Separated-at-Birth Casting

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).

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Examples:

Advertising

• In the Kia commercials with Blake Griffin time traveling to his childhood selves, the childhood versions of him look a lot like him. This is especially strange because Blake Griffin is somewhat of an unusual-looking person, being a biracial guy with brownish-red hair and freckles.
• An ad for Brazil telecommunications company Embratel featured a child doppleganger of regular ad girl Ana Paula Arósio◊, who was quoted as saying "not even as a child I looked that much like myself now". The girl retains the similarity even after grown◊.

Films — Live-Action

By Actor

• Jesse Plemons has long been noted for his resemblance to Matt Damon and Philip Seymour Hoffman, to the point that Breaking Bad fans jokingly nicknamed him "Meth Damon". In one of his first film roles, All the Pretty Horses, Plemons played the young version of John Grady Cole (Damon). While in The Master, he played Val Dodd, son of Hoffman's Lancaster Dodd.
• Denzel Whitaker has played both the son of Forest Whitaker's character in The Great Debaters and a younger version of Zuri in Black Panther (2018) to great effect. Despite sharing a surname, the actors are not related.
• Christa B. Allen looks so much like a young Jennifer Garner that she has played a younger version of her in two movies, 13 Going on 30 and Ghosts of Girlfriends Past.
• Troy Gentile, who played a young Jack Black in Nacho Libre and Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny, looks and emotes so much like Black that his mere existence serves as the first joke in his scenes.

By Film

• Harrison Ford's Time-Shifted Actor younger self, played by Anthony Ingruber, in The Age of Adaline bears a truly insane amount of resemblance to Ford to the extent that some people were convinced Ford dubbed his younger voice (he didn't). As a matter of fact, Anthony Ingruber seems to have made a life out of looking like Harrison Ford, and he's damn good at it.
• Barbie has both lookalikes Margot Robbie and Emma Mackey in its cast.
• Hugo Blick as Jack Napier aka "Young Joker" in Batman (1989), apparently following a recommendation by Jack Nicholson himself.
• Mayim Bialik as the younger version of Bette Midler's character in Beaches.
• Beau Is Afraid: The younger Beau is played by Armen Nahapetian, who looks so much like Joaquin Phoenix that a lot of people thought he'd been digitally de-aged.
• Big Fish:
  • Alison Lohman◊ was cast (assisted by makeup) as the young version of Jessica Lange◊.
  • Supposedly, Ewan McGregor was cast by Tim Burton because he uncannily resembled Albert Finney when he was younger. By McGregor's own recollection he saw a photo in Tim Burton's office of Albert Finney in Tom Jones and was trying to remember which photoshoot of his it was taken from before he realized that it wasn't a photo of him at all.
• As the Queen biopic Bohemian Rhapsody began filming, Brian May shared some Queen memorabilia recreated for the film, and the similarities between the actors and the band members is incredible. Joseph Mazzello, in particular, appears to have called his mother to ensure John Deacon wasn't his father when he saw the resemblance.
• The child actress (Mackenzie Foy) who plays Renesmee Cullen in Breaking Dawn really does look like she could be the child of Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart, sharing both of her onscreen parents' intense eyes and swooping eyebrows.
• Vince Vaughn and Vincent D'Onofrio have been mistaken for each other for years, so it naturally made sense to cast them as brothers in Vaughn's film The Break-Up.
• Tobey Maguire and Jake Gyllenhaal as brothers in Brothers (2009). Both actors claim they're frequently mistaken for the other due to their physical resemblance and similarly smooth voices. In fact, a few years earlier when Maguire was unsure if he would return for Spider-Man 2 after suffering a back injury, Gyllenhaal was heavily considered as a replacement.
• Bound (2015): Charisma Carpenter playing Michelle and Morgan Obenreder as her onscreen daughter Dara look similar enough to pass for this in reality.
• Boyhood: The actor playing Mason, Ellar Coltrane, comes to physically resemble Ethan Hawke, who plays his father, over the course of the twelve real-time years, particularly once he starts letting his facial hair grow out.
• In The Count of Monte Cristo (2002), Dagmara Domińczyk and Henry Cavill can certainly pass for mother and son, sharing the same pale complexions, dark hair, fine facial features, and bright blue eyes. In-Universe, their resemblance helps Mercedes successfully hide Albert's true parentage (as Edmond is his true father in this adaptation) since he takes after her well enough that there was little reason for anyone to believe that he wasn't Fernand's son.
• DC Extended Universe:
  • Ezra Miller and Billy Crudup are so similar in appearance that they are physically convincing as father and son in Justice League (2017) and Zack Snyder's Justice League.
  • Lilly Aspell and Emily Carey, the actresses who respectively played the child and preteen Diana in Wonder Woman (2017), are virtually dead ringers for Gal Gadot, especially when compared to photos of Gadot when she was close to their◊ ages.
  • Man of Steel: When compared to how Henry Cavill looked when close to that age◊, the actor cast as preteen Clark, Dylan Sprayberry◊, definitely sells the look of a younger version of the same character. And for that matter, so does Cooper Timberline, who plays 9-year-old Clark.
    • When put together, Russell Crowe (Jor-El) and Ayelet Zurer (Lara Lor-Van) look pretty convincing as Superman's birth parents. The latter in particular, with her dark hair, fine facial structure, and pensive expressions, looks believable as Henry Cavill's mother.
• Kimberly Elyse and Cicely Tyson as Helen & Myrtle in Diary of a Mad Black Woman are this.
• In the Dumb and Dumber prequel, titled Dumb and Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd, we have Eric Christian Olsen and Derek Richardson as the younger versions of Lloyd Christmas and Harry Dunne (played by Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels respectively in the original).
• Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey look very believable as brothers in EDtv. This also does explain a bit of their dynamic in the first season of True Detective.
• Fantastic Beasts:
  • Eddie Redmayne and Callum Turner (debuted in Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald), who play protagonist Newt Scamander and his brother Theseus, easily pass as brothers. Redmayne has even told a story about seeing Turner in a play years earlier and his wife noting that they should play brothers some time. They look so much alike that most people forgive Turner’s pretty significant Underage Casting. ^note  Theseus is nine years older than Newt but he’s eight years younger than Redmayne.
  • Joshua Shea, who played teenaged Newt in the second movie, also bares a striking resemblance to Redmayne.
  • Richard Coyle had been assumed to be playing Aberforth Dumbledore in Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore for a about a year before it was officially confirmed solely due to the fact he and Jude Law look alike.
• Rip Torn and Tom Green do look like father and son in Freddy Got Fingered.
• Allison Williams and Catherine Keener play daughter and mother respectively in Get Out (2017), and the casting is on point.
• It's no coincidence that Raquel Alessi got cast as a young Eva Mendes in Ghost Rider (2007). She more than looks the part.
• Mila Kunis portrays a young Angelina Jolie in Gia. It's downright freaky.
• Millie Bobby Brown playing the Russell daughter Madison in Godzilla: King of the Monsters looks like an honest blend of father Kyle Chandler's square-shaped facial structure with mother Vera Farmiga's more heart-shaped facial structure, with wavy hair like Farmiga's colored brunette like Chandler's.
• Aside from the various wigs and prosthetics, both Orlando Bloom and Lee Pace have strikingly similar facial features, so this is definitely the case in The Hobbit films.
  • Martin Freeman is a perfect choice for a younger version of Ian Holm — Freeman looks very much like Holm did when he was young.
• Jake Abel and Boyd Holbrook as Ian and Kyle O'Shea in The Host (2008).
• The boy that was chosen to play a young John Cusack in Hot Tub Time Machine.
• Rachael Leigh Cook as the young Parker Posey in the movie adaptation of The House of Yes.
• For In America, Samantha Morton plays Sarah Bolger's mother. The two both have extremely similar bone structure, nose shape, and coloring. In fact, now that Bolger is older, she resembles Morton even more.
• Indiana Jones:
  • Harrison Ford recommended River Phoenix for young Indiana Jones in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade specifically because he reminded him of himself at that age. It helped that they previously played father and son in The Mosquito Coast.
  • Although it's generally a good idea to have stunt doubles resemble the actors they replace, Harrison Ford's stunt double, Vic Armstrong, looked so much like him that the two were often confused on-set, even by Ford's own son. At one point while filming Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Ford injured his back and was out of commission for a few weeks, so Armstrong filmed in place of Ford for several scenes during that time that didn't show his face. Close-ups of Ford were added later to make it more convincing.
    "Vic — If you learn to talk I'm in deep trouble!" (Ford's dedication to Armstrong on a photo depicting both of them during filming Indiana Jones)
• Simon Russell Beale was a good choice to play James Corden's father in Into the Woods.
• In It: Chapter Two, the adult versions of the Losers' Club were cast with actors who look remarkably like their younger counterparts. Especially James Ransone as the grown-up Jack Dylan Grazer, so much that a scene transitions to the past with Grazer's image fading in over Ransone's.
• Jason's Lyric: The actors who play the younger version of Jason and Joshua, Sean Hutchinson and Burleigh Moore, look convincingly similar to their adult version, Allen Payne and Bokeem Woodbine. Especially given how Sean and Allen share the same facial structures and lighter skin tone.
• Jojo Rabbit has Scarlett Johansson and Roman Griffin Davis play mother and son, and the effect is perfect: the two have very similar facial structures, eyes, even the same mouth shape. They even share the same facial expressions◊.
• Benjamin Walker (of Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter fame) played a teenage version of Liam Neeson in Kinsey. The resemblance is uncanny.
• Seth Rogen and Harold Ramis are absolute dead-ringer father-and-son casting in Knocked Up, both in physical appearance (tall yet portly, curly hair, etc.; both were born into Jewish families) and deeply-toned vocal inflections.
• In The Legend of Billie Jean, Christian Slater and Helen Slater play teenage siblings. With their blond hair, grey-blue eyes, peaches-and-cream complexions, and identical last names, coupled with the fact that both actors were relative unknowns at the time, it was unsurprising when many moviegoers assumed they were real-life brother-and-sister.
• The Lord of the Rings: Sean Bean and David Wenham, who portray Boromir and Faramir, look very convincing as brothers. John Noble is also extremely plausible as their father.
• Josh Brolin as a young Tommy Lee Jones in Men in Black 3. He even copied Jones' voice to an uncanny level. Also Agent O, who is played by Alice Eve as a young woman and Emma Thompson as the head of MIB.
• In Mermaids, Cher's character has two daughters played by Winona Ryder and Christina Ricci. It's the ultimate Eerie Pale-Skinned Brunette family.
• Zac Efron and Adam Devine look extremely like brothers, with their similar hair, facial structures, and height in Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates.
• Joss Whedon's film version of Much Ado About Nothing (2012) casts Amy Acker as Beatrice and Jillian Morgese as Hero, who really do look alike enough to be first cousins. Whedon mentions this himself on the audio commentary as a factor that influenced his casting choices.
• In The Film of the Book Never Let Me Go, the kids who play the young versions of Kathy, Ruth, and Tommy look eerily like the older actors, particularly◊ Isobel Meikle-Small as a younger Carey Mulligan and Ella Purnell as a younger Keira Knightley.
• In Pacific Rim, Charlie Hunnam and Diego Klattenhoff look remarkably alike as brothers Raleigh and Yancy Beckett, to the point where it can be difficult to tell them apart.
• In Panic Room, Kristen Stewart plays the daughter of Jodie Foster's character. Stewart looked like Foster when she was her age.
• In the DVD Commentary for The Perks of Being a Wallflower writer/director Stephen Chbosky said he made a conscious effort to cast members of his protagonist Charlie's family with actors that look related.
• Brenton Thwaites is the spitting image of Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley's hypothetical child. Appropriately, he plays Will Turner and Elizabeth Swan's son Henry in Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales.
• Naomi Scott as Kimberly Hart in Power Rangers (2017) has a striking resemblance (albeit having a different skin tone) to the actress who originated the role, Amy Jo Johnson. They also have uncannily similar voices.
  • The actor who plays Jason's dad looks and sounds so much like Austin St. John that some people genuinely thought it was him.
• In Pride & Prejudice (2005), Jena Malone and Carey Mulligan play younger sisters Lydia and Kitty respectively and have very similar nose shapes and lips. This is helped by similar hairstyles and mannerisms by the actresses. Talulah Riley as Mary looks quite like a combination of Malone and Keira Knightley who plays Lizzie. Rosamund Pike, however, looks nothing like her on-screen sisters — which helps that Jane is pushed as 'the pretty one' of the family.
• Dave Stevens drew himself as the face of the Cliff Secord, the Rocketeer, in the comic book of that title. For the film adaptation, Bill Campbell, who was cast as Cliff, bore such a resemblance that Stevens' friend Harlan Ellison said, "It was uncanny, he could have been Dave's brother."
• Milo Ventimiglia was cast to play the adult Rocky Jr. in Rocky Balboa largely due to his strong resemblance to Sylvester Stallone and the fact that they shared the same crooked lip birth defect.
• Scream (2022): It's revealed a third of the way into the movie that Sam Carpenter is the illegitimate daughter of Billy Loomis. Skeet Ulrich and Melissa Barrera genuinely look like◊ they could be father and daughter.
• Jennifer Lawrence and Julia Stiles as sisters in Silver Linings Playbook.
• Sister Act: Isis Carmen Jones plays young Goldberg with remarkably similar mannerisms and physical features. She also plays a young Guinan (adult Guinan is played by Goldberg) in the episode "Star Trek The Next Generation S 6 E 7 Rascals".
• Julia Roberts and Kyra Sedgwick as sisters in Something to Talk About.
• Toby Stephens as a young Clint Eastwood in Space Cowboys.
• Willem Dafoe and James Franco as Norman and Harry Osborn in Spider-Man; both having handsome faces filled with a lot of expressive lines and similar hair.
• A surprising number of fans thought this was the case for Jared and Simon in The Spiderwick Chronicles. Freddie Highmore plays both but gives them distinct differences in behavior and voice, as well as noticeably different appearances. When the film was released, cue a large number of message board topics about how they didn't realize they were both played by him. Truly a He Really Can Act moment for Highmore.
• In Stardust, Ben Barnes plays Nathaniel Parker's younger self as Dunstan Thorn for the prologue. Barnes also looks so much like Charlie Cox, who plays Tristan Thorn, that some viewers have assumed Cox played both roles.
• Star Trek (2009):
  • Zachary Quinto was said to look like◊ a young Leonard Nimoy, so it was hardly a surprise when he was cast as Spock. In fact, J. J. Abrams said that at the Comic-Con panel where the two first met, Leonard's wife had found the resemblance "creepy".
  • Chris Pine, who played James Kirk, and Chris Hemsworth, who played his father George towards the beginning, looked so much alike that according to Abrams, some viewers mistakenly believed Pine played both characters.
  • Karl Urban's dead-on impersonation of DeForest Kelley—coupled with his physical resemblance to the original Doctor McCoy (who had died a decade previously)—was reportedly enough to make Leonard Nimoy quite emotional when he first saw him in character.
• Star Wars:
  • Darth Vader's original suit actor David Prowse surprisingly resembles an older Hayden Christensen, who eventually portrayed Anakin Skywalker, Vader's past self, starting from Attack of the Clones.
  • Although he's an extra in Revenge of the Sith, Tarkin appears largely due to the fact that they found an actor (Wayne Pygram, most well known as Scorpius from Farscape) with an astonishing resemblance to Peter Cushing and couldn't bear to not cast him!
  • Similarly, actress Genevieve O'Reilly was cast as Mon Mothma in both Revenge of the Sith and Rogue One due to bearing a striking resemblance to Caroline Blakiston, the actress who portrayed Mon Mothma in Return of the Jedi. Sadly, her speaking role in Sith was cut, making her an extra. Fortunately her role in Rogue One was larger, and her voice is an extremely close match to Blakiston's.
  • Also from the prequels, The Phantom Menace would just have Natalie Portman Acting for Two. Then they discovered Keira Knightley and put her as the queen's decoy.◊ Supposedly, even their own mothers couldn't tell them apart with the makeup on.
  • All potential actors for Obi-Wan in the prequels had their pictures compared with young Alec Guinness. Of course, Ewan McGregor fit this even more once he had to grow Obi-Wan's beard.
  • Donald Glover is an absolute dead ringer for a younger Billy Dee Williams in Solo, and he even mastered the iconic Calrissian smirk.◊
• Stuck in Love: Jennifer Connelly looks enough alike with Lily Collins that it not only makes them very plausible as being mother and daughter, but their characters get a strong family resemblance.
• Reuben Langdon has been Gideon Emery's stunt double on multiple occasions, such as in the movie Takers. They look like they could be twins!
• Thor:
  • Dakota Goyo and Ted Allpress, who play Thor and Loki as children respectively, really do resemble Chris Hemsworth and Tom Hiddleston.
  • While it's not obvious at first glance due to the heavy Frost Giant make-up and prosthetics, the filmmakers made an excellent choice casting Colm Feore as Laufey because his facial bone structure is virtually identical◊ to Tom Hiddleston's (Loki is Laufey's biological son).
  • As pointed out by Honest Trailers: Hiddleston and Cate Blanchett could pass as Anthony Hopkins's biological children and Hemsworth is the one who stands out even though Loki is supposed to be the adopted one. Although Hemsworth does look a lot like the woman who plays his mom Frigga, Rene Russo.
• The Two Popes: Upon Pope Francis' selection to the papacy, many noticed the resemblance between the Argentinian pontiff (of Italian descent) and Welshman Jonathan Pryce. In this feature, Pryce plays Pope Francis before his selection.
• While filming Water for Elephants, actor Hal Holbrook (who plays an older version of the character Jacob Jankowski) came up to Robert Pattinson and told him "My God, you look like me as a young man!"
• A Wedding (1978): The actors playing the three Brenner siblings, their mother, their aunt, and several of their cousins all have similar enough shades of red hair and facial features to make it believable they are really related.
• Despite there being a sixteen year age difference, Christopher Lee and Frank Langella have such a physical and vocal similarity that they played Ramesses II and his son Merneptah in the 1995 film Moses.

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:
  • Victor Garber and Jennifer Garner as father and daughter.
  • From the same series, there's "Arvin Clone", a doppelganger of Heel–Face Revolving Door main character Arvin Sloane. The latter played by Ron Rifkin [1]◊ and the former by Joel Grey [2]◊.
• 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).
• Quantum Leap and its sequel series:
  • Jamie Walters, who plays a younger version of Al Calavicci, looks convincingly like a young Dean Stockwell.
  • Janis Calavicci's actor Georgina Reilly believably looks like she could be the daughter of Dean Stockwell (Al) and Susan Diol (Beth).
  • Caitlin Bassett (Addison) looks like she could be related to her onscreen father Brandon Routh.
• 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: Candace Cameron Bure (DJ) and Jodie Sweetin (Stephanie) 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:
  • Sterling Beaumon, who plays young Ben Linus, bears an uncanny resemblance to Michael Emerson.
  • Likewise Emily Rae Argenti, who plays a ten year old Kate in "The Incident", looks very like Evangeline Lilly.
  • Mira Furlan (Danielle) and Tania Raymonde (Alex) are very believable as mother and daughter.
• 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:
  • Nicholas Hoult and Kaya Scodelario are very convincing on-screen siblings with those Icy Blue Eyes, their pale skin and dark hair and as a credit to their acting, they manage to have also the same mannerisms.
  • Chris' father is played by Mark Heap, who definitely looks like Joe Dempsie, as Jal lampshades in-universe.
• 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 John Denver'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:
  • Ten-year-old Judith Grimes' actress Cailey Fleming does look like a younger version of Sarah Wayne Callies.◊
  • Logan Miller, who played Henry's older brother Benjamin, does look fairly similar to Matt Lintz◊, albeit without the freckles.
• 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.
  • The prequel Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story cast India Amarteifio as a young Queen Charlotte, who is played in the series by Golda Reshuevel. The resemblance is uncanny, right down to the characters' mannerisms.
• Shadowhunters: Emeraude Toubia, Matthew Daddario and Nicola Correia-Damude all look similar enough it's very believable they're relatives.
• That '70s Show:
  • In the episode "Backstage Pass", Red and Kitty Forman argue about how they first met one another. The actors who play them in the flashback scenes, Corey Landis and Ashley Peldon, respectively, each strongly resemble Kurtwood Smith and Debra Jo Rupp, with Peldon perfectly recreating Rupp's Signature Laugh as Kitty.
  • In the Sequel Series That '90s Show, Callie Haverda as Leia Forman has an incredibly strong resemblance to her on-screen father, Topher Grace. Meanwhile, Mace Coronel as Jay Kelso looks remarkably like the actors of his on-screen parents, Ashton Kutcher (Michael Kelso) and Mila Kunis (Jackie Burkhart); even having a similar facial structure as Kutcher and hair color and lips as Kunis.
• 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.
  • Ruby Cruz and Dempsey Bryk have similar facial structure and lips, and as such are reasonably believable as fraternal twins Kit and Airk, respectively.
• 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 Darby Spencer, strongly resemble each another.
• Gen V: Some people assumed that Derek Luh and London Thor (the male and female versions of Sex Shifter Jordan Li respectively) were brother and sister, they look so much alike.
• The Carol Burnett Show: Vicki Lawrence was hired because she looked like a younger Burnett, which made her perfect for the "Carol and Sis" sketches.
• On the short-lived show Back to You, Laura Marano was very believable as Kelsey Grammer's daughter. However, the character was later recast with someone who less of a resemblance.
• The casting directors of Pretty Little Liars seemed to have a very good eye of casting actors who could be siblings in real life. First was Lucy Hale and Cody Christian who were very convincing as Aria and Mike Montgomery. The second case was Sasha Pieterse who bares a strong resemblance to both actors who play her siblings: Drew Van Acker and Vanessa Ray.

Music Videos

• Young Ed Sheeran in the music video for "Castle on the Hill" looks a lot like adult Ed Sheeran, a similarity very apparent in the transition cut near the end of the video.
• Finn Wolfhard of Stranger Things fame was cast as a young Danny Sexbang of Ninja Sex Party in their video for "Danny Don't You Know". The resemblance is uncanny.

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

• Economy Watch: David Johnson and Matthew Stratton (Nathan Booth) do look similar.
• The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, a setting update of Pride and Prejudice:
  • The Bennet sisters, Jane, Lizzie, and Lydia. Jane's actress, in particular, looks very similar to both her sisters.
  • William Darcy and his sister, Gigi, are two peas in a pod. It's hard to believe they are not related in real life.
• "Captain Spirit" is a fan-made adaptation of The Awesome Adventures of Captain Spirit, and it stars Shep Lowry and Ashton Johnson, who could easily pass as father and son in real life.

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 a casting agency which has headshots of everyone in Hollywood 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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