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This entry is trivia, which is cool and all, but not a trope. On a work, it goes on the Trivia tab.

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Separated-at-Birth Casting

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https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Glee-Kurt-young-actor_400_723.jpg
Adam Kolkin and Chris Colfer. No, they're not related.

Sometimes, casting directors are called upon to cast, say, a parent and child, or two siblings, or a similar-looking stranger to an established character, or a younger and older version of the same character. And sometimes, they find someone that looks so uncannily like the original actor that it comes as a surprise to the viewers that the two aren't actually related.

Not to be confused with Real-Life Relative, which is when the actors actually are related, either by blood or marriage, not necessarily playing relatives, and don't even have to look alike (as family members often don't).

Examples:

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By Actor

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    Live-Action TV 
  • The Untamed:
    • Although they were cast as either uncle and nephew or father and son, the resemblance between actors Qi Peixin (Jin Ling), Zhu Zanjin (Jin Guangyao), and Cao Yuchen (Jin Zixuan) is so uncanny that — given their ages in Real Life — you'd expect all three of them to be long-lost brothers.
    • Ji Li (Nie Huaisang) and Wang Yizhou (Nie Mingjue) have such similar facial features that from appearance alone, they can convince any unknowing passerby that they really are brothers.
  • Alias:
  • Dark (2017), considering its plot is set around time travel, has too many of this to count. Many of the Timeshifted Actors playing younger and older versions of the same characters very strongly resemble each other. For example, Winfried Glaizer is incredibly convincing◊ as an older Oliver Masucci (Ulrich) due to their similar cheekbones and facial structure, while Béla Gabor Lenz is instantly recognizable as the younger self of Peter Benedict (Aleksander).
  • The Mitchell brothers in EastEnders.
  • The character of Niles on Frasier was created after producers noticed David Hyde Pierce's uncanny resemblance to a younger Kelsey Grammer.
  • On Glee:
    • A flashback depicted Kurt as a young adolescent. Adam Kolkin, the actor chosen to portray the younger Kurt bears an uncanny resemblance to a younger Chris Colfer (as pictured above right).
      • Kolkin played a young Colfer again in Struck by Lightning.
    • The character of Shelby Corcoran (Idina Menzel) is the mother of the character Rachel Berry (Lea Michele). Menzel was presumably cast due, in part, to her striking resemblance to Michele.◊
  • Younger versions of Sam and Dean of Supernatural nicknamed the Weechesters◊ tend to look quite a bit like them, especially when the age gap is smaller. It's not incredibly hard to find a mop-top and chisel-chest, but it helps when they actually get the demeanors down too.
  • Ant and Dec have Little Ant and Dec (their variety show Ant and Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway had trotted out "little [insert name here]" versions of various guests as a feature, including Little Little Ant And Dec).
  • Jamie Walters as the younger version of Dean Stockwell's character Al Calavicci in Quantum Leap.
  • In the made-for-TV film Hawking, Stephen Hawking (Benedict Cumberbatch) and the actors who play his parents seriously look like they could actually be related.
  • Lori Loughlin and Shenae Grimes on 90210 play a mother and daughter that actually look alike.
  • Gene Wilder had a short-lived sitcom called Something Wilder in the mid-Nineties where he played father to two little boys. One of whom was virtually a miniature clone of him.
  • The brothers Hank and Evan Lawson on Royal Pains. They're supposed to be New York Jews; while Mark Feueurstein is Jewish and from NYC, Paulo Costanzo is from Toronto and is of Italian descent.
  • Malese Jow looks so much like Miranda Cosgrove that Malese was chosen to play Carly's lookalike in "iLookalike". Same with Jadin Gould, who played the young Carly.
  • Lachlan Nieboer, who played Gray, Jack Harkness's brother on Torchwood, looked and sounded like a younger version of John Barrowman, despite not being related.
  • Once Upon a Time does this excellently.
    • Ginnifer Goodwin from Big Love and Jennifer Morrison from House, two actresses who for years people have said shared a resemblance and have often been confused with each other, are now playing mother and daughter. In the commentary on a season one OUAT episode, Ginnifer Goodwin said that they were mistaken for each other so often that they both, completely independently of each other, just gave up and started signing autographs and giving interviews as each other.
    • Whatever features Morrison doesn't share with Goodwin, she seems to share with Josh Dallas, her onscreen father.
    • Bailee Madison played Goodwin's character as a child and the actress could easily pass for Goodwin's daughter or young sister. She also nailed some of her mannerisms.
    • And with Rena Sofer was cast as Snow's mother, it's easy to note how much she looks like Goodwin.
    • Rose McGowan plays Young Cora and bears a striking resemblance to Barbara Hershey, as well as nailing Cora's haughty demeanor.
    • Kristin Bauer also looks enough like Angelina Jolie to almost provide a sense of continuity with the live-action Maleficent film.
    • The actresses who play Emma as a child and teenager are dead ringers for Morrison, especially Abby Ross as teenaged Emma.
  • The boys playing a young Earl and Randy on My Name Is Earl.
  • Charisma Carpenter and Alexandra Chando on The Lying Game.
  • Andrea Brooks, who plays the teenage version of Amelia on The Secret Circle, looks likes she could be Britt Robertson's twin.
  • Elizabeth Penn Payne, the Masked Woman (aka Alexis Meade) on Ugly Betty has nearly the exact same eyes as Rebecca Romijn.
  • On 8 Simple Rules, Martin Spanjers and Amy Davidson, who play brother and sister, look like they actually could be (contrast Kaley Cuoco as their other sibling, who looks nothing like them or either of the parents: John Ritter and Katey Sagal).
  • Full House:
    • Averted, as the three girls (all blonde) look more like the blond Dave Coulier, who plays the unrelated Joey, than either Danny (their father) or Jesse (their uncle). The girls are said to take after their blonde mother, Pam, who is Jesse's sister.
    • Continued as when Jesse's sons are born, they are blond — again, looking more like the blond Joey.
    • However, played straight by Candace Cameron Bure (DJ) and Jodie Sweetin (Stephanie), who resemble each other enough that they easily pass for sisters.
  • Friends:
    • When Teri Garr was set to make a guest appearance, the producers took advantage of her resemblance to Lisa Kudrow by casting her as Phoebe's birth-mother.
    • Christina Applegate portrayed one of Rachel's sisters on the show, and the resemblance to Jennifer Aniston is hard to ignore.
  • In the episode Midvale in Supergirl the girls who play younger Melissa Benoist and Chyler Leigh look exactly like smaller and younger versions of them.
  • Sal Barone, the original actor for D.J. on Roseanne, left the show after the pilot, for various reasons; but what sealed the deal in casting Michael Fishman as his replacement was that he looked just like Roseanne Barr. (The resemblance is so strong that even Dan remarks on it in-universe, as if children looking like their parents is in any way unusual.)
  • The actor for Al's twin brother in Home Improvement is actually of no relation to Richard Karn. The producers looked long and hard for a nigh-identical guy. Jonathan Taylor Thomas was also cast as Randy partly because he looks like he could actually be Tim Allen's son.
  • From Merlin, the mother/son duos of Colin Morgan and Caroline Faber (Merlin/Hunith) and Bradley James and Alice Patten (Arthur/Ygraine) are jaw-droppingly similar in facial structure and eye color. John Lynch was also the perfect choice to play Merlin's father. See the Character Sheet for pictures.
  • On Last Man Standing, the actresses who played the Baxter daughters in season one (Alexandra Krosney, Molly Ephraim, and Kaitlyn Dever) all look alike. Beginning in season two, Krosney (Kristin) was replaced by Amanda Fuller who does not resemble the other two as much. One Halloween episode features Ephraim and Dever dressing up as each other's characters and you can almost not tell the actresses switched roles.
  • From NCIS, Abby (Pauley Perrette, who apparently invokes this trope) and her brother (Daniel Rivas) were literally separated at birth in-universe, while the actors are childhood friends who were often mistaken for being related in Real Life. The resemblance is especially striking in their eyes.
    • And with Brighton Sharbino as 10-year-old Abby.
    • S12E3, "So It Goes", features a number of flashbacks to Ducky's youth. Adam Campbell, the actor chosen to play Ducky in the flashbacks, is a dead ringer for David McCallum as he looked 50 years earlier as Ilya Kuryakin in The Man from U.N.C.L.E..
    • Robert Wagner has appeared numerous times as Tony's father and he and Michael Weatherly do look as though they could be father and son. This could also count as a Casting Gag, as Michael Weatherly played a younger Wagner in 2004's "The Mystery of Natalie Wood."
  • Eliza Coupe and Elisha Cuthbert as sisters Jane and Alex Kerkovich on Happy Endings.
  • Downton Abbey is noted for its excellent casting in this respect:
    • The resemblance between Lady Cora Crawley and her on-screen daughter Lady Mary is quite strong, especially considering that Elizabeth McGovern is American with no recent British relations while Michelle Dockery is English (although her father is Irish).
    • Tom Branson and his older brother Kieran have the same hair and similar facial features; Allen Leech and Ruari Conaghan are not related.
  • Scrubs: Zach Braff and Tom Cavanagh look so alike that it is easy to believe them as brothers. Same goes for their on-screen father, John Ritter.
  • Exploited on Gilmore Girls as Lauren Graham and Alexis Bledel play mother and daughter. Lorelai and Rory have been mistaken for sisters in-universe. According to creator Amy Sherman-Palladino, she cast Graham based on the fact that she perfectly exemplified Sherman-Palladino's vision for Lorelai in terms of personality, and Bledel had a bit of an attitude during one of her callbacks (due to being sick at the time) that Sherman-Palladino quite enjoyed. The fact that they look nearly identical was just a bonus, with Sherman-Palladino herself chalking it up to "pixie dust".
    • And whatever Rory doesn't get from Lorelai, such as her coloring, she gets from her dad, played by David Sutcliffe. This is discussed in a season one episode.
  • Lost:
  • Dominic Purcell and Wentworth Miller had already been cast in Prison Break as brothers Lincoln Burrows and Michael Schofield before they both arrived on set with matching haircuts, which even further confirms the perfect casting of the two.
  • Everybody Loves Raymond:
    • Ray Romano and Brad Garrett on could so easily be brothers in real life. It helps that both stand well over six feet tall, Garrett (Robert Barone) exceptionally so. In an episode where Romano plays a younger version of the Barones' father, Frank, in a "flashback" scene, he is exceptionally convincing as a younger version of Peter Boyle, who played Frank. In the same flashback, the actor playing young Robert pulls off an incredibly convincing young Garrett.
    • Fred Stoller, who plays Ray's cousin Gerard, looks and sounds like him - which was a plot point to the episode where he first appears.
    • Averted with Madylin, Sullivan, and Sawyer Sweeten, the real-life siblings who play Ray and Debra's kids, a group of blondes to Ray Romano and Patricia Heaton's brunettes, which became a joke to the cast.
      Robert/Brad: Hahaha, they still don't look like either of ya!
  • While most of the time the casting agency doesn't bother with accuracy for the various historical figures featured on Legends of Tomorrow, Lovell Adams-Gray is a dead ringer for a young Barack Obama, and his voice is a damn-near perfect impersonation.
  • Modern Family:
    • Sarah Hyland and Ariel Winter, otherwise known as the Dunphy sisters both bear a strong resemblance to Ty Burrell, their on-screen dad. While Hyland and Winter don't look that much alike (mostly due to Hyland's darker skin tone), they sound nearly identical.
    • Likewise, Ty Burrell bears a strong enough resemblance to Fred Willard that they can realistically portray a father and son.
  • Not only does Tracey Gold of Growing Pains look like she could believably be Kirk Cameron's sister, but she also looks like Kirk's actual sister, Candace Cameron Bure.
  • Game of Thrones:
    • Natalie Dormer looks enough like a young Diana Rigg that they could realistically play grandmother and granddaughter on the show.
    • Likewise, Finn Jones and Natalie Dormer could pass for brother and sister◊ in real life, despite not being related.
    • Emilia Clarke and Harry Lloyd as siblings Daenerys and Viserys Targaryen have an uncanny similarity. It's partially the wigs though. The white hair masks the differences in complexion between them that would normally be more apparent. The difference in height between them is also more dramatic in real life than it appears on camera. Still, even without the wigs they could pass for siblings.
    • Pilou Asbæk (Euron Greyjoy) and his on-screen nephew Alfie Allen (Theon Greyjoy) also bear an uncanny resemblance. More than a few viewers and reviewers agreed that Euron pretty much looks like Theon but about 15 years older and after having put about 25-30 pounds onto Theon's rather lanky frame.
    • Jack Gleeson (Joffrey Baratheon) bears a strong resemblance to Lena Headey (Cersei Lannister), his on-screen mother, especially in terms of their facial structure. In-story, this is pronounced because Joffrey is the product of incest between Half-Identical Twins. Once Cersei cuts her hair in season 5, the resemblance becomes even more apparent.
    • All over the place in the Stark family, depending on who takes after whom:
      • Michelle Fairley and Sophie Turner as mother and daughter Catelyn and Sansa Stark. When Petyr Baelish says Sansa looks just like a younger Cat, with the traditional House Tully appearance (red hair, porcelain skin, elfin features, and big blue eyes, etc.), the audience can definitely agree with that assessment. Fairley also bears some resemblance to Kate Dickie, who plays Catelyn's sister Lysa Arryn (as seen here◊).
      • Richard Madden (Robb Stark) and his in-show half-brother (who is later revealed to actually be his cousin) Kit Harington (Jon Snow) look similar enough that a common criticism of the first few episodes is that it's hard to tell which is which when they're in the same scene.
      • Maisie Williams (Arya Stark) and Isaac Hempstead-Wright (Bran Stark), who play the younger Stark siblings, have very similar facial features, particularly high cheekbones, long noses and bushy eyebrows, as well as sharing Madden and Harington's dark hair and pale skin which is acknowledged in-universe as the signature Stark look.
      • Robb and Bran's looks are actually a change from the books where only Jon and Arya look alike in inheriting the Stark long face and coloring, while Robb and Bran have Catelyn's Tully features and look more like Sansa and Rickon. Notably, Catelyn is resentful that Ned's illegitimate son looks more like him than any of the trueborn sons she bore, and Arya feels like an outcast partially because she has inherited the Stark look while her other siblings, except for Jon (Ned Stark's son by another woman), have all inherited the Tully look.
      • When she finally appears in flashbacks portrayed by Aisling Franciosi, Ned's sister Lyanna Stark bears a striking resemblance to her son Jon Snow. Also, she has facial traits very reminiscent of Maisie Williams'◊, who in the books is said to be Lyanna's spitting image.
    • Gethin Anthony (Renly Baratheon) and Joe Dempsie (Gendry) also bear more than a passing resemblance to one another, with their characters having inherited the trademark Baratheon Tall, Dark, and Handsome look. In fact, in the books, Brienne at one point mistook Gendry for Renly.
    • The younger version of Ned Stark. The showrunners searched high and low for an actor who could play a young Sean Bean, and found it with Robert Aramayo◊.
  • The casting department on Peaky Blinders really must be commended. Cillian Murphy, Paul Anderson, and Joe Cole as the three eldest Shelby brothers all share the same blue eyes and jawline, and Anderson, in particular, is a dead ringer for a younger Tommy Flanagan, who plays their father. Among the ladies, Helen McCrory and Sophie Rundle could play mother and daughter, not aunt and niece, and they both share similar features with the men of the family. Youngest Shelby brother Finn as played by Alfie Evans-Meese wasn't as close a fit, resemblance-wise, but Harry Kirton as the teenage Finn looks exactly like Cole.
  • Charmed:
    • Emmalee Thompson plays Prue as a young child in three episodes. The resemblance between her and Shannen Doherty is striking — they even have the same smile. Jennifer Rhodes, who plays the grandmother Penny, also looks incredibly like Doherty.
    • Meanwhile, Finola Hughes plays the girls' mother Patty. She has quite the resemblance to her onscreen youngest daughter Alyssa Milano, especially when Phoebe's hair is long and light brown.
  • In the Belgian series Salamander, one of the anti villains, Gil Wolfs, is played by Vic de Wachter. The father of Gil Wolfs, Harry, was played in Gil's flash backs by Geert van Rampelberg, who greatly resembles (a younger version of) Vic de Wachter in both appearance and timbre. The two are, nevertheless, not related to one another.
  • On The Sopranos, Rocco Sisto plays a younger version of Uncle Junior because the resemblance to Dominic Chianese is uncanny. The over-sized glasses help.
  • In the Silent Witness story "A Body of Work", one plotline featured Harry's old college girlfriend and her son, who bore a distinct resemblance to Harry. Harry turned out not to be the father, but they looked enough alike that the prospect was thoroughly believable.
  • Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.:
    • Dichen Lachman, the actress cast to play Skye's mother in flashbacks, bears an incredible resemblance to her fictional daughter. It gets even more impressive when Dichen Lachmann's character shows up very much alive (if not unharmed) in the present and you get to see her acting alongside her kid. The resemblance between her and Skye is uncanny. Chloe Bennet, who's mixed-race in real life, really does look like she could be the daughter of Lachmann and Kyle MacLachlan.
    • Adam Faison, the Time-Shifted Actor who played a young version of Agent Jasper Sitwell in one episode of Season 5, not only bears a jaw-droppingly close resemblance to Maximiliano Hernandez but manages to capture his mannerisms almost exactly.
  • On the E! series The Royals, Alexandra Park, who plays Princess Eleanora, looks like she could actually be the daughter of Elizabeth Hurley, who plays the Queen of England.
  • Orange Is the New Black: The show uses a lot of flashbacks, and the show is known for casting child actors with an uncanny resemblance to their adult counterparts.
  • On Power Rangers Time Force, Sixth Ranger Eric Myers's actor Dan Southworth and his Japanese counterpart, Shinji Kasahara as Naoto Takizawa, look enough alike that at several points the series uses faraway shots of Naoto directly from Timeranger. Probably one of the few times-if not the only-that this happens with casting, especially with extra Rangers. Most of the time, any extra shots of Rangers in and out of morph, have to be done with either the Power Rangers actors themselves or their stunt doubles if the scene is supposed to be set in the season's City of Adventure unless they're doing a shot that can be taken from the season's Sentai footage.
  • On The Fosters, actresses Maia Mitchell and Bailee Madison play half-sisters. They really look the part◊.
  • Stargate SG-1:
    • In the episode "Fragile Balance", Michael Welch plays a teenaged O'Neill and matches Richard Dean Anderson's speech patterns and mannerisms so well that it's a bit surprising that the other characters don't believe it's him at first.
    • In the episode "1969", Aaron Pearl as the young George Hammond. He looked and sounded so much like him that people were convinced that Don S. Davis dubbed the voice over. He didn't.
  • Late in the series Parks and Recreation, feckless layabout Jean-Ralphio Saperstein, played by Ben Schwartz, introduces his twin sister, Mona Lisa, played by Jenny Slate, who he describes as "''the wo-o-o-orst." Despite not being related, they practically match the trope for Half-Identical Twins.
  • French "back from the dead" show Les Revenants has twin sisters as two of its main characters, Lena and Camille. One dies, but comes back to life 4 years later, when her sister is played by an unrelated actress who looks very similar, but older and taller.
  • Criminal Minds had a flashback episode with younger versions of Gideon and Rossi. Robert Dunne was good as Rossi, but Ben Savage was spot on perfect as Gideon.
  • House of Cards (US) cast Kelly AuCoin as Doug Stamper's brother Gary due to his similar appearance to Michael Kelly.
  • On Good Eats, John Herina had a recurring role as Alton's nephew, Elton, as well as playing a young Alton in one episode. One could easily believe them to be related in real life (Herina could easily be taken for Brown's (nonexistent) son), but they're not.
  • On Empty Nest, Kristy McNichol and Dinah Manoff actually look like they could be sisters.
  • Iron Fist (2017): It's easy to believe that Ward Meachum is Harold Meachum's son, since David Wenham (Harold) and Tom Pelphrey (Ward) bear similar facial features and even the same slicked-back hair.
  • Daredevil (2015):
    • Skyler Gaertner, who plays young Matt Murdock as a child in season 1 and season 3 flashbacks, does have a bit of a resemblance◊ to Charlie Cox.
    • For "Shadows in the Glass", the flashbacks to Wilson Fisk's childhood run on this. Cole Jensen, who plays the young Fisk, bears resemblance to one of Vincent D'Onofrio's sons. Meanwhile, Fisk's father is played by Dominick Lombardozzi, whose resemblance to D'Onofrio is very apparent you compare photos of Fisk to photos of bald-headed Lombardozzi from his days as Herc in The Wire.
    • Peter Halpin, who plays Foggy Nelson's brother Theo in season 3, bears a strong resemblance to one of Elden Henson's brothers. His hairstyle also clearly evokes Foggy's hairstyle from seasons 1 and 2.
  • In Mystery Science Theater 3000, the character of Synthia was created because Rebecca Hanson resembled a young Pearl Forrester, who was played by Mary Jo Phel.
  • On Stranger Things, Noah Schnapp (Will Byers) could easily pass as Winona Ryder's (Joyce Byers) real-life son with their shared brown doe eyes, straight brown hair, pale skin, and nose shapes. Charlie Heaton (Jonathan Byers) also looks very believable as Joyce's son and Will's older brother, sharing Schnapp and Ryder's brown hair (and similar haircuts) but also clearly taking heavily after his estranged dad Lonnie (Ross Partridge.) Heaton and Schnapp also have fairly similar voices with their soft-spoken, gentle tones, more apparent in season 3 after Will's voice cracks.
  • Skins:
  • On Arrested Development, Isla Fisher plays Ron Howard's fictional illegitimate daughter Rebel Alley. Fisher looks enough like Howard's real-life daughters Bryce Dallas Howard and Paige Carlyle Howard that it makes it look believable.
  • On Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, the title character is played by Kiernan Shipka, but during a Christmas episode flashback, she is played by 12-year-old Mckenna Grace, who looks so much like Shipka she might as well be her clone.
    • Mckenna Grace falls under this trope quite a bit, playing many Time-Shifted Actor roles in both live-action film and TV.
  • Midnight Caller: Scott Valentine, who plays Jack's younger brother Frankie, bears an uncanny resemblance to Gary Cole.
  • Manifest: Luna Blaise (Olive) and Jack Messina (Cal) really do look a lot like Athena Karkaris as their on-screen mom Grace. To a lesser extent they also resemble Josh Dallas as well, who plays their dad Ben. You can believe that these kids could be their real children more than most castings.
  • Batwoman (2019): Dougray Scott bears a fair amount of resemblance to Ruby Rose. Rachel Skarsten is also believable in playing his daughter/her sister. Wallis Day, who replaced Rose as Kate, is also close in looks to Scott and Skarsten.
  • On one of JohnDenver's TV specials, Dick Van Dyke performed a magic trick that shrunk Denver into a little boy. The boy was played by Cousin Oliver himself, Robbie Rist, whose straight blond hair and round-framed glasses were as iconic as Denver's own.
  • Proof this has been going on for a while: Vicki Lawrence was cast on The Carol Burnett Show in 1967 almost entirely due to her uncanny resemblance to a younger Burnett (in Burnett's own words: "she looked more like me than I did"), as the producers were planning a recurring "Carol and Sis" sketch. Lawrence, who was 17 and had little experience with acting or sketch comedy, didn't do much besides the "Carol and Sis" sketches and musical numbers (she had been a member of the Young Americans) for the first few years, before finally coming into her own later on (most notably by playing Mama in The Family sketches - where this trope still applies, as Burnett played Mama's daughter Eunice).
  • Nos4a 2: Ashleigh Cummings (Vic) looks like Jason David (Vic's son Wayne) with their facial structure, eyes and hair close enough that it was quite believable she is his mother.
  • The Walking Dead:
  • In the final season of The Big Bang Theory when they decided to finally introduce Sheldon's brother George Jr, or "Georgie" they cast Jerry O'Connell, who does look like an older Montana Jordan, who plays the character on Young Sheldon.
  • Rake: Kate Box plays Nicole, while Celia Pacquola later appears as her sister Nadia in one episode. They look very similar, making it extremely believable.
  • The Flash (2014):
    • The resemblance between Sean Poague (Accelerated Man) and Teddy Sears (Hunter Zolomon) is so strong that some think Accelerated Man is a good twin of Hunter Zolomon.
    • Jessica Parker Kennedy, who plays Barry and Iris' daughter Nora, looks incredibly similar to both her on-screen parents Grant Gustin and Candice Patton. Patton has stated in interviews that both she and Kennedy have even been mistaken for one another on set due to their voices also sounding incredibly alike.
  • Heroes:
    • Adrian Pasdar auditioned to play Milo Ventimiglia's father in the proposed Gilmore Girls spin-off. The casting director at the time made the comment that Adrian could pass for Milo's brother because of their strong resemblance.
    • Hayden Panettiere looks close enough her onscreen birth parents Adrian Pasdar and Jessalyn Gelsig she's wholly believable as their child.
  • Rizzoli & Isles:
    • Sasha Alexander is 100% believable as the child of Sharon Lawrence and John Doman. It's noted in universe that she looks just like Lawrence and, while unremarked upon in universe, she and Doman have remarkably similar facial structures.
  • Bridgerton: The actors cast to play Daphne's four brothers, Anthony, Benedict, and Colin Bridgerton all look similar enough to convincingly pass as brothers. In fact, some viewers even have trouble telling them apart.
  • Shadowhunters: Emeraude Toubia, Matthew Daddario and Nicola Correia-Damude all look similar enough it's very believable they're relatives.
  • That '70s Show:
  • Roswell, New Mexico: Jeanine Mason and Amber Midthunder look enough alike that they're completely believable in playing sisters.
  • In Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Winston Story has a recurring role as Bill, a male prostitute with an uncanny resemblance to Charles Boyle, played by Joe Lo Truglio. Other characters sometimes refer to Bill as "fake Boyle," and the resemblance is often exploited for plot purposes.
  • Rebecca Ferguson plays Elizabeth Woodville in The White Queen, while Jodie Comer plays her now-grown daughter Elizabeth of York in the sequel series The White Princess. Ferguson and Comer look enough alike that they really could pass for mother and daughter, although in The White Princess Elizabeth Senior is played by Essie Davies due to the character having aged.
  • The L Word: Max's sisters Maggie and Sioban are played by actresses who look close enough to his actor (plus each other) that one can easily believe they're all siblings.
  • The Expanse: Jasai Chase Owens plays the son of characters played by Dominique Tipper and Keon Alexander and manages to be a dead ringer for both of them. If you ran into these three◊ in person, would you doubt that the guy on the left was the child of the other two?
  • The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power: Both Morfydd Clark and Amelie Child-Villiers bear a striking resemblance to each other as they play adult and child version of Galadriel. And despite the show taking place into a different continuity, is not too far stretched to believe that their resemblance to Cate Blanchett played an important role in casting them as Galadriel.
    • While, as mentioned previously, the series is in a different continuity from the Peter Jackson movies, Daniel Weyman◊ as The Stranger is so incredibly convincing as a young Ian McKellen that many viewers guessed his true identity from Weyman's appearance alone. When he gets a chance to speak in complete sentences in the finale, he also utterly nails the other actor's mannerisms.
  • Willow: Erin Kellyman (Jade) and Adwoa Aboah (Scorpia) play long-lost sisters. Both actresses are biracial and have similar enough looks that it's very plausible.
  • The Last of Us (2023): Many viewers noted that Bella Ramsey, who plays Ellie, looks startlingly similar to Ashley Johnson who plays the character's mother (and was the voice of Ellie in the video game the series is based on).
  • The Spencer Sisters: Lea Thompson and Stacey Farber, who star as mother and daughter duo Victoria and Darcey Spencer, strongly resemble one another◊.

    Music Videos 

    Theatre 
  • Lyricist Lorenz Hart was constantly being told that his brother Teddy, a comedian, had an uncanny resemblance to a famous comedian of the day, Jimmy Savo. When Richard Rodgers suggested that he and Hart do a musical based on Shakespeare, Hart immediately pitched the idea of The Comedy of Errors, with Jimmy Savo and Teddy as the two Dromios. Thus The Boys from Syracuse was born, and Teddy Hart got his Big Break.

    Web Video 

    In-Universe 
  • TL Sherred's "E For Effort": Two inventors create a time viewer, which can see anything in history. In-Universe, they use their device for making hyper-realistic films, filming historical events like Napoléon Bonaparte during the battle of Waterloo, then find an actor through Central Casting note  who bears a striking similarity to Napoleon in order to film some close-ups and voice all the dialogue. However, this is only to generate funds for their long-term plans.

    Real life 
  • Once invoked by twin actors James and Oliver Phelps, who upon being asked if they were twins in real-life too, replied that they actually met on set.

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