulieu's father in a brief cameo as an extremely-aged Dr. Forrester.
  • Additionally, Mike Nelson's real-life wife, Bridget Jones (no, not that Bridget Jones) appeared several times, including as Mr. B Natural, Lisa Loeb, Nuveena, Flavia, and Slicer the Nanite. She was also one of the actresses who portrayed Magic Voice before Mary Jo Pehl took over permanently. Bridget was also one of the show's writers, including a stint as a full-time member of the writing staff from season 4 onward.
• Extreme example: Michael, Nat, and Alex Wolff (father and sons) play a father and his two sons in The Naked Brothers Band. On top of that, Jesse, Alex's May-December girlfriend, is actually his cousin.
• Narcos has Pedro Pascal's youngest sibling, Lux Pascal, appear in two episodes of the third season.
• NCIS:
  • Troian Bellisario, who plays Sara, is a (step) sibling to Sean Murray, who plays Timothy McGee, her character's brother. A third sibling, Michael Bellisario, had a recurring role on the show but shared no scenes with either sibling. All three actors also appeared on JAG, though in different roles, and producer Donald P. Bellisario is their father or stepfather. A fourth sibling, Chad W. Murray, plays Seaman McDonald's corpse in NCIS episode "The Immortals" and the unnamed redhead that picks Gibbs up in the silver convertible is Sean Murray's real-life mother Vivienne Bellisario. Nepotism much?
    • On top of that, Sean Murray's daughter Cay Ryan Murray recently had a role as a teenage hacker in an episode (19x19 The Brat Pack)
  • Mark Harmon's son, Sean, plays young Gibbs.
• Meanwhile, on NCIS: Los Angeles, Kensi and Deeks are played by in-laws Daniela Ruah and Eric Christian Olsen—she's married to his brother, who plays his stunt double. This fact has not stopped the show from shipping Kensi and Deeks together, and as of season 10, the characters are married in-universe.
• Emily, the estranged daughter of Gerry Standing in New Tricks is played by Dennis Waterman's daughter Hannah. This is a subversion; Emily's not actually his.
• A story arc in Ninja Sentai Kakuranger involved Jiraiya/Ninja Black, who is played by Kane Kosugi, being forced to challenge his sensei-turned-nemesis Gali, who was played by Kane's actual father Sho Kosugi.
  • Happened earlier as well in Ultraman: The Ultimate Hero, where Kane Kosugi plays Ultraman's human host Kenichi Kai, while Sho Kosugi voices Ultraman himself.
• Nirvana in Fire: Liu Yi Tong (Han Zhuo, Xia Jiang's son) is the son of Liu Yi Jun (Xie Yu).
• NUMB3RS:
  • Dylan Bruno's brother, Chris Bruno, guest starred in episodes of "Chinese Box" and "Jacked" as Tim King.
  • Rob Morrow's wife, Debbon Ayer, guest starred in "The Fifth Man" as a woman whose home was being invaded.
  • David Krumholtz's then-partner (now wife), Vanessa Britting, guest starred in "Tabu".
• In the fourth season of Nurse Jackie, Bobby Cannavale plays Bad Boss Mike Cruz while his real-life son Jake plays Cruz's addict son Charlie. Hilarity ensues when Charlie overdoses in the season finale and Cruz fails to revive him.
• On The Odd Couple, Jack Klugman played bitter divorcee Oscar Madison, and his wife, Brett Somers, played Blanche, Oscar's ex-wife. During the series' run, Klugman and Somers really did separate, though their marriage didn't officially end until Somers died in 2007.
• The Office (US): Michael Scott's girlfriend Carol in seasons 2 & 3 is played by Steve Carell's wife, Nancy Walls.
• Toward the end of its run ''One Day at a Time (1975) had as regulars both Nanette Fabray and her niece, Shelley Fabares, providing an interesting side-by-side example of how anglicizing your name for the stage seemed less necessary from one generation to the next. Casual viewers didn't always know they were related, especially if they didn't realize their last names are pronounced the same.
• In One Life to Live, openly gay actor Scott Evans played closeted Oliver Fish while Scott's supportive mother Lisa played Oliver's homophobic mom.
• One Tree Hill actors Chad Michael Murray (Lucas Scott) and Sophia Bush (Brooke Davis) were briefly married. When the two divorced, their characters broke up on the show as well.
• In Our Flag Means Death, Stede's younger self is played by the son, Theo, of his main actor, Rhys Darby.
• Another extreme example was the two-part episode "Sandkings" in The Outer Limits (1995). Beau Bridges played the episode's main character, Dr. Simon Kress, his father Lloyd Bridges played Simon's father, and his son Dylan played Simon's son.
• Sofia from Orange Is the New Black, a male-to-female transgender character played by Real Life male-to-female transgender actress Laverne Cox, is played by Cox's twin brother in a flashback sequence to her life before her gender reassignment therapy. Also, a young Daya in a flashback is played by Dascha Polanco's real-life daughter Dasany Kristal.
• Oz:
  • Resident Manipulative Bastard Ryan O'Reily (played by Dean Winters) and his mentally challenged older brother Cyril O'Reily (Scott William Winters) are brothers in real life.
  • Their eldest brother, Bradford Winters, was series creator/head writer Tom Fontana's main collaborator for most of the series' run, as well.
• Parks and Recreation:
  • Nick Offerman's wife, Megan Mullaly, plays Ron Swanson's crazed ex-wife, with whom he has a deeply unhealthy relationship.
  • In one episode, Leslie had a disastrous date with a strange Cloudcuckoolander played by Will Arnett, Amy Poehler's then-husband.
• Semi-example: Shirley Jones, who is/was David Cassidy's stepmother, played his mother in The Partridge Family. AIR neither was consulted on the casting of the other.
• Peaky Blinders:
  • Joe and Finn Cole (John Shelby and Michael Gray) are brothers in real life, and play cousins in the show.
  • Tom Hardy and his wife Charlotte Riley are both in the show, though their characters (Alfie Solomons and May Carleton) never cross paths.
• In the first few Perry Mason TV movies in the 1980s, William Katt played Paul Drake Jr., in-universe son of 1950s/60s TV series character Paul Drake. In real life, Katt is the son of Barbara Hale, who played Mason's secretary Della Street in both the series and the TV movies.
• Michael Emerson's wife, Carrie Preston, plays his character's fiancee on the show Person of Interest.
• Power Rangers:
  • Power Rangers Zeo introduces us to David Trueheart, Tommy's long-lost brother... played by Eric Frank, actual brother to Tommy's actor, Jason Frank.
  • In the original Mighty Morphin, Jason Frank's son Jacob Frank plays the son of Rocky, Adam, and Aisha's teacher.
  • In Power Rangers Ninja Storm, Shane's brother Porter Clarke is played by Pua Magasiva's real-life brother Robbie Magasiva.
  • Yoshi Sudarso plays Koda, the Blue Ranger in Power Rangers Dino Charge. His brother Peter plays another Blue Ranger in the succeeding series, Power Rangers Ninja Steel.
• On Primeval, Connor and Abby are played by actors who are currently engaged in real life. James Lester and Christine Johnson are also married in real life.
• In Private Practice, Idina Menzel plays a patient's mother and a potential love interest. At the time, Menzel was married to Taye Diggs, who plays Dr. Sam Bennett.
• In The Punisher (2017), Dinah Madani's mother is played by Shohreh Aghdashloo. Her husband Houshang Touzie appears in the season 1 finale as Dinah's father to provide Frank with medical treatment.
• In The Rat Patrol episode "The Field of Death Raid", real life brothers Christopher and Nick George play fictional brothers Sam and David Troy.
• Red Dwarf:
  • In the episode "Timeslides", Lister's younger self was played by Emile Charles, Craig Charles's younger brother. Baby Lister in "Ouroboros" was played by Danny John-Jules's nephew, Alexander John-Jules.
  • The mechanoid and blob incarnations of Camille in "Camille" were played by Robert Llewellyn's then-girlfriend (now wife) Judy Pascoe. In his memoir The Man In The Rubber Mask Llewellyn claims that the publicity shot of Kryten and Camille is in his parents' photo album: "That's our elder son and his wife and children, that's our daughter and her children, and that's our middle son who's a robot and his girlfriend."
• In Robin of Sherwood Edward of Wickham and his son Matthew were played by real father and son Jeremy and Robert Bulloch. According to DVD commentaries, many of the child extras throughout the series were played by children of cast and crew members.
• Father-son example: in Romeo!, Master P makes occasional guest appearances as the father of the title character, played by his son Li'l Romeo.
• In the Hallmark Channel movie A Royal Christmas, Rich Bitch Queen Isadora is rude and snooty to her son's "commoner" girlfriend and constantly tries to push him into a relationship with his childhood sweetheart, who is of royal birth and who despite her icy demeanor she is clearly genuinely fond of. As the Queen is played by Jane Seymour and the girl is played by her daughter, this is understandable, and even lampshaded in one scene—"You remind me of myself at that age!"
• Sabrina the Teenage Witch:
  • In the TV series, Melissa Joan Hart's real-life sister Emily played Sabrina's cousin Amanda. She then played Sabrina on the animated series while Melissa Joan Hart played her aunts.
  • In addition, Melissa Joan Hart's sisters Alexandra and Samantha guest-starred on the final season.
• Eugene Levy and his son Daniel Levy created the show and play father and son on Schitt's Creek. Eugene's daughter/Dan's sister Sarah Levy has a recurring role in the show, but her character Twyla is not related to her father and brother's characters, while Annie Murphy plays their daughter/sister Alexis.
• Scrubs:
  • The episode "My Unicorn" had John Bennett Perry as the Patient of the Week and his son Matthew Perry as the patient's son. Except it turned out Gregory wasn't really Murray's father. That episode also cameoed Matthew's cousin Anthony as "Old Murray".
  • Series creator Bill Lawrence is married to Christa Miller (Jordan), who also did voice-over work for his show Clone High. The wedding video that Dr Cox watches after Jordan's first appearance is actually Bill and Christa's, which is why only she can be seen. Lawrence also wrote both of her pregnancies into the series.
• The second and third seasons of SeaQuest DSV has Peter and Michael DeLuise on the main cast, though their characters are not related. In one episode, Dom De Luise appears as the father of Michael's character, and David DeLuise has a small cameo.
• In interesting variant in the Lifetime Original Movie Secrets of My Stepdaughter — Tiera Skovbye plays the stepdaughter of the title, with her real sister Ali Skovbye plays her stepsister.
• On Seinfeld, Julia Louis-Dreyfus's half-sister Lauren Bowles made occasional appearances as a waitress in the coffee shop that the characters frequent.
  • Speaking of Louis-Dreyfus, she and her future husband Brad Hall were castmates on Saturday Night Live. Several years later, Julia guest-starred on an episode of The Single Guy, which was created and produced by Hall.
  • Lauren was also a main cast member on Julia's short-lived Watching Ellie.
• Sherlock does this to an art, presumably to make the onscreen chemistry between characters feel more natural.
  • Sherlock and Mycroft's parents are played by Wanda Ventham and Timothy Carlton, Benedict Cumberbatch's own parents.
  • Mary Morstan (Watson's fiancee/wife) is played by Amanda Abbington, who was Martin Freeman's real-life partner (although they were together until just before the 2017 series was shown).
  • Sherlock as a child is played by one of Steven Moffat's sons.
  • In a What Could Have Been example, Mark Gatiss's partner, Ian Hallard, had a minor role as the barrister defending Moriarty in "The Reichenbach Fall". Despite fan hopes that he might be this universe's version of Sebastian Moran, it was a one-off appearance, and that role has now been played by another actor.
• In The Shield, Vic Mackey's daughter Cassidy is played by Michael Chiklis's real-life daughter Autumn Chiklis.
• Skins:
  • A very obvious example of real-life twins Kathryn and Megan Prescott playing the twins Emily and Katie, respectively.
  • And the significantly less obvious example of Effy's mum (Morwenna Banks) cheating on her screen husband (Harry Enfield) with her real one (David Baddiel).
• In Sledge Hammer!, humor about the title character's ex-wife were made a lot (although the reason for the divorce was never fully explained). When she actually appeared in the last season of the show, she was played by Heather Lupton, real-life wife of Sledge's actor David Rasche.
• After he gained more creative control on Sliders, Jerry O'Connell got his real-life brother added to the regular cast, playing his long-lost brother. When Jerry departed the show, his brother went with him.
  • Charlie O'Connell would later make an appearance as the brother of Jerry O'Connell's character in Crossing Jordan.
  • Charlie O'Connell also appeared in a third season episode, as a different character (before his regular character was introduced).
  • In the Sliders episode "Greatfellas", the series' co-creator Tracy Tormé's real-life father Mel Tormé is a country-western singer, a Bible thumper and a government informant. According to the younger Tormé, "everything he's not in this life." Whether he still has a son named Tracy in this world isn't mentioned.
• In Smallville, twins Shawn Ashmore and Aaron Ashmore both played parts; the former as an early Freak of the Week bit part and the latter as a regular good guy. Nobody ever notices they look alike.
• The Sopranos:
  • Steven Van Zandt plays Silvio Dante. His wife Gabriella is played by Van Zandt's real wife Maureen Van Zandt. ^note  They've been married since 1982; Bruce Springsteen was the best man at their wedding.
  • In the flashback sequence in "To Save Us All From Satan's Power", a young Jackie Aprile, Jr. is played by Matt Cerbone, the younger brother of Jackie Jr.'s regular actor Jason Cerbone.
  • Main character Tony Soprano was portrayed by James Gandolfini. When a prequel film, The Many Saints of Newark, was created over a decade after the show went off the air, the role of teenaged Tony Soprano was played by his son Michael Gandolfini.
• Space: 1999, starring Martin Landau and his wife Barbara Bain, both also having starred before in the show Mission: Impossible.
• Stargate Atlantis:
  • Real-life siblings David and Kate Hewlett also play brother and sister onscreen in the aptly named episode "McKay and Mrs. Miller". Fans loved her so much that TPTB brought her back for three more episodes.
  • This was actually Art Mimicking Life — in "The Siege" McKay was originally to have been composing the video to his brother. David Hewlett convinced them to shift it to sister, as he had no brothers, but did have a sister who was an actress, should they ever want to go that route later on in the series...
  • Hewlett said in an interview that in their first episode together the director instructed them to act like brother and sister, forgetting that they actually were.
    "I remember Martin [Gero] actually said to us once, 'Now remember you guys are supposed to be brother and sister.' And we were laughing because we were treating each other so horribly, we could only be brother and sister. ... He was like, 'Remember you're brother and sister,' and we were like, 'Yeah—? Thank you for reminding us?'"
• Stargate SG-1:
• Peter DeLuise, a director of the show, occasionally also made cameo appearances. His brother David played as a love interest to Carter.
  • His other brother Michael DeLuise appeared as Colonel Danning in "Wormhole X-Treme!" and father Dom De Luise as Urgo.
  • As well as his wife Anne Marie DeLuise (nee Loder) as Farrell in "The Other Side" and Cameron Mitchell's high school sweetheart Amy Vanderburg in "Bounty".
  • Peter's brother Michael joined him on the fifth season of 21 Jump Street, playing Joey Penhall, the younger brother of Peter's character Doug.
  • In another episode, Michael played a younger Doug Penhall with Dom De Luise as his father.
  • David had the role of Bug Pollone in 3rd Rock from the Sun, and his brothers Peter, Michael, and his father Dom DeLuise did a cameo in one episode.
  • Also on Stargate SG-1, actress Lexa Doig joined the cast in Season 9 as Dr. Carolyn Lam, working alongside husband Michael Shanks, who played Dr. Daniel Jackson.
• Quite a few times on Star Trek:
  • In "Miri" many of the children in non-speaking roles: Lisabeth Shatner (who Kirk picks up and carries at one point), Grace Lee Whitney's two sons John Decker and Scott Dweck, and Gene Roddenberry's daughters Darlene and Dawn.
  • In Star Trek: Voyager, "Q2", father and son John and Keegan de Lancie play Q and "Q Junior". Also, an instance of Plot-Relevant Age-Up-Q Junior is an adolescent, but the last time we saw him, three seasons earlier, he was an infant. Of course, since he's a Sufficiently Advanced Alien, he can look however he wants.
  • "Far Beyond The Stars", an Elseworld episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine in which the regulars were writers for a 1950s science fiction magazine, had Nana Visitor (Kira) and Alexander Siddig (Bashir), who were married at the time, as a married couple based on C. L. Moore and Henry Kuttner.
    • Another episode featured Kira and Bashir arguing because the former was carrying Keiko O'Brien's baby, and the procedure to make that happen had been performed by Bashir. Visitor was actually pregnant with Siddig's child.
  • In the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "The Inner Light", the son of Kamin, the person whose life Picard is experiencing, was played by Patrick Stewart's son Daniel.
  • Wil Wheaton's younger siblings Jeremy and Amy played Mason and Tara, two of the children who were abducted along with Wesley in "When the Bough Breaks".
  • Majel Barrett, who was dating series creator Gene Roddenberry during TOS (where she played Number One in the pilot and Nurse Chapel in the series proper) and was married to him by the time TNG rolled around (playing the computer's voice and Lwaxana Troi).
  • Rebecca Romijn, who plays Number One on Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, is married to Jerry O'Connell, who voices Commander Ransom on the animated show Star Trek: Lower Decks.
  • On Star Trek: Picard, Geordi's daughter Alandra is fittingly played by LeVar Burton's daughter Mica Burton.
• St. Elsewhere:
  • The real life married couple William Daniels and Bonnie Bartlett played Mark and Ellen Craig on the series.
  • Sagan Lewis (Dr. Jackie Wade) was the wife of the producer Tom Fontana during the production of the series. They later divorced and remarried.
  • Blythe Danner, who played Paige Gerradeaux in "The Women", was married to the series' executive producer Bruce Paltrow. He also directed that episode, among many others.
  • Mark Harmon's niece Tracy Nelson played Jennifer Milbourne in "The Women".
  • The director David Anspaugh cast his daughter Vanessa as Dr. Auschlander's granddaughter Jessica in "Fade to White".
  • Deborah May and George DelHoyo, who played the recurring characters Terri and Ken Valere in Season Four, are married in real life.
  • Christina Pickles' then husband Victor Lobl directed six episodes in Seasons One and Two.
  • John McIntire and Jeanette Nolan, who played Harry Cragen and Sophia Pavlon in "To Tell the Truth", were married in real life.
  • The real-life married couple Steve Allen and Jayne Meadows played Victor Ehrlich's parents Lech and Olga Oseransky in "Russian Roulette", "Visiting Daze" and "The Abby Singer Show".
  • Shelly Gibson, who played Chaplain Claire McCabe in the Season Six episodes "Heaven's Skate" and "Split Decision", was the then wife of the producer and writer Channing Gibson.
• The Suite Life of Zack & Cody, with the Sprouse brothers Dylan and Cole as the title characters.
  • And the same with any other Disney movie or television show with twins. Disney loves twins and uses them as much as possible.
• On Suits, Harvey's love interest Zoe Lawford is played by Gabriel Macht's wife Jacinda Barrett.
• Supernatural:
  • In Heartache, Alan Ackles, father of series star Jensen Ackles, guest stars as a detective, allowing the father/ son duo to share a scene. They already previously starred together in 2005 film Devour.
  • Over the course of the series, several family members of the main actors, Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki, have appeared as background extras including Ackles' sister and brother-in-law and Padalecki's parents.
  • Jensen acted alongside his then-rumored girlfriend Tania Saulnier in the episode "Scarecrow".
  • Genevieve Padalecki met Jared Padalecki while playing the demon, Ruby, during Season Four of Supernatural. By Season Six, she's guest starring as herself in a Alternate Universe episode and married to Padalecki — in real life and on the show. Whew.
  • Just one season prior to meeting Cortese, Padalecki's then-girlfriend Sandy had made an appearance on the show, where his character interrogated and brutally shot her in the head. Awkward.
  • Jensen's wife Danneel Ackles debuted in Season 13 as a character named Sister Jo/Anael. Took her long enough.
• Switched at Birth announced that Zoey Deutch, series regular Lea Thompson's daughter, would be appearing in a multi-episode role.
• Tatort (NDR; Hannover): The actress Maria Furtwängler who plays KHK Charlotte Lindholm is the daughter of Kathrin Ackermann who portrays Charlotte's mother Annemarie Lindholm.
• Taxi:
  • Danny DeVito's mother, Julia DeVito, played Louie's mother on Taxi. He also met Rhea Pearlman when she guest starred, and she appeared a few times after they married.
  • In addition, Tony Danza's son, Marc Anthony Danza, played a kid that Tony wanted to adopt.
• It seems like Stiles and Lydia might have a little trouble with their relationship on Teen Wolf as the sheriff (Linden Ashby) and Lydia's mom (Susan Walters) are married in real life and have been for nearly 30 years now.
• On Terriers, Hank's sister Stephanie is played by Donal Logue's sister Karina.
• Texas Rising: Bill Paxton, who plays Sam Houston, and James Paxton, who plays Roy, are father and son.
• The '80s Disney TV movie The Thanksgiving Promise features several members of the Bridges family: Beau, Lloyd, Lloyd's wife Dorothy, Beau's other son Jordan, and an uncredited Jeff.
• Chris Masterson appeared on his brother Danny’s series That '70s Show as an unrelated character. They also played brothers on one episode of White Collar.
• An episode of Marlo Thomas' 1960s sitcom That Girl had Danny Thomas in a brief cameo as a priest, just so she could call him "father".
• That Mitchell and Webb Look: Robert Webb's wife Abigail Burdess played his partner or wife in one sketch on the show (along with many other characters) while their baby was played by the pair's real daughter.
• Third Watch: Paramedics Carlos Nieto and Holly Levine dated and got married in the final season. They were played by real-life husband and wife Anthony Ruivivar and Yvonne Jung.
• thirtysomething had married couple Ken Olin and Patricia Wettig playing the respective spouses of the other two central characters. They later play a couple in Brothers & Sisters.
• The Mockumentary This Country is written by brother and sister Daisy May Cooper and Charlie Cooper, who star as cousins Kerry and Kurtan Mucklowe. Their father Paul Cooper plays Kerry's father Martin Mucklowe, and their uncle Trevor Cooper plays Len Clifton (who is not related to the Mucklowes).
• In another example involving the aforementioned John Dunsworth: he and his daughter Sarah both star in the sitcom Trailer Park Boys (he plays Mr Lahey, she plays Sarah) — though unusually for this trope in a sitcom that's all about a very tight-knit community with lots of Tangled Family Trees, the characters are apparently not related to each other and no Lampshade Hanging jokes are ever made about a suspicious resemblance.
• In a 2005 episode of the Canadian soap opera Train 48, John Neville played the grandfather of his grandson Joe Dinicol's character Zach Eisley.
• The Tribe from Season 4 onward. Ebony, Java, and Siva, who play sisters on the show, are played by the real-life Cassie sisters.
• The Twilight Zone (1985):
  • In "Ye Gods", Carolyn Seymour (Megaera) is the ex-wife of the director Peter Medak.
  • In "Opening Day", Elan Oberon (Sally) was the girlfriend (later wife) of the director John Milius.
  • "Still Life" features the real-life father and son John Carradine (Professor Alex Stottel) and Robert Carradine (Daniel Arnold).
  • In "The Storyteller", brothers Billy and Tony Anton played Daniel and Nathaniel Ellidge.
  • In "The World Next Door", the real-life married couple George Wendt and Bernadette Birkett played Barney and Katie Schlessinger.
  • In "The Junction", the married couple Chris Mulkey and Karen Landry played Ray and Sarah Dobson.
• Two and a Half Men:
  • Martin Sheen also appeared on an episode of the show, in which he played the father of Charlie's Stalker with a Crush. Charlie is, of course, played by Charlie Sheen. In the same episode, Martin Sheen's character gets in a relationship with the mens' mother, much to their horror.
  • And Emilio Estevez (who, unlike his father and brother, chose to use their real family name) has also appeared on the show.
  • So did Charlie Sheen's now ex-wife Denise Richards and real-life daughter Sam, who appeared in a Season 2 episode.
• Two of a Kind, So Little Time, Sister, Sister, Double Trouble, and Sweet Valley High are all built around twin sisters being played by twin sisters (first two the Olsens, the other three the Mowrys, Sagals, and Daniels respectively).
• The Brazilian dub of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt had a mother and daughter (Monica Rossi and Carol Kapfer) ironically voicing stepmother and stepdaughter (Jacqueline and Xanthippe) - and the father was also in the dub, but as an unrelated gay man (Titus).
• Veronica Mars Logan Echolls' parents are played by real-life husband and wife Harry Hamlin and Lisa Rinna.
• Walker, Texas Ranger: Many of Chuck Norris' family members have been very involved throughout the series, from writing to producing to directing, but having a younger relative being cast in Season 9's "Child of Hope" is what really sets things apart. Max Parkins, the infant in Walker and Alex's care while Walker hunts down his father's killer, is played by Chuck's grandson, Max Carlos Norris, and Max's father, Chuck's son, Michael, directed the episode.
  • In Walker, Jared Padalecki and Genevieve Padalecki play husband and wife Cordell and Emily Walker.
• The Walking Dead has a few examples.
  • Hilarie Burton guest stars as Negan's wife Lucille alongside husband Jeffrey Dean Morgan.
  • Macsen Lintz was replaced by his older brother Matt Lintz to convincingly age him for a rather long Time Skip.
    • Both of them are brothers of Madison Lintz, who has played their (adoptive) sister Sophia.
• The West Wing:
  • Emilio Estevez and his daughter have a brief appearance in an episode, in "archival video" of a younger Jed Bartlet and daughter Zoe.
  • Martin Sheen's daughter Renée Estevez has a small recurring role as staffer Nancy, who interacts with the President from time to time. In the series finale President Bartlet tells Nancy that he's looking forward to spending time with her mother after he leaves office, a nod to Sheen's real-life wife.
• Whiskey Cavalier: In "Five Spies and a Baby" guest star Tina is played by Scott Foley's real-life wife, Marika Dominczyk.
• Wings:
  • Tony Shalhoub's wife Brooke Adams guest-starred on this show as a nun who is helped by Shalhoub's character Antonio.
  • In addition to Shalhoub and Adams, a handful of episodes featured guest spots by relatives of the cast.
    • Tim Daly's sister Tyne played a wealthy woman who attempts to make Brian a kept man.
    • Tim Daly's wife, Amy Van Nostrand, played a woman in a married couple who befriends the Hacketts.
    • Amy Yasbeck's husband John Ritter played Casey's estranged husband Stuart.
• The Wonder Years
  • Danica McKellar as Kevin's main love interest, and her real-life sister Crystal McKellar in a recurring role as an unrelated character who was also Kevin's sometime girlfriend, Becky Slater.
  • Ben Savage (brother of Fred) has a small part in one episode (see the Boy Meets World example above).
• The X-Files:
  • The episode "Hollywood A.D.", a movie is made based on Mulder and Scully's lives as paranormal FBI agents. Téa Leoni is cast as the movie version of Scully, and it is mentioned (jokingly) that she has a crush on Mulder. Tea Leoni being David Duchovny's wife, obviously. Of course, Duchovny also wrote and directed that episode...
  • In the flashbacks of "Emily", younger Scully is played by Gillian Anderson's younger sister.
  • Though not a relative to anyone in the cast, the baby playing William at the end of "Existence" was Jerry Shiban, the son of John Shiban, a writer and producer of the show. He was only a few weeks old in that episode, but the role was re-cast for Season 9.

Music

See also Band of Relatives for permanent members of musical groups.

• AC/DC had Stevie Young replacing his uncle Malcolm Young as a rhythm guitar twice, first in the 1988 Blow Up You Video tour as Malcolm went to rehab, and then before Rock or Bust in 2014, given Malcolm's dementia forced him into retirement.
• Kate Bush's album Aerial has the song "Bertie", written for her son Bertie. He also makes a few appearances in the second half of the album, first in the track "Prelude" as a child, and in the 2018 remastered versions of the "An Architect's Dream" and "The Painter's Link" as an adult (replacing disgraced guest musician Rolf Harris).
• Eric Clapton wrote "Wonderful Tonight" based on a comment he made to his wife when she was taking too much time getting ready for a function. The song turns the comments on their heads and thus was born one of the all-time great romantic ballads. Also regarding Clapton, his smash hit "Layla" was an Anguished Declaration of Love toward his close friend George Harrison's then-wife Patti Boyd, who Clapton was infatuated with. They later got together, though the relationship didn't last.
• Dave Grohl had his sister Lisa play bass in "How I Missed You", featured later as a Foo Fighters B-side, and let his daughter Violet do backing vocals in a few 2019 Foo concerts and the 2021 album Medicine at Midnight. After drummer Taylor Hawkins died, the tribute concert to him had Violet singing lead in a few songs, and Taylor's son Oliver filling in for him as the Foos played "My Hero".
• The music video for How to Destroy Angels' "The Space In Between" has members and husband and wife Trent Reznor and Mariqueen Maandig as a newly-wed couple that are heavily implied to have killed each other while on their honeymoon.
• Billy Joel wrote "Uptown Girl" as an ode to Christie Brinkley, his soon-to-be wife, and she later starred in the song's music video.
  • He also wrote "Just the Way You Are" for his earlier spouse Elizabeth.
• Led Zeppelin's reunion concert in 2007 famously had the drums taken by the late John Bonham's son Jason.
• When Madonna performed "Material Girl" during The Virgin Tour, the performance ended with an actor posing as her father dragging her offstage. When the show came to Madonna's hometown of Detroit, she got her actual father to play the part.
• There's a whole family network of European Symphonic Metal and Power Metal bands who often appear on the same bills. Nightwish keyboardist and composer Tuomas Holopainen is the second cousin of Leaves' Eyes vocalist Elina Siirala. Nightwish vocalist Floor Jansen is married to Sabaton drummer Hannes Van Dahl and is a former bandmate of Epica cofounder Mark Jansen, whose ex-girlfriend Simone Simons sings in the band and is married to Kamelot keyboardist Oliver Palotai. Kamelot singer Tommy Karevik married Kobra And The Lotus frontwoman Kobra Paige in 2020.
• In the Sakamichi Series franchise, Nogizaka46's Mao Ioki and Hinatazaka46's Yoko Shogenji are cousins.
• Within Temptation frontwoman Sharon den Adel and studio guitarist Robert Westerholt are a long-term Creator Couple. Robert's brother Martijn was also formerly in the band and founded Delain after leaving due to health problems, and Sharon had a guest appearance on Delain's debut album Lucidity.
• On Pink Floyd's The Wall, Roger Waters' son Harry voices young Pink at the beginning of 'Goodbye Blue Sky'. Harry would also be a part of his father's band since 2002.
• The Kids Rock coda of Red Hot Chili Peppers ' "Aeroplane" features Flea's daughter Clara.
• The late Minnie Ripperton wrote her one big hit "Loving You" for her daughter Maya, who she never got to see grow up. Maya — as in the comedic actress Maya Rudolph — grew up to become famous in her own right.
• Animated band Savlonic's members Evangeline and Roscoe are often portrayed as a romantic couple in their songs and videos. Their real-world performers Sarah Darling and Weebl are married.
• Ringo Starr and His All-Starr Band had for three years his son Zak Starkey, who is also a drummer.
• During The Who's tours in The New '10s, Pete Townshend's younger brother Simon was a second guitarist.
• The Soulfly song "Revengeance" has Max Cavalera's sons Richie Cavalera and Igor Cavalera Jr (named after Max's brother Igor, who himself has played with him on Sepultura and Cavalera Conspiracy) on vocals and Zyon Cavalera on drums. After David Kinkade left, Zyon became a permanent drummer for Soulfly. Igor Jr. is in another Max project, Go Ahead And Die.
• Wolfgang Van Halen first appeared in some 2004 dates helping play "316", a song written by father Eddie for him (the title is Wolfie's birthday), and two years later joined the band as a bassist.

Podcasts

• The McElroy Brothers' whole media empire is based on this. They are all brothers, leading to their flagship program My Brother, My Brother and Me. They also made a Dungeons & Dragons podcast with their father Clint, called The Adventure Zone. They each have separate podcasts with their wives as well.

Radio

• Husband-and-wife teams were remarkably common in the golden age of radio, probably due to the number of radio acts that originated on vaudeville where family acts were common. Notable husband-and-wife radio teams include:
  • Jim and Marion Jordan (Fibber McGee and Molly)
  • George Burns and Gracie Allen
  • Jack Benny and Mary Livingstone
  • Goodman and Jane Ace (the Easy Aces)
  • Fred Allen and Portland Hoffa (Town Hall Tonight)
• Journey into Space:
  • Bruce Beeby's wife Madi Hedd played Martha Bodie in The Red Planet.
  • David Kossoff's brother Alan Keith (whose birth name was Alec Kossoff) played a London correspondent in Operation Luna.
  • The writer Julian Simpson's wife Jana Carpenter played Edie Harper in The Host.
• Ben Lyon and Bebe Daniels (Life With The Lyons) on The BBC at the same period.
• In the 1990s, Jeremy Hardy and his then-wife Kit Hollerbach in Unnatural Acts, later titled At Home With The Hardys in imitation of the above.

Roleplay

• Gamer and Meddler's players in We Are All Pokémon Trainers are RL siblings, as are Joseph and Emma's.

Theatre

• Many high school musicals will use the younger siblings of cast members to fill children's parts, mostly because it cuts down on scheduling issues. If one child can make it to all of the rehearsals, chances are their sibling can as well. Of course, sometimes the younger child is very good in their own right, and may even have a substantially bigger part than their brother or sister.
• One memorable production of Don Giovanni cast identical twins as the title character and his manservant Leporello. Since there is a lengthy sequence in which Leporello disguises himself as the Don and fools everyone, this was a stroke of casting genius.
• In the 2005 Moon Troupe production of Takarazuka Revue's Elisabeth, sisters Ayaki Nao and Ayana Oto play Death and young Rudolf. This borders on Cast Incest, because Death pretends to be young Rudolf's friend, and successfully seduces/kisses adult Rudolf, played by Oozora Yuuhi. Death and young Rudolf's scenes can be interpreted in light of their future selves' relationship.
• Adam Jacobs, who originated the role of Aladdin on Broadway, was absolutely delighted when his sister Arielle was cast as Jasmine in the Australian production. She did end up making the move to play the role on Broadway, though for obvious reasons not until Adam left the production (he and the original Jasmine, Courtney Reed, left at the same time).

Video Games

• Batman: The Telltale Series is, among other things, about Bruce Wayne's attempt to get his friend Harvey Dent elected to Mayor, and Harvey is dating Selina Kyle, unaware that she is Catwoman and that Bruce is Batman. Harvey Dent and Selina Kyle/Catwoman's voice actors are also a married couple in real life, and Bruce's voice actor is Willingham's best friend, and was their Best Man at the wedding.
• Binary Domain: Dan Marshall and his eventual love interest Faye are voiced by Travis Willingham and Laura Bailey.
• Caligula Overdose has Miyuki Sawashiro and her brother, Chiharu Sawashiro, play the female and male protagonists of the game, respectively. As a result, some fans interpret the two of them as actually being related, despite there not being any canon relationship between the two.
• Compilation of Final Fantasy VII: Kenichi Suzumura and Maaya Sakamoto's marriage also retroactively applies to Zack Fair and Aerith Gainsborough. The Compilation shows how their relationship began with Crisis Core and confirms that the two are together in the Lifestream, as seen in Advent Children.
• Cyberpunk 2077: An ironic example in the Polish dub. The actors for male V and Judy, Kamil Kula and Marta Żmuda Trzebiatowska, are a married couple. Despite Judy being a romance option, the two characters can never get together due to Incompatible Orientation.
• Deus Ex: Human Revolution: The voice actors for Adam Jensen and his girlfriend Megan Reed are real-life married couple Elias Toufexis and Michelle Boback.
• In Dragon Age: Inquisition, Morrigan's son, Kieran, is voiced by Odin Black, who is the son of Claudia Black, Morrigan's voice actress.
• Fire Emblem:
  • In Fire Emblem: Awakening, Tara Platt is the Lady of Black Magic Miriel and one of her prospective husbands, the Child Mage Ricken, is voiced by Platt's husband Yuri Lowenthal.
  • The above mention of Laura Bailey and Travis Willingham also counts here, with Bailey voicing Lucina and Willingham voicing Lon'qu (her potential uncle or father-in-law, or both if he fathers Owain and Owain dates Lucina) and Brady (who can be either her close friend, younger brother [if Chrom marries Maribelle] or Love Interest).
  • Also from Awakening, should either Stahl or Donnel (both voiced by Sam Riegel) marry Nowi, they'll find that their Kid from the Future is as perfectly cast as can be; Nah is voiced by Eden Riegel, Sam's sister. (Eden also voices Sumia, but because of Sumia's limited pool of potential husbands, Incestuous Casting is not an issue.)
  • In Fire Emblem Fates, Matthew Mercer voices both the Warrior Prince Ryoma, the Cultured Badass Shigure, and the White Mage Azama. His real-life wife (then girlfriend) Marisha Ray plays Ryoma's mother (or better said, Parental Substitute) Queen Mikoto (who is also Shigure's great-aunt), Ryoma and Azama's prospect love interest Oboro, and Azama's Golden Path-only possible lover Effie.
  • In the original Japanese version of Fire Emblem Warriors, the siblings Yuuma and Maaya Uchida play the twins Rowan and Lianna.
• The King of Fighters XV:
  • Chizuru Kagura is voiced by Sayaka Ohara, the older sister of Shun'ei's voice actor Takashi Ohara.
  • B. Jenet is voiced by Mikako Komatsu, wife of Kyo Kusanagi's voice actor Tomoaki Maeno.
• Kingdom Hearts:
  • The Japanese release of Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep uses son and father Akio Ōtsuka and Chikao Ohtsuka for plot relevance; with Akio having voiced Xehanort in the entire Kingdom Hearts series by that point, it was only natural to cast Chikao as Master Xehanort, who commits Grand Theft Me on Terra at the end of Terra's scenario, effectively becoming present-day Xehanort. Apparently, Akio represents a younger Chikao. Kingdom Hearts III would then see Akio taking up the role of the elder Master Xehanort in the stead of his late father.
  • In the German dubs of the Kingdom Hearts games, Sora is voiced by Constantin von Jascheroff, the son of Mario von Jascheroff, who happens to be the German dub voice of Mickey Mouse, who appears in these games intermittently.
• League of Legends: From the Brazilian Portuguese version of the game, Fiona Laurent and Xayah are voiced by mother and daughter Marli and Letícia Bortoletto, respectively.
• The ending in the Japanese version of Metal Gear Solid 4 featured Akio Ōtsuka as Solid Snake and Chikao Ohtsuka as Snake's father Big Boss. This was intentional on Hideo Kojima's part: Both men were estranged and had a distant relationship before MGS4 went into development, so Kojima cast Chikao as the older incarnation of Big Boss in order to help father and son reconnect. Just as Big Boss gives a Final First Hug to his cloned son as he and Solid Snake make peace after being bitter enemies for years, so too were Chikao and Akio able to reconcile while recording their lines.
• In Myst, the game's co-designers, brothers Rand and Robyn Miller, play the brothers Sirrus and Achenar. Rand also plays their father Atrus, though the Miller brothers' father Ron auditioned for the role.
• Persona:
  • Persona 3 has two cases. Both of the Velvet Room attendants (Elizabeth and Theodore) are voiced by the main protagonist's wife/husband, with the Female Protagonist and Theodore combo in Portable likely being a Casting Gag referencing this. Mitsuru also shares a voice with Elizabeth and is a potential love interest for the Male Protagonist as well. Along with Ryoji (who shares his voice with the male MC) hitting on her being extra-humorous.
  • In Persona 4 Golden, siblings Sam Riegel and Eden Riegel voice Teddie and Marie respectively.
• Samurai Warriors:
  • Yukimura Sanada's voice actor, Takeshi Kusao, is married to Naotora Ii's voice actress, Yuka Saitou.
  • Motochika Chousokabe's voice actor, Ryōtarō Okiayu, is married to Oichi's voice actress, Ai Maeda. This is actually his second marriage after he divorced fellow voice actress Nao Nagasawa.
• Sonic the Hedgehog:
  • Corey Bringas voiced Tails in Sonic Adventure, but since he was too old to sound convincing in the role by Sonic Adventure 2, his younger brother Connor replaced him in the role.
  • In Sonic Heroes, Espio, Charmy and Tails were voiced by Bill Corkery and his two children, Emily and William, respectively.
  • From 2010 to 2019, Laura Bailey and Travis Willingham voiced Blaze the Cat and Knuckles the Echidna.
• Spider-Man (PS4):
  • Another appearance of the husband-and-wife duo of Yuri Lowenthal and Tara Platt, this time the pair taking on the roles of the titular web-slinger and Capt. Yuri Watanabe.
  • Also once again, Laura Bailey and Travis Willingham portraying Mary Jane Watson and The Kingpin respectively.
• Starting with the "fourth" entry in 2008^note Street Fighter IV, while the fourth Numbered Sequel, is actually the sixth subseries if one includes Alpha and EX, and up until 2023's Street Fighter 6, Street Fighter (and its related spin-offs) featured the husband-and-wife team of Travis Willingham and Laura Bailey as Guile and Chun-Li, respectively. (Noticing a trend here with these two?)
• Kenichi Suzumura and Maaya Sakamoto were married during the development of Super Robot Wars Z2: Saisei-hen. In Super Robot Wars UX, Shinn and Lunamaria (see the Anime & Manga section above) get an exclusive Combination Attack.
• An interesting example in Tales of Luminaria, both the mobile game and its anime adaptation, The Fateful Crossroad. In the dub, Lucien Dufaure is voiced by two different VAs, one for his child self and one for his adult self. It just so happened that these VAs would be Apphia Yu and Micah Solusod, who are married.
• In the Warriors Orochi series, Gracia and Sima Yi are respectively voiced by real-life married couple Jun Shikano and the late Tsuyoshi Takishita, which makes the scenes they share both very heartwarming and hilarious. There is a scene in Warriors Orochi 3: Ultimate (released after Takishita's death) where Gracia talks about Sima Yi in an unusually melancholic way, which many fans have interpreted to be a tribute from Shikano to Takishita.

Web Video

• Atop the Fourth Wall: Linkara does this a lot — not surprising since as an Internet reviewer he can't exactly afford to hire people on a regular basis. Thus far, he's utilized his parents, brother, former girlfriend, and fiancée at various points. (As examples: his father as an older version of him; his mother as a Starfleet commander; and his fiancée and former girlfriend as... themselves, more or less.)
• Economy Watch: Cousins Nico and Will Davis portray cousins Dennis and Tom Smith in the show, respectively.
• Eddsworld:
  • Edd's Distaff Counterpart Ell is voiced by Vicky Gould, sister of the late series creator Edd Gould.
  • In 2020, Edd's brother George Gould took over the role of Edd himself.
• Scott McClure, the aspiring filmmaker behind The Joker Blogs, also uses this, probably for the same reasons as Linkara.
• Brad Jones had featured his first wife Jillian in his shows, and now does so with his current one Laura, who even starred in his movie Disco.
• While The Nostalgia Chick and Todd in the Shadows both had their own web shows when they began dating, they started a Running Gag/subplot in both their shows, in which the Chick is terrifyingly obsessed with hooking up with Todd while he is callously indifferent to her. A similar joke was used in the massive review for the Les Miserables musical movie, in which Elise and Paw (who were engaged, and eventually married, in real life) fall in Love at First Sight and become Sickeningly Sweethearts as a result.
• Siblings Sean and Sinead Persaud are co-stars and writing and producing partners as half of Shipwrecked Comedy.
• The Spoony Experiment: Spoony has occasionally had his brother appear on his show. Things are sadly averted in the case of his then-girlfriend Scarlett, who made one appearance in a now-removed video. His Fan Dumb mocked her so much that he replaced the video with an article calling them out on it and never put her in another video again (though she was the webmistress of his site). His later girlfriend April has appeared in videos without the same issues.
• Doug Walker's brother is The Other Guy (Rob Walker), who mostly works behind the camera, but does appear on-screen as various characters on occasion, most notably as Santa Christ. Their father (who also does most of the show's original music) also had cameo appearances in Suburban Knights (News anchor Larry Prince and father of Doug's character Lori) and To Boldly Flee, as well as the review of the movie Devil. His mom also appeared at the end of his review of The Christmas Tree.

Western Animation

• Adventure Time:
  • Marceline's father is voiced by her voice actor's (Olivia Olson) real father (Martin Olson).
  • The voices of the younger Marceline and Bubblegum, Ava and Isabella Acres, are sisters.
• Alvin and the Chipmunks:
  • Since reviving the franchise after his father's death, Ross Bagdasarian Jr. has voiced Dave Seville, as well as Alvin and Simon, while his wife Janice Karman voices Theodore and the Chipettes. Later, their kids Vanessa and Michael got involved, with the former voicing the Chipette Eleanor in the 2015 series.
  • In the first Italian dub of the 1983 series, which covered the Ruby-Spears episodes, Vittorio Stagni (Dave Seville) is the real-life father of Ilaria Stagni (Alvin Seville since Season 2). Likewise, Barbara de Bortoli (Brittany Miller since Season 2) is the real-life sister of Federica De Bortoli (Eleanor Miller).
• On American Dad!, Rachael MacFarlane, voice actor for Stan's daughter Hayley, is the sister of series co-creator and voice actor for Stan and Roger, Seth MacFarlane.
  • She's also done a number of additional voices on Family Guy, including Stewie's love interest Olivia (Stewie is voiced by Seth).
• Jessica Walter, who plays Malory in Archer, is married in real life to Ron Leibman, who plays Malory's Season 4 husband Ron Cadillac. The humor is compounded with a touch of Irony as She Is Cast; while Malory and Ron appear to have had a rush wedding within a few weeks of meeting and have a woefully mismatched relationship based on constant bickering, Walter and Leibman have been happily married since 1984.
• There a few examples in Avatar: The Last Airbender:
  • In the episode "Imprisoned", Haru's mother is voiced by Pat Musick, the mother of Mae Whitman, Katara's voice actress.
  • In the episode "The Ember Island Players", the Zuko actor is voiced by Derek Basco, the older brother of the real Zuko's voice actor, Dante Basco.
  • In the Sequel Series The Legend of Korra, the young Korra seen in the first episode is voiced by Cora Baker, the daughter of Dee Bradley Baker, a principle voice actor in the franchise.
• On Avengers Assemble, Black Widow and Thor are voiced by Laura Bailey and Travis Willingham, who are married in real life. They've been in two other Disney shows together, those being Marvel's Spider-Man (with the former as Gwen Stacy, Crimson Dynamo, and again Black Widow, and the latter as Sandman) and Sofia the First (with the former as Stephanie and the latter as King Roland).
• Nick Offerman is the voice of Axe Cop and his wife Megan Mullally voices most of the female characters in the show.
• Alicia Keys and her niece played a mommy and baby Martian in an episode of The Backyardigans.
• The Batman:
  • Daryl Sabara's brother, Evan, voiced Robin in the show. Two episodes had Daryl himself guest-star: "Riddler's Revenge" has him as one of Dick's classmates and "The End of the Batman" had Daryl as Dick's Evil Counterpart Scorn.
  • Hector Indriago, the Latin Spanish voice of Batman in this series and several others, is the nephew of Frank Maneiro, who, in addition to voicing Mayor Marion Grange, was previously the voice of Batman in the DC Animated Universe.
• In the second to last scene of the episode "The Knights of Tomorrow!" from Batman: The Brave and the Bold, the future Batman Damian Wayne is voiced by Diedrich Bader (who voiced the current Batman) and his son Robin is voiced by Sebastian Bader (Diedrich's real son).
• Ben 10:
  • The Alien Force episode "What Are Little Girls Made Of?" introduces viewers to Ben and Gwen's grandmother Verdona, an Anodite. For her elderly disguise, Verdona is voiced by Barbara Bain. In her true Anodite form and the flashback to Verdona's first meeting with Grandpa Max in "Moonstuck," her daughter Juliet Landau assumes the role. As such, Landau could be thought of as a younger representation of her mother (or Bain could be thought of as an older representation of her daughter. Or both).
  • In Omniverse, Ester is voiced by Yuri Lowenthal's wife Tara Platt. The mutual interest between the two led to the Ben/Ester pairing becoming a Fan-Preferred Couple just after Ester's first appearance, with Ester herself becoming an overnight Ensemble Dark Horse.
• On Bob's Burgers, the Pesto Twins are voiced by sisters Sarah and Laura Silverman.
• BoJack Horseman: In flashbacks, David Sedaris voices the mother of his sister Amy Sedaris' character, Princess Carolyn.
• The boy and his little sister from Bump in the Night were played by real-life siblings Scott and Anndi McAfee.
• In the Latin-American Spanish dub of Daria, Daria and Quinn's parents Helen and Jake were dubbed by real-life spouses Rocío Garcel and Jorge Roig Sr. ^note Though Helen would later be dubbed by Mónica Manjarrez instead.
• In Dave the Barbarian, Dave's sometimes girlfriend Princess Irmoplotz and her mother Queen Zonthara are voiced by Melissa Rivers and Joan Rivers, respectively. This pair of characters was created specifically to allow this mother/daughter casting.
• On Dinosaur Train, Tiny is voiced by Claire Corlett while her father Ian James Corlett voices the conductor. The original voice for Tiny's brother Buddy was her real-life brother Philip.
• On Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist, Laura Silverman and H. Jon Benjamin (respectively, surly secretary Laura and Ben, the 24-year-old slacker son of Dr. Katz who repeatedly and unsuccessfully asks out Laura) were dating when the show started but broke up during the middle of the show's run.
• DuckTales (2017):
  • Doofus Drake's parents are voiced by Yuri Lowenthal and Tara Platt, who are married in real life.
  • In the Latin American dub, Alicia Velez, who plays Lena, is the daughter of Cony Madera, who plays Mrs. Beakley.
• On Elena of Avalor, Estrella (one of Migs' kids) is voiced by Gia Lopez, while her father Mario Lopez voices Cruz.
• Elinor Wonders Why: Mary and Lizzie the Goat Twins are voiced by real-life sisters, Abigail and Grace Oliver.
• In Inspector Gadget, whenever Frank Welker wasn't available Dr. Claw was instead voiced by Don Francks, father of Cree Summer who voiced Penny.
• In the French dub of Inspector Gadget (2015), Antoine Durand voices the Inspector, who was voiced by his father (Luc Durand) in the original series.
• Jackie Chan Adventures: Xu Lin from "The Lotus Temple" is voiced by Ashlie Chan, sister of Jade Chan's voice actress Stacie Chan. (They are of no relation to the real life Jackie Chan, however.)
• Justice League Action has Shazam/Billy Batson voiced by Sean Astin while his father John Astin voices his Uncle Dudley.
• In the Flemish version of the animated series Les Sisters, Wendy and Marine are voiced by two actual sisters, Marlies and Evelien Bosmans. Ironically, the younger sister voices Wendy,^note the eldest of the two while the older sister voices Marine.^note the youngest of the two
• The Legend of Vox Machina has Travis Willingham and Laura Bailey, the respective VAs for Grog and Vex, and a married couple in real life; as well as Marisha Ray and Matthew Mercer, another married couple, as Keyleth and Sylas et al., respectively. The first episode also features the two children from the Shalesteps voiced by Zoe O'Brien, daughter of Liam O'Brien (Vax); and Maximus Riegel, son of Sam Riegel (Scanlan).
• The Loud House has a few examples:
  • Lori's boyfriend Bobby is voiced by Carlos PenaVega, while his cousin Carlota is voiced by his wife Alexa PenaVega.
  • Liliana Mumy voices Leni, while her father Bill Mumy guest-starred as Timothy McCole.
  • Lincoln was voiced from "Game Boys" to "Room and Hoard" by Tex Hammond, the son of series regular Grey Griffin.
  • In live-action media, Luan and Lucy are played by sisters Catherine and Aubin Bradley, and Lana and Lola are played by twins Mia and Ella Allan, whose younger brother Justin also appears as a younger Lincoln.
• The late Wayne Allwine and Russi Taylor, the voice actors of Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse respectively, were married until Wayne's passing in 2009.
• In-universe example: In Mickey's Christmas Carol, Scrooge McDuck's nephew Donald Duck plays Fred, Ebenezer Scrooge's nephew.
• On Miles from Tomorrowland, Loretta is voiced by Fiona Bishop, while her sister Ivy voices her friend Mirandos.
• Rob Morrow and Debbon Ayer, who play a married couple, The Brulees, in an episode of Milo Murphy's Law, are married in real life.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
  • Although the characters are not related, Claire Corlett voices Sweetie Belle, while her dad, Ian James Corlett, is the voice of Silver Shill.
  • Brian Drummond, who voices Uncle Orange, Mr. Cake, Seabreeze, and others, is the father of Brynna Drummond, who voices Babs Seed.
  • Quibble Pants, voiced by Patton Oswalt, returns in "Common Ground" with his newly-found wife Clear Sky and his step-daughter Wind Sprint (Clear Sky's biological daughter), voiced by Oswalt's real-life (second) wife and daughter (from his first wife). Turned out his daughter is quite a talented voice actress.
  • In the Latin-American Spanish dub, Carla Castañeda voices Twilight Sparkle while her real-life parents, Mario Castañeda and Rommy Mendoza, voice Twilight's parents Night Light and Twilight Velvet.
  • In the Italian dub:
    • Discord's voice actor Mario Zucca is married to Marina Thovez, who voices Zecora and Queen Chrysalis.
    • Pipsqueak is voiced by Nathan Favalli, nephew of Trixie and Princess Cadance's voice actress Marisa Della Pasqua.
• In the Hungarian dub of PAW Patrol, Chase and Zuma are played by a set of brothers, Roland and Ádám Czető.
• Happened a few times in the early Peanuts specials.
  • In A Charlie Brown Christmas, Karen Mendelson (voice of Patty^note Not Peppermint Patty; the special was made before she was introduced.) was the daughter of producer Lee Mendelson. She voiced Violet in the next special (Charlie Brown's All-Stars) while her brother Glenn voiced Schroeder in that and a few others. Their sister Lynda went onto voice Frieda in the early 70s.
  • Also Lisa DeFaria voiced Patty in Great Pumpkin and a few others, while her sister Gail voiced Pig-Pen and later went on to be the original voice of Peppermint Patty. Their brother Christopher also voiced both roles after Gail's voice changed.
  • Christopher Shea, the original voice of Linus, was replaced with his younger brother Stephen for a while after his voice broke.
  • Also Robin Kohn voiced Lucy a few times in the 70s (notably in A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving), but her sister Melanie replaced her for a few years after.
  • Brother and sister Dylan and Sarah Beach voiced respectively Charlie Brown and Lucy on It's Arbor Day, Charlie Brown.
  • Another brother and sister, Jeremy and Tiffany Reinbolt were respectively Schroeder and Sally on You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown.
  • Josh Keaton voiced Linus on Snoopy's Reunion while his sister Danielle voiced Sally on It Was My Best Birthday Ever, Charlie Brown!
• Puppy Dog Pals has ARF and Cupcake voiced by Tom Kenny and Jill Talley, who are married in real life.
• In Ready Jet Go!, Sean is voiced by two brothers: William and Grady Ainscough. William voiced him in Season 1 and half of Season 2, while Grady Darrined the role for the rest of Season 2.
• Recess:
  • In the episode "The Dude", Mr. Dudikoff is played by Joey Lawrence, and his little brother, Andrew Lawrence, was the voice of T.J. from 1998 to 2001.
  • In the Lilo & Stitch: The Series crossover episode (from 2005, four years after the show ended and two years after the Direct to Video movies), Gus was replaced by Zach Ewing, due to his previous voice actor, Courtland Mead, going through puberty. Zach's older brother, Blake Ewing, was the voice of Menlo in the show. (He also did the singing voices for Gus and T.J. in the credits of Recess: School's Out.)
• Rosie's Rules:
  • Paloma Nunez, who plays Tia Margarita, is the mother of Oscar Whalen, who voices Iggy.
  • Quinn and Jun are voiced by real life twins Emma and Ian Ho.
• In Ruby Gloom, Iris and Len are voiced by Stacey DePass and Jeremy Harris, who are married.
• The The Secret Show episode "Impostor Attack" featured a one-shot character, a little boy named Roy, who was voiced by co-creator Tony Collingwood's son Harry.
• The Brazilian dub of She-Ra and the Princesses of Power has Grox, Glimmer and Catra voiced by Marlene Costa and her daughters Flávia Saddy and Fernanda Baronne. (amusingly, Marlene was Catra in the 80s cartoon)
• The Simpsons:
  • Philippe Peythieu and Véronique Augereau, the voice actors for Homer and Marge in the European French dub, are a married couple.
  • In the Russian dub, Irina Savina, the voice actress for Marge and many female characters and children, is married to Boris Bystrov, Homer's voice actor since Season 9.
• Stan Lee plays himself in the final episode of Spider-Man: The Animated Series. His late wife, Joan Lee, already played the Recurring Character Madame Web (and there's a bit of mutual attraction between Stan-the-character and Madame Web).
• From 2015 onward, Kyle's little brother Ike Broflovski from South Park is now voiced by Betty Parker, the young daughter of series co-creator Trey Parker.
• Jerry O'Connell, who voices Commander Ransom on Star Trek: Lower Decks, is married to Rebecca Romijn, who plays Number One on the live-action show Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.
• In the Latin-American Spanish dub of Steven Universe, Valentina Toro, who voices Jasper and Alexandrite in her first appearance, is the sister of Antonia Toro, who voiced Alexandrite in her second appearance.
• Mike Farrell and Shelly Fabares, who play Superman's foster parents Jonathan and Martha Kent in Superman: The Animated Series and Justice League, are married in real life.
• In the Swedish dub of both Teen Titans and Teen Titans Go!, Robin and Starfire are voiced by siblings Anton Olofsson Raeder and Elina Raeder respectively.
• Wilykat and Wilykit's father in Thunder Cats 2011 is voiced by John Pirruccello, father of Wilkyat's voice Eamon Pirruccello.
• In the Italian dub of Total Drama Presents: The Ridonculous Race, twins Mickey and Jay were voiced by brothers Mattia and Alessio Nissolino.
• The T.O.T.S. episode "Mid Air Care/The Itsy Bitsy Baby" has Lily's parents, as well as Calvin's parents, voiced by Tom Kenny and Jill Talley, who are married in real life.
• On Vampirina, we have Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein, a married couple, voiced by Skylar Astin and Anna Camp, who are married in real life.
• The four Real Life sons of the Kratt brothers have all appeared on Wild Kratts, although their characters aren't related to the brothers in-Verse.
• Kimberly Williams-Paisley and Brad Paisley, who are husband and wife in real life, played an armadillo mom and dad in an episode of Wonder Pets!.

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